was first published on Sunday, 5 March 1876, by . In 1899, the paper began to offer a weekly illustrated supplement,
La Domenica del Corriere ("Sunday of the Courier"). In the 1910s and 1920s, under the direction of
Luigi Albertini, became the most widely read newspaper in Italy, maintaining its importance and influence into the present century. The newspaper's headquarters has been in the same buildings since the beginning of the 20th century, and therefore it is popularly known as "the Via Solferino newspaper", after the street where it is still located. As the name indicates, it was originally an
evening paper. During the
Fascist regime in Italy, funded the
Mussolini Prize, which was awarded to the writers
Ada Negri and
Emilio Cecchi, among the others. Mario Borsa, a
militant anti-fascist, was appointed the
editor-in-chief of in May 1945; Borsa was fired because of his political leanings in August 1946 and was replaced by Guglielmo Emanuel, a
right-wing journalist. The owners of the , the Crespi family,
The 1980s and 1990s During the early 1980s, Alberto Cavallari was the editor-in-chief of the paper. In 1981, the newspaper was laterally involved in the
Propaganda Due scandal when it was discovered that the secret
Freemason lodge had the newspaper's editor Franco Di Bella and the former owner
Angelo Rizzoli on its member lists. In September 1987, the paper launched the weekly magazine supplement
Sette, which is the first in its category in Italy. From 1987 to 1992, the editor-in-chief of was Ugo Stille. The 1988 circulation of was 715,000 copies, making it the second most read newspaper in Italy. The paper started its Saturday supplement,
IO Donna, in 1996. In 1997, was the best-selling Italian newspaper with a circulation of 687,000 copies.
The 21st century had a circulation of 715,000 copies in 2001. In 2002, it fell to 681,000 copies. In May 2007, the paper's website was listed 15th among the top 30 brands of the month in Italy, with over 4 million unique visitors, and behind only among daily newspapers; during the same month, the paper had sold about 594,000 copies compared to the circa 566,000 copies of ''''. Its circulation in December 2007 was 662,253 copies; By 2015, the paper had the country's highest circulation at about 308,000 copies. the online version of the paper was the thirteenth most visited website in the country in 2011. In 2004, categorized as an institution daily (), alongside , in contrast to the agenda daily () like , and the activist daily () like , , and . On 24 September 2014, changed its
broadsheet format to the
Berliner format. On 7 March 2020, during the
COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, leaked a draft decree to put into lockdown several northern provinces particularly affected by the virus. The leaked news sparked a panic exodus to the south, and the threat of further contagion led to
COVID-19 lockdowns in Italy. ==Content and sections==