Arnoldo Mondadori was born in Ostiglia (Mantua) in 1889; starting to work as a printer in 1907, at the age of 18, he founded his first publishing house “La Libreria della Voce” which in 1912 took the name of “Casa Editrice Mondadori” at the “La Sociale” printing house. During the Giolitti era, the world war and the war in Libya, in 1913 Arnoldo published his first series for children called “La Lampada”.

At the beginning of the publications, the publishing house did not have a single and definitive representation of its logo. Initially it used the founder’s initial letters “AM” as a logo, in various forms. Over the years and publications, these logos have varied frequently without clear rules and colors. In 1927, the design of the rose with the writing “up to the top” was also introduced.

In the 1920s, together with the AM monogram, the design of a palm tree was used, the meaning of which remains unknown. The analysis of the development of this composition is interesting, as it did not follow pre-established rules over time. At the time it was common to vary the design, the font used, the weight of the lines and the greater or lesser stylization.

From the 1940s the propensity to only use the publisher’s initials without images or symbols became more marked.

The design of the rose with the writing “in su la cima” was used to identify the “I Meridiani” necklace. This writing is taken from Dante’s Divine Comedy from Canto XIII whose paragraph recalls, in the publisher’s imagination, the warning to be cautious before judging something or someone, just as a blackthorn tree dried up in winter can often make a rose bloom in spring .

In 1954 the first “Mondadori per voi” bookshop opened, one of the publishing house’s first projects to sell books in Italy which became a meeting point for readers.

Among the most purchased necklaces is the Oscar Mondadori, whose 1965 logo depicted the Oscar statuette reading a book inside the letter “O”. The first volume was published as a cheap paperback. In 2016 this logo underwent a rebranding action by the communication agency “LeftLoft”; the figurine is now engraved inside a full “O” and holds a book in its arms more prominently than before.

In 1969 Mondadori announced a competition for the restyling of the logo, won by Bob Noorda with the re-presentation of the founder’s letters A and M in a more original solution. To strengthen the identity of the logo, the logotype was also added in 1996, based on an exclusive alphabet taken from the spelling of the letters A and M. In 2015 the word “Group” was added to unify the corporate identity in a single corporate structure.