Angelo Rizzoli

Early life

Rizzoli was born in Milan on 31 October 1889, into a family that suffered from extreme poverty. His father Angelo Tamburini, an illiterate shoemaker, committed suicide after losing his job 3 months before his son's birth. The mother, Giuditta, had fragile health, but worked at two jobs, struggling to feed Angelo and his elder sisters, Antonietta Eva and Andreina Elisa. When Angelo was eight, Giuditta had developed a heart disease and was hospitalised, so Angeli was sent to an orphanage. He was lucky enough to find himself in Martinitt, a famous Milanese orphanage founded by St Jerome Emiliani back in the 16th century. Its notable alumni were Leonardo Del Vecchio, founder of Luxottica, and Edoardo Bianchi, of the eponymous bicycle and car manufacturing company. He lived in the orphanage, but attended a state school in Brera, surrounded by classmates from well-off families. From there on, he never pursued any formal education, learning everything solely through practice.

Through the orphanage, Rizzoli was trained as a typographer and became an apprentice at a printing workshop of Ugolino Marucelli and, later, found employment at several printing shops (Marucelli, Bernini, Alfieri & Lacroix). In 1909, when he was just 20 years old, he opened his own printing business together with his friend Pietro Pizio. His idea was to produce commemorative postcards of the Libyan campaign, which proved a great success. Initially, he printed black-and-white advertising leaflets, but by 1913 he had acquired new equipment for colour printing. By that point, he was financially secure, and in 1912 married Anna Marzorati, the daughter of the owner of a small printing shop.

Both his business and family life were interrupted in 1914, when Rizzoli was drafted to the army. He fought through World War I, first as a bersagliere cyclist and then as an ambulance driver for the army. Discharged in 1917 following an episode of pleurisy,

Rizzoli returned to Milan. His first son, Andrea, was born in 1914, when Rizzoli was still in the army.

Immediately upon his return, Rizzoli invested all his savings (40,000 lire, around 80,000 euros in 2020) in purchasing four prestigious but financially struggling magazines from Mondadori, which he transformed into highly successful women’s magazines.

By 1924, his business had grown so big that he already had 100 employees. The expansion of its first printing workshops in the 1910s and 1920s (the printing works moved from Via Cerva to Via Anfossi and finally to Via Broggi) did not merely entail an increase in facilities and staff numbers, but above all a growing quality of his production: from contract work for larger printing firms and the printing of commercial material, Rizzoli moved on to increasingly sophisticated products and collaboration with publishers. He was one of the first in Italy to install a rotogravure machine.

Publishing business

In 1927, Rizzoli founded the company A. Rizzoli & Co. In the same year, he acquired Novella magazine, a bi-weekly primarily for women that reached a circulation of 130,000 copies, from Mondadori, an independent publisher who specialized in books and magazines. After his initial purchase, Rizzoli added several new publications, including Annabella, Bertoldo, Candido, Omnibus, Oggi, and L'Europeo. Mondadori sold Omnibus because he didn’t want to deal with a publication launched as an instrument of fascist propaganda. In his turn, through satire Rizzoli managed to turn it into the only publication criticising the regime from within, ultimately leading to its closure at the demand of the censors.

In 1929, Rizzoli began publishing books, including both classics and popular novels by Italian and foreign authors. Although he was never an avid reader himself, according to Indro Montanelli, Rizzoli had a ‘Midas touch’ even in the publishing business: not only did he amass a fortune, but he also made a significant contribution to culture. One of the biggest works of that period was printing of the Enciclopedia Italiana, launched by Giovanni Treccani. Rizzoli published one volume of the encyclopaedia every three months; the entire publication comprised 35 volumes (plus one index volume), containing 60,000 articles and 50 million words. The work was finished in 1937.

