Ulrico Hoepli

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Ulrico Hoepli , actually: Johann Ulrich Höpli (born February 18, 1847 in Tuttwil ; † January 24, 1935 in Milan ), was a Swiss bookseller and publisher who was active in Italy. He founded the Italian publisher Hoepli Editore .

The publishing house and bookstore belong to his descendants to this day; the company is currently called Casa Editrice Libraria Ulrico Hoepli SpA

Ulrico Hoepli (1847–1935) bookseller and publisher.
Ulrico Hoepli

Family, education, beginnings

Ulrico Hoepli's birthplace in Untertuttwil
Memorial plaque on the house where Ulrico Hoeplis was born

Hoepli was the fourth child of the farmer Mathias Höpli (1804-1869) and the hat maker Regina, née Gamper (1804-1897). His older sister Margarethe (1840–?) Later married the Winterthur high school teacher Ulrich Aeschlimann (1855–1910), for whom Hoepli published a memorial in 1911 as a private print.

From 1862 Hoepli learned the trade of bookseller from Jakob Lukas Schabelitz in Zurich . His further apprenticeship and traveling years led him from Zurich via Mainz, Leipzig, Vienna, Trieste and Breslau to Milan, where he started working in December 1870 and in 1871 he bought a small bookshop with a bookbindery. He named this after himself and soon expanded it with his own publishing house. Hoepli was convinced of the great future of the young Italian kingdom with its metropolis Milan, and he himself became a formative force and an example of advancement.

plant

A first basis for Hoepli's success from 1875 were the Manuali Hoepli , a series of handbooks in the same pocket format, which, based on topics for industry and commerce, covered all areas and had reached around two thousand editions when Hoeplis died (including the works published from 1896 on palaeography and chronology by Adriano Cappelli or publications on astronomy by Giovanni Schiaparelli ). The manuali were characterized by a “radical usefulness for the user”, who could take these pocket-sized publications (10 x 15 cm) with them wherever they go. In doing so, according to Gottlieb F. Höpli, they changed the reception behavior of the Italian audience. They played “a considerable part in the linguistic and cultural integration of a country, in its opening to European developments, in the dissemination of new knowledge, in communication between scientific institutions, in the creation of an open-minded, the new values ​​of the technical-scientific age facing audience. "

Spines of Hoepli language teaching aids at Feltrinelli

One of the early lexical works was the Piccola enciclopedia Hoepli in four volumes, edited by Gottardo Garollo . After the Manuali, Hoepli founded several other profitable series, but also took over many scientific series and monographs that promised little commercial success. The publication of the entire Codex Atlanticus by Leonardo da Vinci in collotype on behalf of the Accademia dei Lincei (1894–1904) was particularly complex . On the two thousandth birthday of Virgil in 1930 he published Petrarcha's Virgil Codex in facsimile at his own expense . He personally presented the first three copies on the same day in Rome to the king, the pope and the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini . As a connoisseur and lover of the early printing press (in the sense of the Englishmen William Morris and Charles Ricketts), he also called for such a printing for his publications - for his edition of Dante's La vita nuova he even had a historically based typography created by M. Barbi. Hoepli worked with iron discipline in his bookstore and personally managed the company until his death in 1935. At the age of 78, Ulrico Hoepli wrote in a letter to Federal Councilor Heinrich Häberlin in 1925 : “In the meantime, I continue with an undiminished passion to work on my literary loom from 5 am to 8:30 pm, as long as Providence has determined it; because I think that a busy age with a bright head and a clear conscience is the most beautiful epoch of life. "

When he was invited to the Sechseläuten in Zurich in 1931 , he had aviation pioneer Walter Mittelholzer fly him to Dübendorf so that he would not lose more than a day on the trip.

Ulrico Hoeplis Verlag has received numerous awards (with eight gold medals at the world exhibition in Chicago in 1893 alone), and he himself has received numerous honors. Hoepli became the publisher of the Italian royal family and the Vatican. During the celebrations for the opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1906, the Swiss President Ludwig Forrer lived in his villa, and it was considered an honor at the time that his publishing house was allowed to publish the Scritti e discorsi by Benito Mussolini.

From the very beginning, Hoepli also offered antiquarian books in his bookstore. In the interwar period he was the only Italian company to hold auctions of international standing, not only in Milan but also in other Italian and foreign cities, most frequently in Zurich. After brilliant success in the 1920s, beginning in 1925/1926 with three auctions from the collection of Tammaro de Marinis (de Marinis left the entire inventory of the Libreria Antiquaria Hoepli with the closure of his shop in Piazza Strozzi in 1924), this business suffered from the general economic weakness and ran out after the Second World War.

