Feltrinelli

The Feltrinelli name traces to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who established his publishing house, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, in Milan at the end of 1954 as an explicitly antifascist imprint. In late 1956, an Italian journalist brought him the manuscript of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, smuggled out of the Soviet Union; Feltrinelli published it in 1957, publishing the novel in 1957 ahead of editions in both the United States and France, and the book became an international bestseller. The same year, Feltrinelli opened his first bookshop in Pisa, the beginning of what grew into Italy's largest bookstore chain, still operating under his name today. He also published Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard. Feltrinelli died in 1972 under still-disputed circumstances involving an explosion near a Milan pylon. The bookshop chain that carries his name today spans locations across Italy, including this store, and continues the general-interest bookselling model he founded alongside the original publishing house.