I Classici Che Hanno Fatto Ltalia (or The Classics That Have Made Italy) offers itself as a counterpart to the great work Printing and the Mind of Man, illustrating the history of the Italian culture through a selection of works by Italian authors (by birth or adoption) from the thirteenth century to the present.

The publishing history of a text, whether a masterpiece or the work of a pioneering era, can be broken into two parts: information on the production and dissemination of works such as print runs, reprints, counterfeits, privileges, trade agreements, etc; and the mutual relationship between the press and the readers, showing how the printed book has influenced the way people read and write. Each work explained in the book calls special attention to editorial strategies such as format, font, illustrations, dedications, etc. The Classics That Have Made Italy is not just a list of prominent texts defining Italian history or a history of the Italian book from a typographic standpoint, but also a chronological overview of known printed texts.

The Classics That Have Made Italy provides the edition, background information, references, historical and cultural significance of each work, brief biography of the author, and an index. An essay by John Ragone examining the transformation of Italy from the fifteenth century is included. The book is written in Italian and accompanied by an English translation of the introduction.

Fabrizio Govi, who graduated from Bologna in 1997 with a degree in literature, is an antiquarian bookseller in Modena. John Ragone teaches at the University of Rome La Sapienza and has contributed to a number of books, including A Century of Books, Publishing in Italy, History and Scenarios for the XXI Century, Communication Memory, and others. Umberto Pregliasco works at an antiquarian bookshop in Turin and is the author of several articles on the bibliophile and trade and protection of antique books. He has been the chairman of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Italy (ALAI) since 2004.