What Bollati Boringhieri does

Bollati Boringhieri is an Italian publishing house (casa editrice) founded in 1957 in Turin, operating as a wholly-owned imprint within Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol S.p.A. (GeMS), a major Italian publishing conglomerate. The company publishes Italian-language editions across nine thematic categories: Science, History, Psychoanalysis and Psychology, Fiction, Mathematics, Physics, Philosophy, Biology, and Anthropology. Its catalog combines canonical works by major historical figures (Einstein, Freud, Jung, Darwin, Gödel, Fermi, Bohr) with curated contemporary authors, plus translations of international literary and intellectual titles. In 2025 the company expanded its fiction footprint by launching 'Black Note,' a dedicated sub-brand for crime and mystery titles.

The company's commercial model is straightforward trade publishing: it acquires, edits, and publishes physical and digital books, then distributes them through its own website, affiliate partnerships with IBS.it and Amazon EU, and the broader Italian/EU retail channel inherited via its GeMS parent. It has 11-50 employees and a workforce that operates as a content and editorial organization rather than a technology platform. Marketing is driven by editorial coverage on the 'Il Libraio' content property, a free newsletter with ebook incentives, and seasonal catalog promotions (e.g., a 20% discount campaign in October-November 2025). The company has no public mobile app, no developer-facing API, no disclosed AI/ML capabilities, and its geographic footprint is concentrated in Italy with broader European reach via Amazon EU. As a private subsidiary of GeMS, it does not publicly disclose financials and operates within the strategic envelope of its parent group.

Name

Bollati Boringhieri

Legal name

Bollati Boringhieri editore S.r.l. a socio unico

Website

https://bollatiboringhieri.it

Company type

Private

Founded year

1957

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Bollati Boringhieri is a Turin-based Italian publishing house, founded in 1957 and owned by Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol (GeMS), that publishes Italian-language science, humanities, and fiction titles for general readers, academics, and genre fiction audiences.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Book Publishing

NAICS

Book Publishers (513130)

SIC

Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731)

akta.pro primary industry

K–12 Textbook Publishing (Core Curriculum) (MPAJABAA)

Keywords

• Italian book publishing
• Scientific book publishing
• Academic book publisher
• Intellectual nonfiction books
• Fiction and nonfiction publishing

Headquarters

HQ city

Turin

HQ country

Italy

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Book Sales: Traditional publishing of physical and digital books across multiple genres including science, history, mathematics, philosophy, psycho-analysis, psychology, narrative fiction, anthropology, physics, and biology.

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Bollati Boringhieri is an Italian publishing house based in Turin that publishes physical books and digital ebooks across scientific, philosophical, psychological, mathematical, historical, anthropological, biological, and literary genres. Founded in 1957, the company produces curated catalogs in Italian under multiple thematic programs, featuring translations of foundational authors such as Einstein, Freud, Jung, Darwin, and contemporary writers, distributed through its own website and affiliate partnerships with major online retailers.

