L'Avvenire d'Italia

THE AVVENIRE (L') D'ITALIA. - A Bolognese Catholic daily newspaper, founded on 1 November 1896, on the initiative of Cardinals Mauri and Svampa, by Giovanni Grosoli, president of the Opera dei Congressi e Comitati Cattolici, and by Giovanni Acquaderni, founder of the Gioventù Cattolica Italiana, under the title L'Avvenire and with Filippo Crispolti as editor. From 1902 it took its present title and had as its editor Cesare Algranati (known under the pseudonym Rocca d'Adria), who made it the liveliest and most combative of the Italian Catholic papers. In 1915 Paolo Cappa (later a deputy and senator) was appointed its editor, and he gave the newspaper wide renown both during the war of 1915-18 and at the time of the Partito Popolare Italiano. In 1923 the newspaper passed to the Centro Nazionale with Enrico Bolognesi as editor, but it declined and did not regain its former vigor until 1927, when it was acquired by the Compagnia di S. Paolo. Since then its editor has been Raimondo Manzini, later a deputy to the Constituent Assembly and to Parliament. The newspaper's circulation area, by agreements made under the aegis of Azione Cattolica, comprises Emilia, the Veneto and Tuscany; with the other confreres it is linked in the S.I.R. (Servizio Informazioni Romano), from which it receives the Roman and Vatican news bulletin. Its "third page" was of particular importance, especially through the merit of Raimondo Manzini and Mario Luzzi, in the first post-war period, becoming the meeting point of the young Italian Catholic literature, and from it were born the conferences of Catholic writers, Pontespizio and Ragguaglio.

Enrico Lucatello