Posters and Periodicals
The image collection also includes a collection of posters from the turn of the century and the beginning of the 20th century. These constitute an important documentation of the activity of Casa Ricordi in the field of graphics. At that time, Casa Ricordi was one of the few publishers in the world thatwas able to print large posters and it even received orders from overseas.
The collection consists not only of posters for opera performances, but also for Bitter Campari, the Bianchi bicycle brand, the La Rinascente department store and the Corriere della Sera.
The Officine Grafiche also designed the covers of the Ricordi publishing house’s music editions, which are therefore of considerable beauty and originality.
The archive has a number of issues of periodicals published by Ricordi over the years: there are the complete annual editions of the Gazzetta Musicale di Milano (1842—1902); a number of issues of Musica e Musicisti (1902—1905) are available from 1902, in the small format, and some in the later larger format. The complete set of editions of the magazine Ars et Labor (1906—1912) is available, all in bound annual volumes, plus some individual issues. Musica d’Oggi is available between 1919—1942 and 1958—1965. Only the 1956 issues of Ricordiana, published from 1951—1957, are available. Further periodicals in the archive include Rivista Minima, Biblioteca Illustrata della Gazzetta Musicale di Milano, Giornale della Società del Quartetto, and Italia Musicale.