“Giovanni T.” and The New Typography in Italy. Discussion and Renegotiation of Tschichold’s Ideas in Italian Graphic Arts Magazines

In February 1933, the Turin magazine Graphicus published an opening article titled “Della nuova tipografia” and signed "Giovanni T.". As far as can be proven, this was the first publication in Italy of a text by Jan Tschichold, whose name was italianised in line with the linguistic nationalisation policies of Fascism. Upon textual comparison, the script turns out to be a synthetic and incomplete translation of an article that had already appeared in 1930 on the magazine Arts et Métiers Graphiques and was indeed the french version of Tschichold's introduction to his second book: Eine Stunde Druckgestaltung (1930). At the time in the midst of his extensive efforts to disseminate the ideas of the new typography, Tschichold decided to have it translated in the international trade press (it also appeared in the British periodical Commercial Arts). During the following years, his name as well as that of other protagonists of the new typography movement appeared a number of times in Italian magazines such as Campo Grafico. Although much later than in other European countries, in Italy the new typography was widely discussed in graphic arts magazines and became the focus of a cultural debate no less heated than the one that arose around rationalist architecture. This contribution will shortly reconstruct such discussion, which involved printers, typographers, architects and artists as well as intellectuals such as Pietro Maria Bardi and Edoardo Persico. By analyzing the reception of Tschichold's texts, the paper will consider the mediating channels and forms trought which the ideas of the neue typografie movement were debated and renegotiated in Italy. In particular, two themes will be addressed: the dialectic exchange between actors inside and outside the printing trade; and the controversial relationship that the Italian interpretation of new typography held with Fascist ideology and regime.