Utet Great Works goes out of business. Farewell to the flagship section of the publishing house founded in 1791

Utet Grandi Op ere no longer exists: the bankruptcy of Utet Grandi Opere S.p. a was declared by the Court of Milan, which opened the proceedings last October 15, although the news has spread only in the last few hours, thanks mainly to linguist Raffaele Simone, who posted a “status” on Facebook that has been making the rounds on the bulletin boards of those in the field. In reality, however, it is not about the total closure of the publishing house, founded in Turin in 1791 by Giuseppe Pomba (making it one of the oldest Italian publishing houses), because the other brands, those related to the scientific and legal world (and that do not belong to Utet Grandi Opere Spa), remain standing: it is, however, the farewell to its flagship section.

“I have seen the decline with my own eyes,” said Simone: “when I designed for them, twelve years ago, the Grande Dizionario Analogico della Lingua Italiana, in two volumes (released in 2011), we started the work in the beautiful palace on Corso Raffaello, but ended it in a bare and melancholy apartment on Lungodora... Cash was scarce: in the process, the management that had meanwhile taken over from the historical one asked me to give up a major share of the advances and accept a reduction in royalties (in fact, of my royalties I completely lost track: the house had not paid royalties for years). What will happen to their stock? Their archives? Their catalog?”

The company that held the historic trademark had been sailing in bad waters for some time. Utet (the acronym stands for Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese) had already for some time lost its historic headquarters, at Corso Raffaello 28 in Turin, where important works such as the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, more than 22,000 pages divided into 21 volumes, and then volumes of art history, encyclopedias were produced. In 2002, the sale to the De Agostini Group and then in 2013 the sale of the Grandi Opere brand to FMR Art’è and later, in 2014, the entry into Cose Belle d’Italia of Europa Investimenti S.p.A., while the other brands (“Libri,” “Università,” “Scienze Tecniche,” “Giuridica,” and “Scienze Mediche”) had remained with De Agostini, which continues the activities. The crisis due to the pandemic dealt the death blow to Great Works: in March 2020 a rescue was attempted in extremis with a composition with creditors, but to no avail. Thus ends the story of one of the most prestigious brands in Italian publishing.

Utet Great Works goes out of business. Farewell to the flagship section of the publishing house founded in 1791

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