L'Illustrazione Italiana was a high-quality illustrated Italian weekly subtitled; 'news, public and social life, science, fine arts, geography and travel, theatres, music, fashion.'

The Treves brothers Emilio and Guido acquired in 1874 a competing magazine which appeared in Roma at the same time and of a similar type and design;[1] L' Illustrazione - Rivista Italiana, edited by the Roman artist Alessandro Foli,[2] and for the merger starting 1 November 1875, the weekly adopted the more incisive title.

[3] The magazine aimed at an upper-class audience[4] for whom it was a 'status symbol',[5] and its cost of 3 lira against 30 cents for La Domenica del Corriere and 10 for another Fratelli Treves publication, L'Illustrazione Popolare, was an indicator of that to would-be purchasers.

Nine pages are devoted to Illustrations of Current Events and the Fine Arts, designed by the most celebrated artists of modern Italy, and among others by Dalbono, Michetti, Favretto, Bisto, and Paolocci.

The Literary contents are also of the highest class; Editorials, Reviews, Notes on Current Events, Poetry and Fiction, being contributed by De Amicis, [Giovanni] Verga, D'Ancona, Stecchetti, Momenti, Castelnuovo, Barrili, and other distinguished and popular Writers.

Situated in the Jewish Section of the Monumental Cemetery of Milan, it shows the Treves' friends, the writers Gabriele D’Annunzio, Edmondo De Amicis, and Giovanni Verga, with press workers engaged in the modern process of photomechanical printing.

[20] Adopting further improvements in ink reproductions of photographs, the magazine introduced rotogravure and coated paper, which guaranteed better image quality, which Cinelli proposes constructed a precise fascist identity and 'self-recognition' stimulating a very strong sense of belonging to the nation.

[citation needed] L'Illustrazione Italiana ranked itself as having 'large circulation [that] renders it most valuable as a means for giving publicity to the larger as well as to the smaller Manufacturing Industries and for Works of Art, Books, &c.'[9] The ample advertising, some in 'full-page ads, some in color,' writes Ipsen, provides an index of Italy's nascent consumer culture.

[24] From 1909 the brothers Treves were co-directors, but Emilio Treves's death in 1916 marked the beginning of a gradual decline for the magazine under brother Guido from 8 February 1916 until 12 May 1932,[25] despite contributions by high-caliber writers Eugenio Montale, Elio Vittorini, Salvatore Quasimodo, Riccardo Bacchelli, Italo Pietra, Niccolò Giani, Sergio Solmi, and Marco Praga who served as theatre critic from 1919 until his death in 1929,[26] From 1926 Calogero Tumminelli, founder the publishing house Bestelli e Tumminelli in Milan in 1913 and who produced the magazines Dedalo, and Architettura e Arti Decorative, succeeded Giovanni Beltrami was co-director.

[27] Dino Alfieri, Minister of People's Culture from 1937, promulgated the fascist racial laws implemented in Italy in 1938 which stripped Jews of their civil rights and removed them from various industries.

In September 1938, in preparation for legislation on the 'Jewish question' by the Grand Council of Fascism , Alfieri required every publisher to identify personnel di razza ebraica ('of the Jewish race').