Exhibition “Sempre allegri, Bambini!”

Lothar Meggendorfer and the Movable Book in Italy between the 19th and the 20th century

Movable Books and Picture Books in Italy between the 19th and the 20th Century
Ulrico Hoepli: a publishing strategy for children

Ulrico Hoepli (1847–1935), of Swiss origin, took over a bookshop in the centre of Milan in 1870 and, from the following year, combined publishing with bookselling. Soon renowned for his technical and scientific manuals, he also devoted care and personal commitment to publications for children, offering picture books and movable books – mostly imported – of various kinds, yet always up to date and of high typographical and iconographic quality.

For Hoepli, investing in younger generations – and thus in Italy’s progress – meant publishing new kinds of books that gave a central role to images, introduced children to science, and reflected the latest teaching methods based on direct observation of real objects. In this work he was supported by prominent figures such as Pasquale Fornari and Gaetano Negri.

Demonstrating great foresight, Hoepli celebrated both the 25th and 50th anniversaries of his business by publishing a historical “chronological and alphabetical” catalogue listing everything he had published up to that point. Thanks to these two catalogues, it has been possible to reconstruct a more precise picture of Hoepli’s production of illustrated and movable books up to 1922, with clearly identified titles and dates.