Società Editrice Internazionale
at the service of the Italian school

The Società Editrice Internazionale (SEI) or 'International Publishing Society' in English, came into existence in Turin on 31 July 1908, with the full encouragement of the then Rector Major, Blessed Michael Rua, and managed by a group of Italian and foreign Salesian Cooperators. It came into being as the Società Anonima Internazionale, meaning 'International Society Limited', in English, for disseminating good press (SAID), with branches in Barcelona, Liege, London, Nice and Vienna. The official communication means for this new publishing body was the Salesian Bulletin, printed in nine languages. The printing and mailing or dissemination, up till then looked after by the Salesian Press at the Oratory, Valdocco, was handed over to SAID.
SAID was also given the publishing property and copyright for publications until then handled by the Salesian Bookshop and Press at the Valdocco Oratory by request of the leaders of the Salesian Congregation, and this new publishing group then planned to reach the market in school publishing. The Salesian catalogue in fact was made up of school texts, edifying and popular literature, theatrical and musical publishing, and devotional material and apologetics. The Salesian Book shop used publish on average 30 titles a year.
By shifting offices, storerooms and book deposits from the Salesian Library across to SAID  the former's director, Giuseppe Caccia, a Salesian Brother was also made available and the Superiors of the Congregation, because of his experience, appointed him to SAID. He was the senior authority of SEI and managed it for a good fifty years.
Once the enterprise was firmly established from a publishing point of view, the next step concerned its expansion throughout Italy, beyond regional borders. This came about in 1912 with the opening of two bookshops: one at Parma the other in Catania. These were the first pieces in a mosaic made up of affiliates of SAID spread throughout key centres around the country. This initiative was aimed at strengthening the distribution network and its own presence beyond traditional Salesian commercial channels.
With its renewed catalogue SAID continued along the same publishing lines and increased its production: between 1909 and 1923 2,400 titles were released, almost half of them text books.
 The first publications were aimed at primary education, especially teaching of Italian through literature, as well as gaining profits from other books strategically consistent with the Salesian educational approach, since they offered the possibility of proposing edifying material, stories. This attention to the primary teaching sector came from the belief that it was fundamental to the moral development of the child and responded to the mission of an apostolate for good press which Don Bosco had preached. However a significant part of the school catalogue was also aimed at the middle and upper school levels, especially the academic secondary classes and the technical schools, places where the Salesian Congregation was very active.
In 1912 they began to publish collections of classical studies Latin authors with commentary for schools and Greek authors with commentary for schools, which had a notable success under the impetus of the 1923 school reform which put much emphasis on classical literature and also prescribed the study of ancient Christian authors. The same year, 1912, Didaskaleion was launched, the only Italian journal specialising in philological studies of ancient Christian literature. The purpose of this Quarterly was to promote the study of ancient Christian thought. The Biblioteca del Didaskaleion collection was connected with this magazine. In those years Salesians Paolo Ubaldi and Sisto Colombo collaborated with the Publishers: Ubaldi held the first Italian Chair of Latin and Greek Christian Literature at the Catholic University in Milan and Colombo was his successor. Latin and Greek Grammars written by Salesian Giuseppe Puppo and Felice Dacomo also had great success for the teaching of those languages. Nell’insegnamento del greco, is worth mentioning. A text by theologian Marco Pechenino Verbi e forme verbali difficili o irregolari della lingua greca (Verbs and difficult or irregular verb forms in Greek) is also worthy of mention. Its first edition had been published halfway through the 19th century by the Salesian Bookshop, then passed on to SAID and even today is still reprinted by SEI.
For teaching Italian production shifted from collections of the classics, Nuova Biblioteca della gioventù italiana, to grammars, anthologies, exercises, histories of literature. The Salesian Michele Martina, a teacher at Ferrara and in Switzerland stood out in this field but especially Carlo Calcaterra, professor of Italian Literature at the Catholic University of Milan and then the Athenaeum at Bologna. These were amongst the best literary and historical critics in the first half of the twentieth century.
The Publishing House did not forget other disciplines. It offered handbooks for students in lower and upper secondary, in foreign languages, history, geography, arithmetic, computer science and natural sciences.
