The history of the publishing house can be traced to 1920’s Messina. In 1926 Giacomo D’Anna, having opened his book shop 3 years prior, decided to combine selling books with editing, and began to  publish translations of essays from Latin and Greek by professors from the local university, which were the works of great academics. Thus D’Anna created the collections «Bibliotheca di Cultura Contemporanea» and the «Gemme Minori di Sicilia».
 
These were followed by a series of journals, beginning with «Ponte» published by and intended for students, of which there were few printed editions. The students would buy «Ponte» with as little as the spare change that could be saved on a cup of coffee or a tram ticket, and would often pass entire afternoons at the Libreria D’Anna  discussing literature in the company of writers and artists like Salvatore Quasimodo, Giacomo Balla, Bruno Cicognani, Renato Guttuso, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who was a friend of Giacomo D’Anna’s brother Giulio, and a futurist painter. Word of these activities reached the editors Einaudi, Mondadori, and Bompiani, who then suggested that Giacomo D’Anna organise meetings with famous writers amongst which Cesare Pavese, Italo Calvino, and Bruno Cicognani are noted.
 
Arnoldo Mondadori, with other qualified Italian booksellers then invited D’Anna to Verona where he met Hemingway, Steinbeck and Maugham.
The entrepreneurial idea was the cultural redevelopment of texts intended for use by schools, and this was clear from the very beginning.
Giacomo D’Anna found his place in the world of the “scholastic” by financing the compilation of text books bearing the most prestigious names of the academic world, and the results were soon seen, with often avant-garde editorial choices realised by famous authors including Luigi Russo, Quintino Cataudella, Francesco Flora, Nicola Terzaghi, and Manara Valgimigli.
 
In Messina in 1943, the war victims either killed or wounded amounted to around 5000, and 94% of the buildings were destroyed in the bombings, including the Libreria D’Anna. The dramatic situation imposed a great change for Giacomo D’Anna who, determined to continue with his publishing, was obliged to leave Sicily and move to the mainland with his family. It was not by chance that his choice was Città di Castello in Umbria, a city famous for printing. D’Anna was there that year on the 8th September (the date the Italian alliance with Nazi Germany was broken by a truce signed with the USA). Despite a respectful friendship with Marinetti and Bottai, D’Anna was of anti-fascist sentiments and ended up in gaol having defended the great critic Attilio Momigliano, who was sought on account of the fascist race laws. After a fortunate escape, he was the first to enter the city of Sansepolcro on the pinnacle of an American tank to free Momigliano.
 
In the meantime, D’Anna had brought his publishing house back to Messina, but not for long. Following the tendencies of many other cultural institutions, D’Anna’s interests turned to the city of Florence, which had no yet lost the reputation of the cultural capital of Italy, and above all, with Le Monnier, Sandron, Sansoni and La Nuova Italia, was the centre of Italian scholastic publishing. One of Giacomo’s sons Guido was dreaming of becoming an architect and studying at Florence under the great Michelucci, whilst one of the authors of the publishing house, Luigi Russo(a man of difficult character) had had a disagreement with La Vallecchi, the publisher of his journal «Belfagor», and was looking for a new publisher. The solution was a compromise. Guido moved to the Tuscan capital to study architecture, but also, in 1949, to develop the D’Anna’s Publishing Florentine headquarters, and look after the organisational side of «Belfagor». The publishing houses production of cultural works, manuals and anthologies began to increase, with special attention given to the humanities field (The legacy of the Magna Grecia remained in the ‘DNA’ even outside of Sicily), as well as the magazines and journals.Meanwhile, the years were passing and D’Anna’s publishing was confronted with two floods. The first was the flood of 1966 at Florence, which brought great loss but encouraged publishing house to take up occupancy in a classy building on via dei Della Robbia; the second was the metaphorical cultural ‘revolution’ flood of 1968.
 
