Tempo was an illustrated weekly news magazine published in Milan, Italy, between 1939 and 1976 with a temporary interruption during World War II.
Tempo was first published on 9 June 1939,[1][2] being the first full colour illustrated Italian magazine. It was subtitled as Settimanale di politica, informazione, letteratura e arte. The founding company was Mondadori.[2] The magazine was modelled on the American magazines Life[2] and Newsweek.[3]
The headquarters of Tempo was in Milan.[4] By 1942 The magazine had editions published in eight different languages,[2] including Albanian, Croatian, French, Greek, Rumanian, Spanish, German and Hungarian. The German edition existed between 1940 and 1943 and was also published by Mondadori.[5]
On 8 September 1943 Tempo stopped publication following the occupation of northern Italy by German army during World War II. Mondadori sold the magazine to Aldo Palazzi in 1946.[6] Then the magazine was relaunched and was both owned and published by Palazzi.[4][7] During this period it held a centrist political stance.[4] In the 1950s Tempo was less sentimental and adopted a progressive and secular political stance.[8]
Tempo sold 500,000 copies in 1955 making it one of the most read magazines in Italy.[9] In the 1960s the magazine frequently carried political and news articles with moderate and conservative tones.[10] In 1976 the magazine ceased publication.[11]
Tempo was edited by Alberto Mondadori, son of Arnoldo Mondadori.[12][13] Indro Montanelli was the first editor-in-chief of the magazine.[12] From its start in 1939 to September 1943 Bruno Munari served as the art director for the magazine and for another Mondadori title, Grazia.[14][15] The early contributors for Tempo were Massimo Bontempelli, Curzio Malaparte,[6] Lamberti Sorrentino, and Salvatore Quasimodo.[16] In the late 1960s Pier Paolo Pasolini was the editor of an advice column named Il caos (Italian: Chaos).[17] The magazine also included the work by photographers John Philiphs who previously worked for Life, and Federico Patellani.[16]
Major sections of the magazine included politics, news, literature and art. Although it was modeled on Life, unlike it Tempo covered much more political topics.[18]
The cover of its 22nd issue (dated 16–22 June 1946) became the symbol of the freshly-proclaimed Italian Republic. The photo, taken by the magazine's photographer Federico Patellani (1911–1977), features a smiling young woman holding an issue of Corriere della Sera newspaper with the headline "È nata la repubblica Italiana" (Italian: The Italian republic is born), with her head sticking out through the newspaper.[19] The woman was identified in 2016 as Anna Iberti (1922–1997), who at the time worked as a clerk in administration in the socialist newspaper Avanti!.[20][21]
In 1948 Tempo published the interview with the Italian bandit Salvatore Giuliano by the American journalist Michael Stern which was originally published in True magazine in 1947.[8]