One author with much talent and success was Pietro Gribaudi, whose texts went beyond a million copies in the Thirties. He had been helped by Don Bosco as a boy and grew up at his school. Gribaudi taught in various secondary schools and in 1907 took over the Chair of commercial Geography a thte Turin Higher School of Commerce. A prolific writer, Gribaudi made a mark on his time with L’uomo e il suo regno (Man and his reign), a geography course for lower secondary, which went to thirty editions from 1913 to 1946.
The First World War had serious consequences for the Publishing House's activities. Publication of the Salesian Bulletins was suspended and all publishing activity slowed down. The years following the Great War were marked by a decisive recovery in publishing activity and a strategy for expansion.   On 19 August 1920 by a decision of the Assembly of Members the Publishing House adopted the current name of Società Editrice Internazionale (SEI), a name whose acronym also incluided the motto: Serenant et Illiminant.
Between 1919-1924 three new bookshops were opened in Milan, Turin and Genoa. In 1927 it was Rome's turn to gain a branch. Publicity campaigns intensified for specialised magazines and promotion of school editions was further enhanced. As for commercial relations, SEI acquired exclusive representation for works published by the Istituto Geografico De Agostini at Novara,  and publications by the French A. Mame and Fils di Tours Publishers, as well as Vita e Pensiero, Milan.
The school reform set in place by Giovanni Gentile in 1923 also implied a publishing reform. The serious economic situation post-war  and the sudden change of school programmes meant notable financial outlay. The main publishing firms went from a mainly family structural base to a societal one, involving financiers, representatives of large banks, businessmen and politicians in their administrative councils.
SEI responded to the challenge, maintaining its independence, thanks to the support of the Congregation, and by quickly renewing its catalogue. SEI, with a strong catalogue in every discipline, located itself in the lead in the national publishing panorama. The re-introduction of the teaching of religion in school contributed to this success. It was a sector in which SEI could already boast of a tradition, and the expansion of non-State Catholic schools, the possibility of being able to choose our own authors from amongst the best teachers in Salesian schools, the prestige of the Salesian Family, culminating in Don Bosco's Beatification in 1934 were part of that success. To these factors we need to add careful administration and an editorial policy which was competently and courageously pursued.
 In 1924 the Letture di Filosofia collection was begun, entrusted to Salesian Fr Antonio Cojazzi, teacher and principal at Valsalice, Turin. Fr Cojazzi's activities extended to editing various magazines and collection which SEI promoted: Catechesi and Rivista dei Giovani magazines; the Biblioteca della Rivista dei Giovani, Linea recta brevissima, Cristiani laici moderni collections. Fr Cojazzi called on Luigi Stefanini to collaborate with SEI. He was a young teacher of Philosophy and History at senior secondary level and then a lecturer at the University of Padua. Stefanini wrote the Handbooks of Philosophy and Pedagogy for use by Teacher Training Institutes for SEI, in response to programmes set up by Gentile for new teacher-training institutes. The same author then wrote Problemi teorici e morali nei classici del pensiero and Sommario storico della filosofia, Storia della filosofia. SEI entrusted Stefanini with editing the collection of classics in pedagogical thinking: Letture di Pedagogia.
With a view to responding to current thinking contrary to the Church's teaching, in 1929 SEI founded Convivium, a Literature, Philosophy and History Journal, entrusted to Calcaterra, Ubaldi and Stefanini to edit. The journal proposed to “rightly highlight Christian literature and oppose the spread of false philosophical ideas”.
The renewal of text books in the area of classical disciplines was entrusted to Salesian Salvatore Sciuto, author of the Latin grammar Roma mater (1926) and to Ottavio Tempini, author of Grammatica sintetica della lingua latina, con dizionarietto completo dei verbi anomali e meno regolari (1924). Paolo Ubaldi and Sisto Colombo continued their work of appreciation of Latin and Greek classics, the former as founder and the latter as editor of the collection Corona Patrum Salesiana on Patristic studies.
We also need to point to text books for the teaching of religion, introduced into schools by the Gentile reform. Just between 1930-32, SEI published around 15 courses. These tetxs went from complete religion courses, to the history of Christianity, Bible History, biblical geography.
