To picture the character of Arnaldo Forni (+1983) it is sufficient to quote a short interview given to Il Giornale d’Italia in 1968, as Mr Forni replied to the journalist Alvise Ongania, calling him “Il re dell’anastatica” (the King of anastatics) by saying: “I didn’t start from a bookshop, but from a bookstall. Actually I started with two sacks laid on the pavements of a central street in Bologna, where I showed second-hand books.
Then I added trestles and planks of a street bookstall and finally a shop in Via Galliera which I kept as main delivery address”. That’s how Arnaldo Forni proudly described and never disowned his beginning, searching to underline the figure of a self-made businessman.
Actually, these were difficult beginnings, but Mr Arnaldo Forni had a strong willpower and a keen mind: after years of harsh study (he was pupil of the historian Albano Sorbelli) and harsh work he could collect a huge experience in antiquarian books and make a bid for that particular printing sector.

The history of Arnaldo Forni “Il cammino di un editore sui generis” (“The course of a unique publisher”) was published by Maria Gioia Tavoni in 1991 within the volume “Editoria e Università a Bologna tra Ottocento e Novecento” Comune di Bologna, Istituto per la Storia di Bologna (“Publishing and University in Bologna between 1800 and 1900”, Institute of History of Bologna).