Foundation and patron

On March 14, 1872 Ulrico Hoepli married Elisa Haeberlin (1849–1927) from Zurich in Winterthur. The marriage remained childless. As early as the turn of the century, Hoepli was considering the idea of ​​establishing a foundation. In 1911 he set up the Ulrico Hoepli Foundation in Switzerland , whose foundation capital he massively increased in 1923/24. The purpose of the foundation - the support of non-profit, scientific and artistic institutions and efforts in Switzerland - Hoepli had notarized on September 8, 1911. He saw the social and charitable work as a crucial task of his foundation, although he did not want the state to be released from its cultural obligations through foundation contributions. In addition, Hoepli expressly decreed that politics and religion should not play a role in the award process. In this sense, the foundation is committed to the cultural values ​​of Switzerland to this day, whereby it has adapted the award principles over the years to the prevailing social needs as part of the foundation's purpose.

Hoepli's patronage was added to his life's work as a publisher and antiquarian. In 1922 he founded the Biblioteca Popolare Ulrico Hoepli in Milan on the 50th anniversary of his publishing house , in 1930 he gave the Milanese a million-dollar gift with the Civico Planetario Ulrico Hoepli and a few months before his death he gave them a valuable collection of paintings. Numerous other people and projects in Milan and in his old homeland also received his generous support. Ulrico Hoepli not only had books repeatedly sent to Switzerland, he also made significant donations: 25,000 francs for the construction of the planned central library in Zurich in 1903; 100,000 francs for a special pavilion at the psychiatric clinic in Münsterlingen ; 50,000 lire for the Swiss school in Milan ; further amounts of money u. a. for the construction of a bathing place at the Bichelsee , the installation of central heating in the church in Wängi and the electrical lighting of his home village Tuttwil. He also donated his parents' house to the community of Tuttwil.

The Hoepli-Verlag under Ulrico Hoepli's successors

Hoepli brought his nephews Charles (Carlo) Hoepli (1879–1972), son of Johann Heinrich Hoepli (1845–1940), and Erhard (Erardo) Aeschlimann (1897–1972), son of his brother-in-law and confidante Ulrich Aeschlimann, into his company. After his death, they inherited the business and continued to run it, with the second-hand bookshop particularly flourishing. In 1942 the publisher already had over 5000 titles in its range. By 1935 there were 7,000 works, which means the publisher took a top position even in an international comparison. The publishing house and the business archive were destroyed in the bombing of Milan in 1943; only 82 titles remained available. After it was rebuilt in 1945, a lexicon in six volumes, the Enciclopedia Hoepli, was published in 1955 .

Today the publishing house and the bookstore Libreria Internazionale Hoepli, which together form the company Casa Editrice Libraria Ulrico Hoepli SpA , are run in the fifth generation by Giovanni Ulrico Hoepli (* 1966), Matteo Hoepli (1968) and Barbara Hoepli (* 1971); Barbara Hoepli is the President of the Board of Directors. The headquarters are located at Via Hoepli 5 in Milan. The publisher currently (2020) publishes around 300 new books a year and comprises around 2,250 titles. As in the 19th century, the textbooks (manuali) , which are geared towards a wide variety of professions, are an essential part of the publishing business. In addition, the publishing house publishes textbooks for schoolchildren and high school students and has developed a number of specialties - languages ​​are one of these niches.

Honors

  • 1877 Cavaliere (1882 Commendatore, 1922 Cavaliere di Gran Croce, decorato del Gran Cordone) dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia.
  • 1888 Cavaliere (1890 Ufficiale, 1894 Commendatore) dell'Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro.
  • 1901 honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich.
  • 1907 Grande Ufficiale della Corona d'Italia.
  • 1913 gold medal of the Municipio di Milano
  • 1930 gold medal from the city of Milan
  • 1935 Appointment as an honorary citizen of Milan on the occasion of his 88th birthday on February 18, which Ulrico Hoepli did not live to see, which means that he received this honor posthumously
  • The asteroid (8111) Hoepli is named after him.