In 1936 the Publishing Council came into being, requested by the Rector Major  Fr Peter Ricaldone and was entrusted to Fr Renato Ziggiotti, General Council for Schools, who became its President. this shows the direct interest of the Superior Chapter in SEI, which Fr Ricaldone described as “a clearly Salesian work and as such to be maintained and preserved”.  The Council comprised 15 members, each of whom was an expert in a specific discipline. The Regulations of the Council recalled SEI's mission: “to maintain and continue Salesian traditions in printed material. To ensure that SEI's publications correspond ever more perfectly to the needs of the school, religious culture, the good of souls. To see that SEI preserves – as its peculiar moral status – its nature as an Institution for good press, which it has inherited from the spirit of our Father and Founder Saint John Bosco”.
Having overcome the difficult years of the Second Wold War, in the Fifties and Sixties, SEI renewed its writing body and gave birth to a catalogue of modern and innovative teaching aids. It knew how to recognise the importance that the visual message had taken on (one needs to remember that 1954 saw the beginning of RAI television) and decided to begin production of school and educational film under the slogan Nel film didattico l’avvenire della scuola. In 1952 in Rome, the Scholastic Educational Film Office was set up under the direction of Remo Branca, an art scholar after the war and pioneer of didactic cinema. He was replaced some years later by Filippo Paolone, a scholar of cinema and documentary film. As well as documentaries, around 80 filmstrip were produced, meant for students in primary and lower to middle secondary. These were divided into history, geography, science, history of art, recreational and educational.
After the Second World War, collaboration between the Publishing House and the Higher Institute of Pedagogy at the Salesian Pontifical Athenaeum became stronger. Fr Gino Corallo published Educazione e libertà (1951), La pedagogia della libertà (1951) and a wide-ranging monograph on John Dewey (1950), all with SEI. In 1954 the publication of Orientamenti Pedagogici began, a bimonthly journal which became the official voice of the Higher Institute of Pedagogy, and a significant one in the pedagogical culture of the era. In 1964, Fr Luigi Calonghi founded Scuola Viva, a fortnightly magazine for updates and experimentation in the teaching field, coming out in three editions dedicated to middle school teachers, technical and professional school teachers, and senior level and teacher training level, respectively.
Over the five years period from 1955-1960 branches opened in Padua, Naples, Bari, Palermo, Bologna, and Florence consolidated SEI's presence.
Eugenio Visentini, Rector of the Salesian Pontifical Athenaeum, worked in the religious publications area. He was able to involve lecturers such as Alfons Stickler, Gino Corallo, Antonio Maria Javerre, Pietro Braido. Igino Giordani, also published along these lines. He was a journalist and member of the Constituent Assembly. He wrote a life of St. Pius X, Pius XII, Catherine of Siena and an extensive Gesù di Nazareth.
In the second half of the Fifties, SEI opened up to publishing large works. The Dizionario generale di cultura by Salesian Augusto Brunacci, was published. Carlo Calcaterra launched the Enciclopedia Classica, a collection of crticial and up-to-date monographs on classical studies entrusted to outstanding individuals like Paolo Enrico Arias, Carlo Del Grande ande Giovanni Battista Pighi. This project was divided into three sections: History and Antiquity, Language and literature, Archeology and history of classical art.
The collections of higher studies placed SEI amidst the keen social and cultural debate of the time. Under the direction of Salesian Giacomo Lorenzini, psychologist and pupil of Agostino Gemelli, the Psicologia e Vita collection made the work of foreign psychologists who dealt with human holistic growth known in Italy.
Attention was also given to philosophical studies. A reference person in this area was Federico Michele Sciacca, lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the University of Genoa, and founder of the Giornale di Metafisica, a bimonthly journal of philosophy. He also launched the Biblioteca del Giornale di Metafisica series. He also looked after translation of various philosophical studies in series that he edited such as I classici della filosofia and I classici della filosofia e della pedagogia.
The beginning of the Seventies was marked by problems and crises. It was evident that the catalogue needed to be renewed. It was no longer enough to have 'famous' authors who were now passé. The opportunity to break out of this ageing process was offered by the December 1962 school reform. Also evident in those years was the need for the business to be reorganised so it could respond to the needs of a market which was developing and expanding as a consequence of the unified middle secondary reform. The administration gained a new and more sophisticated data processing centre, able to guarantee greater precision and timely presentation of data. Various bookstores in the commercial sector were gradually closed down (Genoa, Rome, Parma, Turin, Milan) to have a network of more agile affiliates instead as well as a network of agents who were prepared for  a more active and constant propaganda. An Administrative Team was created, separating administration from publishing roles.
