Federico Gentile

Federico Gentile (14 April 1904 – 21 May 1996) was an Italian publisher. Gentile is best remembered for founding the publishing company Le Lettere, that he created after many years at the helm of Sansoni, which was acquired by Giovanni Gentile (the philosopher and Federico's father) who entrusted it to his son in 1932. Early life Second son of the philosopher Giovanni and Erminia Nudi, he graduated in 1925 from the University of Rome with a thesis on Blaise Pascal which two years later, rewritten after a period of study in Paris, was published by Laterza. Returning from France, Gentile was hired at the Treves publishing house in Milan, as secretary general until 1932 and as director of the Library of political culture, where he published, among others, works by his father, Gioacchino Volpe, Ugo Spirito and Ruggero Bonghi. Sansoni In September 1932 his father took control of the Sansoni publishing house in Florence (later becoming its sole owner in 1935) and entrusted it to Federico Gentile, together with his younger brother Fortunato, helped by other prominent authors and collaborators, based on the model of the Enciclopedia Italiana: Ruggero Bonghi, Alessandro D'Ancona, Robert Davidsohn, Ferdinando Martini, Ernesto Parodi, Ermenegildo Pistelli, Pio Rajna, Francesco Torraca, Georg Voigt and others. In the same year Federico Gentile married Anna Maria Grelling, from whom he had Giovanni, Nicoletta and Giorgio.