literature

  • Enrico Decleva: Ulrico Hoepli, 1847–1935: editore e libraio . Hoepli Editore, Milan 2001.
  • Giovanni Galbiati: Ulrico Hoepli, a picture of life . Transferred from Dora Fanny Rittmeyer after the second Italian edition. Ulrico Hoepli, Milano 1939.
  • Joseph Jung (Ed.): «… At the literary loom…». Ulrico Hoepli 1847-1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-85823-689-6 (with contributions by Ottavio Besomi, Niklaus Bigler, Hans E. Braun, Bernard H. Breslauer, Hugo Bütler, Iso Camartin, Alfred Cattani, Flavio Cotti, Enrico Decleva , Urs Frauchiger, Christine M. Grafinger, Herbert Heckmann, Hanno Helbling, Gottlieb F. Höpli, Ursula Pia Jauch, Joseph Jung, Dino Larese, Martin Meyer, Peter Ochsenbein, Werner Oechslin, Michelangelo Picone, Judith Raeber, Heribert Tenschert, Conrad Ulrich , Anton von Euw, Werner G. Zimmermann).
  • Heinz Häberlin: Ulrico Hoepli. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch, Vol. 12, 1936, pp. 37-40 ( digitized version ).
  • Grafinger, Herbert Heckmann, Hanno Helbling, Gottlieb F. Höpli, Ursula Pia Jauch, Joseph Jung, Dino Larese, Martin Meyer, Peter Ochsenbein, Werner Oechslin, Michelangelo Picone, Judith Raeber, Heribert Tenschert, Conrad Ulrich, Anton von Euw, Werner G Carpenter.
  • Ermes Gallarotti: "Our product is the book, we don't sell anything else." Barbara Hoepli is the fifth generation to run the Milanese publisher Hoepli - this year it is celebrating its 150th anniversary. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , February 1, 2020, p. 35 ( online under the title “Our product is the book, we don't sell anything else” ).
  • Ernst Nägeli : From Ulrich Höpli to Ulrico Hoepli. Grosse Thurgau from Tuttwiler Berg. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch, Vol. 73, 1998, pp. 36-40 ( digitized version ).
  • Maria Iolanda Palazzolo:  Hoepli, Ulrico (Johannes Ulrich). In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 61:  Guglielmo Gonzaga-Jacobini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2003.
  • Verena Rothenbühler: Ulrico Hoepli. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Rudolf Schmidt: German bookseller. German book printer . Volume 3, Berlin / Eberswalde 1905, pp. 497-499. ( Online at Zeno.org ) with an extensive list of authors (as of 1905).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. Ulrich Aeschlimann (1855-1910). Professor at the higher city schools in Winterthur. Memorial sheets. Milan 1911.
  2. ^ Conrad Ulrich: The bookseller and publisher Jakob Schabelitz 1827–1899. In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, pp. 185–198 (on Schabelitz).
  3. ↑ a b Francisci Petrarcae Vergilianus codex ad Publii Vergilii Maronis diem natalem bis millesimum celebrandum quam simille expressus atque in lucem editus iuvantibus Bibliotheca Ambrosiana et Regia in Insubribus Academia.
  4. ↑ Gottlieb F. Höpli: Approaches to a famous (namesake) cousin. In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, p. 350f.
  5. ↑ Herbert Heckmann: The book - a total work of art. About the book art of Ulrico Hoepli-Verlag. In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, p. 178f.
  6. ↑ cit. Letter from 78-year-old Hoepli to Federal Councilor Heinrich Häberlin. Heinrich (Heinz) Häberlin: Ulrico Hoepli. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch. 1936, p. 37.
  7. ↑ a b Joseph Jung (ed.): Ulrico Hoepli, 1847–1935, bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-85823-689-6 , p. 52f. (with picture).
  8. ↑ a b Medals and honors are listed by Giovanni Galbiati: Ulrico Hoepli, a picture of life . Transferred from Dora Fanny Rittmeyer after the second Italian edition. Ulrico Hoepli, Milano 1939, pp. 87-91.
  9. ↑ In 12 volumes and a register volume, 1933–1940.
  10. ↑ Heribert Tenschert: Ulrico Hoepli's importance for the Italian auction system in the first half of the century. In: Joseph Jung (ed.): Ulrico Hoepli, 1847–1935, bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-85823-689-6 , pp. 155–171.
  11. ^ Bernard H. Breslauer: Tammaro De Martinis Remembered. In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, p. 264.
  12. ↑ The Ulrico Hoepli Foundation is still active today.
  13. ↑ The currently applicable “Guidelines for Granting Contributions” can be viewed on the Ulrico Hoepli Foundation's website: hoeplistiftung.ch
  14. ^ Joseph Jung: "In labore virtus et vita". Ulrico Hoepli (1847-1935). In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, pp. 47-53.
  15. ↑ Anniversary of the publishing house and golden wedding anniversary
  16. ^ Joseph Jung: "In labore virtus et vita". Ulrico Hoepli (1847-1935). In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, pp. 42-47.
  17. ↑ Anton von Euw: A mosaic of books. In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, p. 148f.
  18. ^ Joseph Jung: "In labore virtus et vita". Ulrico Hoepli (1847-1935). In: Joseph Jung (Ed.): … At the literary loom… Ulrico Hoepli 1847–1935. Bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Zurich 1997, p. 28.
  19. ↑ Cronologia hoepliana 1847-1997. In: Joseph Jung (ed.): Ulrico Hoepli, 1847–1935, bookseller, publisher, antiquarian, patron. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-85823-689-6 , p. 364.
  20. ↑ Ermes Gallarotti: "Our product is the book, we don't sell anything else." Barbara Hoepli is the fifth generation to run the Milanese publisher Hoepli - this year it is celebrating its 150th anniversary. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , February 1, 2020, p. 35.
  21. ↑ MPC 32791 of October 5, 1998
personal data
SURNAME Hoepli, Ulrico
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoepli, Ulrich Johann (real name); Hoepli, Ulriko; Höpli, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss bookseller and publisher, active in Milan
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Tuttwil
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1935
Place of death Milan