Leo Longanesi Biography
Leo Longanesi (1905 - 1975) was born in Bagnacavallo in 1905 and died in Milan in 1957. He was a writer, journalist, aphorist and publisher. Having graduated in law in Bologna, he began working as a journalist and, a little later, founded and directed some weeklies including "E'promise", "Il toro" and "L'Italiano". In this same period, he collaborated with Mimo Maccari on "Il Selvaggio" and joined the "Strapaese" literary movement. Leo Longanesi also tried his hand as a graphic designer, placing himself between Giorgio Morandi, his friend and "adviser", and the historical examples of Daumier, Toulouse-Lautrec and Grosz. In this capacity, he exhibited in various national and international exhibitions, culminating his career in an important solo exhibition at the Galleria Barbaroux in Milan held in 1941. He then began to collaborate with the body of the fascist federation of Bologna, called L 'assault. He spent some time in Rome, where he met writers such as Antonio Baldini, Riccardo Bacchelli and others, as well as Curzio Malaparte. In 1926 his life took a turning point, because Leo founded a magazine called L'italiano, wrote his first book and, above all, left his studies to dedicate himself to publishing. The following year he founded his own publishing house, L'italiano editore, publishing works by Bacchelli, Malaparte and Baldini. In 1931 Longanesi resigned from L'Assault, but did not break relations with fascism. In 1935 he oversaw propaganda for the Ethiopian War and then asked the regime to edit an important newspaper. He wanted to found his own, but had to wait almost two years to get permission to create Omnibus, considered the progenitor of news weeklies in Italy. Longanesi was more or less the factotum: he suggested articles, corrected them, cut them and modified them. Everything was enriched by the signatures of Montanelli, Moravia, Mario Soldati and others. It was closed after two years. After the war he moved to Milan, where he founded the Longanesi & C. publishing house and published political posters and leaflets and even went so far as to create a clandestine radio station, Radio Garibaldi, which broadcast from a pickup truck driven through the streets of Milan by Montanelli and himself. In 1950 he founded a cultural magazine called Il borghese which dealt with the customs of intellectual Italy.