Product overview

Bollati Boringhieri is an Italian publishing house (Casa Editrice) belonging to the Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol (GeMS). The company publishes books across multiple thematic categories including Science (Scienza), History (Storia), Psychoanalysis and Psychology (Psicoanalisi e Psicologia), Fiction (Narrativa), Mathematics (Matematica), Physics (Fisica), Philosophy (Filosofia), Biology (Biologia), and Anthropology (Antropologia). The catalog features both classical scientific works (Einstein, Freud, Jung, Darwin) and contemporary authors. In 2025, the company launched 'Black Note,' a dedicated crime and mystery sub-brand to consolidate its fiction offerings in that genre. The publishing house operates primarily as a traditional book publisher without a technology platform; its online presence serves as a catalog and e-commerce channel for physical and digital books.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Scienza (Science) Scientific publishing program featuring Italian translations and editions of works by major scientists including Albert Einstein, Alfred N. Whitehead, Konrad Lorenz, Ivan Petrovic Pavlov, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Kurt Gödel, Alan Turing, Jim Al-Khalili, Christophe Galfard, Ian Stewart, Leon Lederman, and Christopher T. Hill, targeted at general readers and academics seeking authoritative scientific content in Italian.
• Storia (History) Historical studies publishing program featuring works such as Claudio Pavone, Eric H. Cline, Ian Mortimer, Stefan Klein, Harry Freedman, Arthur Allen, and Erich Lichtblau (Pulitzer Prize winner), targeted at readers and academics interested in serious historical scholarship in Italian.
• Psicoanalisi e Psicologia (Psychoanalysis and Psychology) Psychoanalysis and psychology publishing program featuring the complete works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, including the Red Book (2010), plus works by Anna Freud, Alice Miller, Melanie Klein, Jean Piaget, Pierre Janet, John Bowlby, Irvin Yalom, Anna Oliverio Ferraris, Luigi Zoja, and Jerome Kagan, targeted at clinical professionals, students, and informed general readers.
• Narrativa (Fiction) Fiction publishing program including the 'Varianti' collection featuring works by Edmund de Waal, Julie Otsuka, Louise Doughty, Claire Messud, Israel J. Singer, Georges Perec, Elizabeth von Arnim, Esther Kreitman Singer, and Lucia Berlin (selected as Republic's Book of the Year 2016), targeted at Italian readers of contemporary and classic fiction.
• Matematica (Mathematics) Mathematics publishing program for both popular science and university teaching featuring works by Ian Stewart, Gabriele Lolli, Enrico Giusti, Giovanni Prodi, Tom M. Apostol, Edoardo Sernesi, and Serge Lang, targeted at mathematics students, educators, and general readers.
• Fisica (Physics) Physics publishing program featuring Italian editions of works by Albert Einstein, Max Born, Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Enrico Fermi, Leon Lederman, Christopher T. Hill, Richard Gott, and Jim Al-Khalili, targeted at physics students, educators, and informed readers.
• Filosofia (Philosophy) Philosophy publishing program featuring works by John Searle, Gottlob Frege, Ernst Cassirer, Theodor W. Adorno, Noam Chomsky, Giacomo Marramao, Umberto Curi, and Donatella Di Cesare, targeted at philosophy students, academics, and informed readers.
• Biologia (Biology) Biology and life sciences publishing program featuring works by Charles Darwin, Ernst Mayr, Karl von Frisch, Jared Diamond, Menno Schilthuizen, and Jonathan Silvertown, targeted at biology students, naturalists, and informed readers.
• Antropologia (Anthropology) Anthropology publishing program featuring classical and contemporary works by Ernesto de Martino, Arnold Van Gennep, Bronisław Malinowski, Émile Durkheim, James G. Frazer, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and Mircea Eliade, targeted at anthropology students, scholars, and informed readers.
• Black Note Black Note is a 2025 crime and mystery series that consolidates Bollati Boringhieri's crime, mystery, and noir fiction titles under a unified branded series for easy identification by Italian readers of crime fiction.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol S.p.A. (GeMS)coreOthersBollati Boringhieri is a subsidiary of Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol (GeMS), a major Italian publishing group founded in 2005 in Milan. GeMS owns multiple publishing houses united by a shared passion for books.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Springer Nature: Global academic and STM publisher with significant output in physics, mathematics, biology, and philosophy of science. Comparable by content category though operating at much larger scale and predominantly English-language.
• Mondadori Libri: Italy's largest trade publisher (also part of a wider group with broader media operations). Overlaps Bollati Boringhieri in narrative fiction and popular science but operates at vastly larger scale with a broader portfolio.
• Rizzoli Education: Italian educational publisher (part of Mondadori Group) covering schools and academia, including sciences and humanities. Comparable in subject coverage but with a school-focused catalogue versus Bollati Boringhieri's adult scholarly/literary bent.

Direct peers

• Giulio Einaudi Editore: Long-established Turin-rooted Italian trade and academic publisher (literature, philosophy, history, sciences). Closely comparable to Bollati Boringhieri in editorial scope and Italian-language scholarly publishing.
• Zanichelli Editore: Italy's leading publisher for school, university, and scientific textbooks, including mathematics and physics. Peer because both houses serve Italian scientific readers, though Zanichelli skews more toward textbook formats.
• Adelphi Edizioni: Milan-based independent Italian publisher with a similar curated catalog spanning philosophy, literature, and the sciences (e.g. Wittgenstein, Calvino, Borges). Comparable to Bollati Boringhieri in its general-interest intellectual niche and backlist-driven model.
• Il Saggiatore: Italian publisher known for popular science, humanities, and literary translation. Comparable editorial profile to Bollati Boringhieri's science/humanities narrative mix.
• Feltrinelli Editore: Italian publishing house with a comparable mix of fiction and non-fiction intellectual titles, including science and humanities. Direct competitor for reader mindshare in the Italian-language general catalog.
• Editori Laterza: Bari-based Italian publisher strong in humanities, social sciences and history. Direct peer given the parallel focus on academic-adjacent intellectual publishing for Italian readers.

Others

• Edizioni Bollati Boringhieri parent GeMS (Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol): Italian publishing conglomerate owning Bollati Boringhieri and several other imprints. Included not as a competitor but to identify the parent-group context that shapes the company's strategic and operational leverage.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/bbeditore
• Facebookfacebook.com/bollatiboringhierieditore
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/bollati-boringhieri-editore-srl

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Bollati Boringhieri