In 1938, Rizzoli purchased a big printing house in Rome and in 1940 another one in Milan. The latter was seriously damaged in 1943 during the bombings, but after the War Rizzoli managed to recover fast and restore the production. In the late 1940s, the company released a total of 15 weekly publications with a total printrun of 3 mln copies. In 1949, Rizzoli launched Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli (BUR), a book series offering the world’s greatest classics at very low prices (50 lire for a 100-page pocketbook). The series had incredible success and for decades influenced the cultural life of Italy.

In 1954, Rizzoli acquired the company ‘Cartiera di Lama di Reno’, laying the foundations for what would later become an Italian publishing empire. The former paper mill had been founded back in 1746. Rizzoli hired the architect Mario Tufaroli Luciano, who reconstructed and completely redesigned the premises. The complex, covering an area of around 75,000 square metres, in 1966 was equipped with Europe’s first de-inking plant, marking the start—with a vision ahead of its time—of paper production from recycled materials.

In 1964, Rizzoli opened the original Rizzoli International Bookstore in New York City at 712 Fifth Avenue, designed by architect Ferdinand Gottlieb. The bookstore was featured in various Hollywood films, most notably, Woody Allen's Manhattan and Falling in Love, with Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep.

In 1969, he constructed a five-storey building on Via Civitavecchia in Milan to house the editorial offices of his new magazine, Oggi. It remained of the few unrealized projects of Angelo Rizzoli, because the publication was never launched even after ten pilot editions. To fulfill the father's dream and fill in the only remaining empty niche in their empire, son Andrea bought Corriere della Sera in 1974.

At home and by friends, Angelo Rizzoli was nicknamed ‘il Commenda’ (or 'il Cumenda'), as he had an authoritarian character, never showed any tenderness and was a strict patriarchalist. With his wife Anna Marzorati, Angelo Rizzoli had three children: Andrea, Giuseppina and Giuditta (Rita Rinella), who died prematurely at the age of only 12. Andrea and Giuseppina gave him 7 grandchildren. According to family memories, il Commenda, though always generous, never spoiled either of them and always made them work and join the family business as early as possible. Close friends knew that Andrea, the principal heir to the Rizzoli empire, had a gentle character and had suffered from an inferiority complex all his life, fearing he would fail to live up to the expectations of his distinguished father. Andrea's first son, Angelo Junior (or Angelone) was the one who took over after Andrea's demise.

Despite being married, when Rizzoli had become a well-known producer, he had numerous affairs with actresses, including long-term relationships with Graziella Granata and Myriam Bru. When trying to justify his affairs, he would wave his hands in front of his grown-up sons: ‘Mum’s always in bed, she’s ill.’ This was partly true, as Anna had never fully recovered from the loss of her youngest daughter. Still, Rizzoli treated his wife with the utmost respect, affectionately called her ‘mammetta’, and always publicly praised her contribution to all his endeavours; every Sunday he gave Anna her favourite roses and spent with her an entire day. When Anna was misdiagnosed with breast cancer, he built a hospital on Ischia and named it after her, so that she could always receive expert medical care.

In addition to his numerous villas and ships, Rizzoli owned what was then the largest yacht in the Mediterranean — the 43-metre-long Il Sereno. It was formerly a minesweeper belonging to the US Navy, purchased by Rizzoli on the civilian market and converted by the shipyards in Viareggio. The yacht had eight large guest cabins, all with en-suite bathrooms, as well as crew quarters, a galley and other saloons. Rizzoli guests on Il Sereno were Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Walter Chiari, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Sofia Loren, John Wayne, and many other celebrities and aristocrats.

Angelo Rizzoli always distanced himself from politics. His only friend among the politicians was Pietro Nenni, also an orphan.

He was famous for his extraordinary luck, he could play in the casinos on three or four tables simultaneously, and often won. However, when losing, he ‘punished’ himself for the vice of gambling by making same size donations to the Martinitt.

Angelo Rizzoli died on 24 September 1970, leaving behind a hundred-billion empire and zero debts, as one of his core business principles was never to take out loans. He first the first person in Italy that received a two-page necrologue in Corriere della Sera.