Corriere della Sera

Corriere della Sera ("Evening Courier") is an Italian daily newspaper (first in sales [2]), published in Milan.

It is the most famous Italian national newspaper, and among the oldest, founded on Sunday, March 5, 1876 by Eugenio Torelli Viollier. In the 1910s and 1920s, under the direction of Luigi Albertini, the Corriere became the most widely read newspaper in Italy, maintaining its importance and influence to this day. Its main rivals are Turin's La Stampa and Rome's La Repubblica.

The newspaper's offices have been in the same buildings since the beginning of the 20th century, and therefore it is popularly known as "the Via Solferino newspaper", by the name of the street where it is still located. As the name indicates, it was originally printed in the evening (sera).

The Italian novelist Dino Buzzati was a journalist at the Corriere, as were many famous Italian writers and intellectuals, including Eugenio Montale, Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Oriana Fallaci and Indro Montanelli. The "third page" (a page once entirely dedicated to culture, in the Italian tradition) contained a main article, named "elzeviro", which has been signed by all the editors and the major novelists, poets and journalist of the country.

In the 1960s the Corriere became part of the Rizzoli group, now named RCS (Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera), listed in the Italian stock exchange. Its main shareholders are Mediobanca, the Fiat group and some of the biggest industrial and financial group in Italy. The newspaper has however not endorsed Berlusconi's government on several issues, such as the war in Iraq.

In 1981 the newspaper was involved in the P2 scandal; the secret Italian Freemason lodge had the newspaper's editor Franco Di Bella and the former owner Angelo Rizzoli on its member lists.

On March 8, 2006, the Corriere della Sera editor Paolo Mieli officially endorsed the centre-left Union for the 2006 general election held in April 9 and 10.