Ulrico Hoepli Booksellingthe Insightful Ideas of a Publisher

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Ulrico Hoepli booksellingthe insightful ideas of a publisher by Pier Carlo Della Ferrera interview with Ulrico Carlo Hoepli texts by Tindaro Gatani, Ada Gigli Marchetti and Joseph Jung The intuitive ideas of a bookselling publisher ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Ulrico Hoepli and the Hoeplis, Swiss Milanese Pier Carlo Della Ferrera* meets Ulrico Carlo Hoepli** What memories do you have of Ulrico Hoepli? cate in Frauenfeld, because he said that if you What aspects of his character and of his didn’t speak German you couldn’t make it in business activities do you regard most inter- the book trade, because the printed book had esting and do you feel merit attention? originated in Germany, with Gutenberg. And My memories of Ulrico Hoepli, the founder then my uncle forced me to come here to run of the bookshop and of our publishing the business”. He was so determined, almost house, are those that my family has handed violently so, that the business should remain down by word of mouth, as I was born a few in the family, that he took his nephew, tore months after his death, in January 1935. My him away from Lyon, the city where he lived mother and father married in 34 when he and was happy, and nominated him his was still alive, shown by a lovely picture I successor. So right from the beginning, his have of the occasion; my grandfather Carlo desire to do something long-lasting, that and my uncle Gianni spent a lot of time with him and knew him very well. Therefore I had the good fortune to hear stories about his life, affairs, anecdotes about this man, who in our family was known and is still known as Avo, which means Forefather. He was a great uncle to my father, an uncle to my grandfather, a great great uncle to me and so calling him “Forefather” seemed perfectly normal. After a period of apprenticeship in Zurich, Wroclaw and Leipzig, Ulrico Hoepli moved to Trieste, (this city is very important to me because my mother is from Trieste) where he worked at a bookshop that is now called stood the test of time, was apparent. “Italo Svevo”. Here he had the great foresight to understand that the future of publishing What were the origins of Ulrico Hoepli’s was in Milan. This fact has always impressed family? me because in 1865-1870 Trieste was at the Ulrico was the youngest of four children, five height of its development, as an outpost to if you count a brother that died when he was Austria and Central Europe, it was a leading young. As my father and my grandfather cultural centre, a city that was soon to be always said, he belonged to a family of that of Joyce, Weiss and of the school of wohlhabender Bauern, of well-off, but not Freud, of Ettore Schmitz, namely Italo Svevo. particularly wealthy farmers. I have a docu- However, despite this he understood that, to ment that dates back to the sixteenth cen- be successful in the book trade, you had to go tury that shows how the Hoeplis had always to Milan. been a family of farmers from the Canton of Ulrico Hoepli also demonstrated this sense of Thurgau, a region that was rather poor in the future, this great intelligence when he the past, that made its living from the culti- asked his nephew to continue running his vation of vineyards and above all of fruit business. Ulrico Hoepli, who married Elisa trees, so much so that it was known as the On page I: Häberlin, had no children. However, he had “apple factory”. He actually came from A portrait of Ulrico Hoepli, 1935 such an extraordinary sense of the future that Wängi, a small village that we are still citi- he literally forced his nephew, my grandfa- zens of. The young Ulrico “emigrated”, he On the left: The publisher in the ther Carlo – that I knew very well because he went to be an apprentice in Zurich, in a eyes of Tullio Pericoli passed away in 1972 and I worked with him – bookshop called Schabelitz. He was a very (2005). to join him in Milan. My grandfather often intelligent boy who had a sense of adventure On the right: complained to me about this: “You know my and innovation. Hoepli (in the front) uncle forced me to come to Milan, he forced The relationship between the young Ulrich with his nephew Carlo in 1910. me to take the German school-leaving certifi- and his mother, Regina Gamper, is well- [III] Ulrico Hoepli ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Ulrico Hoepli's birthplace in Tuttwil. known. As Joseph Jung wrote in one of his What difficulties did he have to face at the books, she was the one that acknowledged start of his career, on his arrival in Milan? her son’s inclination towards intellectual The first obstacle – although it