Edoardo Sonzogno

{{Short description|Italian publisher}}

File:Karikatuur getekend door Enrico Caruso, Enrico Caruso, 1906 & 1909, Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent,910000094265 2018 0014 AC (cropped).jpg, 1909, Ghent University Library]]

Edoardo Sonzogno ({{IPA|it|edoˈardo sonˈdzoɲɲo}}; 21 April 1836 – 14 March 1920) was an Italian publisher.

A native of Milan, Sonzogno was the son of a businessman who owned a publisher, {{Interlanguage link|Casa Sonzogno|it|Sonzogno (editore)}}, and a bookstore. Sonzogno owned and directed the newspaper Il Secolo from 1861 until 1909. For much of that time, its editor was Ernesto Teodoro Moneta.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

After inheriting his father's business, in 1874, Sonzogno opened a musical establishment, {{Interlanguage link|Casa Musicale Sonzogno|it|Sonzogno (editore musicale)}}, for which he appointed Amintore Galli as its artistic director. Galli sought to establish an editorial line distinct from those of Casa Ricordi and {{Interlanguage link|Francesco Lucca|it|}}, Sonzogno's closest competitors,{{Cite book |last=Di Cesare |first=Maria Carmela |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/amintore-galli_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ |title=Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani |year=1998 |volume=51 |language=it-IT |trans-title=Biographical Dictionary of Italians |chapter=Galli, Amintore |access-date=5 January 2024}}{{Cite journal |last=Greenwald |first=Helen M. |year=2023 |title=Coupling: Mascagni and Leoncavallo |journal=Royal Opera House Programme for Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci |publisher=Royal Opera House |pages=30–35}} by publishing monthly series of, in Galli's words, "a collection of economically priced masterworks by the great maestri".

In April 1883, Il Secolo announced a competition for a new, unperformed opera "inspired by the best traditions of Italian opera", which could be "idyllic, serious, or comic", to be judged by a panel including Galli and Amilcare Ponchielli. The competition had two winners: {{Interlanguage link|Luigi Mapelli|it|}}'s Anna e Gualberto and Guglielmo Zuelli's La fata del nord. Notably, Giacomo Puccini's Le villi was disqualified for the illegibility of its manuscript.{{Cite web |last=Vannoni |first=Giulia |date=15 November 2021 |title=Galli, questo sconosciuto |trans-title=The unknown Galli |url=https://www.ilponte.com/galli-questo-sconosciuto/ |access-date=6 January 2024 |website=Il Ponte |language=it-IT}} The opera was taken over by Giulio Ricordi, the competitor of Sonzogno.

The second competition was advertised in July 1888, to be judged by a panel including Galli and Antonio Ghislanzoni. Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana won first prize against seventy-two other operas, including Niccola Spinelli's Labilia and {{Interlanguage link|Vincenzo Ferroni|it|}}'s Rudello.

In 1894 he established a theater, the Lirico Internazionale, in Milan. He was also one of the first publishers in Italy to launch pocket-book editions of a huge range of classical authors from all over the world, a collection he called Biblioteca Universale. The price of these minibooks (11.5 × 17.5 cm) was so low, from 1 to 3.5 lire, that anybody could easily afford a personal library of classics, fiction and non-fiction.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

Sonzogno died in Milan in 1920.