Garroni, Oreste

Oreste Garroni (fl. c. 1872 - 1930) was a Rome-based publisher active at the turn of the 20th century. He was the likely founder of a family firm begun as a bookstore (Libreria O. Garroni) in Rome in the early 1870s, which began publishing in its own right by the late 1870s, focusing initially on government publications. The firm appears to have included multiple family members in addition to O. Garroni (F. Ev. Garroni, L. Garroni, Adolfo Garroni), who were likely brothers, as it operated as Garroni Fratelli for a time in the early to mid-1880s. From the late 1890s, the firm consistently utilized the name Oreste Garroni, suggesting the other brothers had died or moved on to other endeavors. In this period (the early 20th century), the firm was known as a publisher of affordable and accessible works on Italian literature, poetry, and drama, particularly a series of pocket-sized books titled 'Piccola biblioteca utile' that included classic works by Renaissance masters like Dante and Giovanni Boccaccio, and a similar series of classic plays titled 'Biblioteca teatrale economica.' Around 1914, the firm began using the name Stabilimento Tipografico Riccardo Garroni, or, more often, Stabilimento Tipografico Garroni, suggesting a change in leadership, likely a new generation of the family. From the mid-1920s, the firm operated simply as Tipografico Garroni and appears to have ceased publishing in 1930 or soon thereafter. Throughout its history, under various iterations of the company's name, it was located at 55 Via Nazionale, near the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.