In 1966 Fr Francesco Meotto was assigned to SEI, with the task of organising this Administrative Team, which he did in the following way: “make the teaching sector methodologically valid and tackle serious knowledge in the area with a view to passing on Christian values”. He led SEI's publishing activities towards “recognising the authentic nature of secular values, their autonomy and relevance for the faith, and going beyond any kind of religious hardline approach”.
Fr Meotto gave a notable push to a wide range of areas under 'varia', “a field", he said, "where big publishers who create public opinion and culture are active. this is the point of encounter with judgments, values, the way people behave, where the image of the human being is formed, a view of life that determines individual and collective existence”. Under his guidance SEI began to be part of what was happening in the nation and paid attention not only to educational issues but also social and cultural ones. Fr Meotto knew how to get people of culture and journalism involved. Amongst his greatest successes we should note the best seller Ipotesi su Gesù by Vittorio Messori.
 But the wide-ranging restructuring was still not enough in the short term. The oil crisis, with its repercussions on the cost of paper, work, interest rates, and strong social tensions just made the “book crisis” more acute.
The Seventies were also tough years for text books, since school and teaching had become more authoritarian. This phenomenon pushed SEI into new areas and to risk teaching materials of an electronic nature. The Publishing House took on a new direction: it began production and sale of electronic teaching materials aiming to bring schools updated learning technologies. The Teaching Studies Centre was set up to research new teaching technologies and the updating of teaching personnel. As well as production of multimedia teaching materials (slides, films, videocassettes, a-v software) SEI improved planning, production, commercialization and maintenance of language and multimedia workshops, teaching networks, data networks, language tapes and laboratories. At the time SEI installed 4 thousand language and multimedia labs in Italy and overseas, in 35 countries. Halway through the Eighties, SEI was the only group able to offer a specific catalogue for computer didactic software.
The lower secondary school reform in 1979 gave SEI the chance to relaunch, which it did through a renewed business and organizational push which brought SEI to the head of Italian scholastic publishing houses. Some data: the number of textbooks sold went from a million, seven hundred thousand in 1977 to more than three million in 1981. In the years that followed this expansion was slowed by the increasing parallel market for used books and the gradual demographic decline. To this we need to add the illegal market of photocopied texts and review copies.
In the Nineties, in order to respond to new market strategies, SEI tackled its most demanding stage of reorganisation: it divested itself of its industrial side (print shop and multimedia production workshops), with a consequent drastic reduction in personnel,  and then it directed its activities mainly to its tradition school publishing area, its core business. It is now in the Secondary area (1st and 2nd grade as it is termed in Italy now, meaning lower-middle and upper secondary) and is amongst the first of the Italian publishers to adapt to this new reform.
As its educational mission, SEI aims at developing a critical, aesthetic, moral sense in young people and helping them to be open to religion. Its publishing activity aims at fostering in young people a sense of personal and social responsibility, a correct appreciation of values, the desire to broaden their understanding and knowledge, the ability to adopt an active and critical attitude to events, an openness to human and transcendent values.
New challenges are now represented by the evolution of teaching tools from paper to ICT (Information and communication technologies) which is a whole change of the manner of learning: online, hybrid, collaborative.  The teacher now has to be an “expert guide”, someone who in ever stricter collaboration with colleagues, advises, supports guides the individual and the group in projects and in building pathways to knowledge. The new technologies allow for personalised teaching and going beyond the physical limits of the classroom, but it is a methodology that has to be built up and can also lead to new forms of exclusion.
It is a case of inventing new “settings” for learning which are more open and flexible, adapted to an internal organisation which is no longer articulated in classes and time at school which is no longer marked by a rigid timetable. this is a new approach which still has to be understood in its dynamics as they apply to learning, and that requires notable investment, with uncertainty as to the real financial return in terms of profits, and a radical rethinking of the business structure of a publishing house. The digitalisation of knowledge leads to a difficult re-organisation of publishing processes. Without forgetting that information and communication technologies risk being monopolised by the powerful incumbents running search engines and those who produce applications for managing digital content, who tend to impose their own rules.
On 22 November 2012 SEI was enrolled in the Registry of Historical Enterprises, set up by Unioncamere (Italian Chambers of Commerce) in June 2011 for the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.
Sergio Giordani – Vice Presidente SEI