It was founded in Verona in 1886 by Leo Samuele Olschki and is among the country's oldest publishers of critical work in the humanities.

Born in nowadays Poland (then part of Prussia), he moved to Berlin in 1879 and to Verona in 1883, where he became manager of the publishing house Libreria Antiquaria Münster and printed his first incunables.

He founded the publishing house Salso (acronym of Societé Anonyme Leo S. Olschki), based in Geneva.

[2] In 1939, the Italian fascist regime promoted racial laws which ruled Jew people out of society, including publishing, and Olschki was forced to remove their logo from books.

[3] After WWII, Leo's sons Aldo and Cesare Olschki continued the family firm and expanded its market over the Italian borders.