The intellectual ‘revolution’ of this period gave D’Anna’s publishing the occasion to propose new instruments of study and culture to it’s clientele, like the magazine «Generazione Zero», the monographic collections «Parallela», «Tangenti», «Antologie filosofiche per problemi», «Gli uomini e le loro istituzioni» and «Secondo millennio». The production amounted to over 300 titles, the spirit of which seemed to anticipate the current scholastic reform. D’Anna’s catalogue was enriched with works that entire generations of students have studied since, notably the renewed edition of the Anthology of Italian Literature by Mario Balestieri, Angelo Gianni, and Angelo Pasquali.
In 1981, Guido’s sons Gabriele and Giacomo joined the company, followed by his daughters Albertina and Elisabetta. Their arrival brought fresh energy and a certain vitality to the production, as the third generation to join D’Anna’s publishing was able to find and propose text books intended for young people like themselves. Giacomo undertook a role of responsibility for some years then left to pursue other career interests. Elisabetta, also eventually left the company, as a result of an incurable illness, her absence was deeply felt.
 
In April of 1999, D’Anna’s publishing moved from via dei Della Robbia to a more spacious residence at Poggio Imperiale, where the new headquarters in via Dante da Castiglione was inaugurated in September of that same year.
 
The young D’Anna’s were among the first to bravely follow the multimedia path, which was beginning to be considered important to teaching and learning alike. Celebrated volumes of Italian and Greek literature were published together on a cd-rom, and courses of physical education, history and philosophy were made available to the vision impaired, thanks to the technology that rendered the transposition of their content possible. A dictionary of synonyms and antonyms, and the DirdiPiù (another dictionary) were also released in digital versions, by the appreciated DIR (which lead to D’Anna receiving the «Premio della Cultura» - cultural prize).
 
«It’s always more and more necessary to diversify» the publishing house sustains, and following this philosophy, has created important partnerships with «L’espresso», «la Repubblica», Studenti.it, Fratelli Alinari, Zanichelli, Loescher and Città Nuova.
However the love, passion and attention for the simple book remain unaltered. D’Anna’s publishing, during the last 20 years, has published some works that have really made an impression; the anthology of Italian writers for the biennial (amongst which Quattro colori by Maria Concetta Sclafani, Alberta Mariotti e Amelia Stancanelli), the renewed editions of Storia e storiografia by Antonio Desideri and Mario Themelly, the varied editions of the chemistry courses by Liliana Mammino, the art history manuals by Piero Adorno e Adriana Mastrangelo, physical education manuals by Pier Luigi Del Nista, June Parker and Andrea Tasselli.
 
After a long illness, Guido D’Anna passed away in January 2004. A reserved man of disarming candidness, he was loved not only for his achievements in the academic word, but also his strong spirit, and was considered the pioneer of scholastic publishing. His legacy is the perpetual industriousness that characterised D’Anna the operator of one of the «few pure publishers».
 
In 2006, the publishing house celebrated its 80th anniversary: an important milestone that merited the recognition of a special event organised by the Bibliotheca degli Uffizi, attended by journalists and representatives of cultural institutions. The volume Casa Editrice G. D’Anna. Persone, storie, luoghi in ottant’anni di editoria was presented at the prestigious library, a tribute to 80 years of publishing. The work is one of the first printed copies and was presented to the mayor of Florence, Leonardo Domenici. Photographs, documents and unedited recounts retrace the long journey that began at Messina, but now continues in Tuscany’s capital. This journey was described as «a rare example of deep-rooted entrepreneurship».
 
During the event at the Bibliotheca degli Uffizi the results of the national research «Quando il bullismo entra in classe» (When bullying enters the classroom) commissioned by the publishing house to the sociologist Renato Mannheimer were also recognised.
 
In that same year, in the Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio, the D’Anna’s received another important recognition: the honour of the «Premio Firenze» - the Florentine Prize.
 
Since 1998 the D`Anna family has shared the ownership of the publishing house with Loescher Editore (to which, as of 1998, has been assign the responsibility of promoting and distributing the titles of D`Anna catalogue).
 
On April 2008 Loescher Editore, according to the will expressed by some of D`Anna shareholders, bought a portion of shares such as to enable it to reach the majority of capital.
 
At the end of 2009 Gabriele D`Anna, Chairman and former Editorial Manager, acknowledges some changes originating from the new organizational structure: he sells his shares and leaves the company to which, inheriting a difficult task, in 28 years has dedicated his whole self living with passion the extraordinary journey began at Messina in 1926. 

Albertina D’Anna goes on in this journey with Marco Griffa, Managing Director, assisted by extremely valuable collaborators.