WM Arte answers
Where and when was the Italian advertising poster born?
In Milan, at the music publisher G. Ricordi & C. In 1889 the La Scala set designer Adolfo Hohenstein joined Ricordi's Officine Grafiche and soon became its artistic director; he trained Leopoldo Metlicovitz (promoted to designer in 1894) and Marcello Dudovich (from 1897). The same studio made opera posters and shop posters.
Casa Ricordi was founded in Milan in 1808 as a music publisher; Giulio Ricordi took charge in 1888. Hohenstein designed the poster, sets and costumes for Puccini's La Bohème (Turin, 1 February 1896), and the studio also worked for clients such as the Mele department stores of Naples, Campari and Strega.
Posters were collectable almost at once: in 1895 the 18-year-old Ferdinando "Nando" Salce of Treviso bought his first one, the start of a collection of about 25,000 that he left to the Italian State in 1962.
Several of the founders were not Italian by birth: Hohenstein was born in St Petersburg to German parents, and Metlicovitz and Dudovich were born in Trieste when it was part of Austria-Hungary.