might seem activities. Little is known, on the other banal – was the language. Ulrico Hoepli, hand, of his relationship with his father, Swiss, was raised speaking Thurgauerdütsch; Mathias. he lived in Trieste for a while, but the city, I remember the relationships that Ulrico although geographically Italian, belonged to Hoepli had with his brothers very well, espe- the Habsburg Empire and at that time cially that with Johann Heinrich, or Jean German was the dominant language. Henri, the brother from Lyon, who – I say it My father and my grandfather, as well as my rather paradoxically – gave him his nephew uncle Gianni, who is still alive and over Carlo Hoepli. My family didn’t talk about his ninety years old, or even my aunt Bianca, father and mother very much, so we have to who has just turned ninety, have always jo- trust what our friend and historian Jung kingly told me that the Avo spoke Italian says. Perhaps, due to a certain male chau- rather badly. His intelligence enabled him to vinism, the mother was never acknowledged understand it well, but he always kept a with the great merit she deserved. strong German accent and initially encoun- However, it is important to mention that tered the odd difficulty, especially in the individual and personal events – as so often written form. happens – played a fundamental role in all of To overcome this problem, he surrounded this. The opportunities provided by a city himself with an excellent team of co-workers, like Zurich, where a certain intellectual such as Giovanni Piazza, who wrote his vivacity was present, working in a large letters for him and acted as his intermediary. bookshop combined with this young man’s intelligence as well as his later work experi- Despite these difficulties, you could say that ence in Leipzig, Wroclaw, Trieste and Cairo he enjoyed success right from the start. undoubtedly enabled him to develop his plan Evidently Ulrico Hoepli had innate business to buy the Laengner bookshop in Milan. This skills; he was “daring” and “shrewd”, as was really small, and he was able to expand Enrico Decleva wrote, so much so that he it, partly thanks to the good relations he had succeeded in becoming the publisher of the with the local Protestant community. I Italian royal family, although he was Swiss believe that his great intuition played an and a Republican, and the publisher for the important role, as I mentioned before. There Vatican, although he was Protestant. is no doubt that his mother was a very Yes, he was “daring” and “shrewd”, but also important figure; but then all mothers are. very courageous, because at the beginning of his career he often came close to bank- [IV] The intuitive ideas of a bookselling publisher ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ruptcy and had to face incredible failures. never have been a via Hoepli in Milan”, a great In 1873 he decided to publish a book that honour for us. entailed considerable expense, the Codex Ulrico Hoepli had both business and social diplomaticus Cavensis, an ancient code pre- skills. This enabled him to approach the pope, served in a Benedictine abbey. The monks did the king, anyone, and to be a good mediator not honour their commitment and the initia- between the Protestants and the Catholics. I tive, which could have been of considerable think that he displayed “ecumenical” skills. interest, was a failure from a business per- spective. He was brave, but the business did What relationships did Hoepli manage to not generate the expected results. One anec- forge with newly-established cultural and dote which has become famous in our family academic institutions or those that were is that of the decisive role played by his broth- already an established part of the Milanese er in Lyon, Jean Henri, who gave him a “leg- or Italian cultural life? endary” loan of 20,000 Swiss francs. Without Ulrico Hoepli possessed innate skills in this money he would probably have had to human relations, he was likable, perhaps close the business. due to his directness or to that distant Swiss Being a Republican and publisher of the accent that you could pick up in conversa- royal family, Protestant and publisher of the tion and he immediately managed to estab- Vatican was a skill that Ulrico Hoepli had lish strong ties with figures from the old because he was Swiss. The Swiss are world Politecnico [Polytechnic], which at that citizens, considered such because of their time was called the Istituto Tecnico open-mindedness, their tolerance and their Superiore [Technical High School]. cosmopolitanism. So naturally being Swiss, In particular, he forged an extraordinary rela- for all of these reasons, is a great advantage.

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