Airone (English: Heron) is an Italian science magazine devoted to science and technology issues. It is published in Milan, Italy, by Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori (former company, now a division of Cairo Editore, a subsidiary of Cairo Communication).
Airone was founded in 1981 as an ecologist magazine primarily containing articles about animal world, nature, ethnology and geography.[1][2] The founder and first director was Egidio Gavazzi.[2] It was for years the most widely circulated scientific magazine in Italy,[3][4] with a peak of average circulation of about 250,000 copies per month.[3][5] Between 1985 and 1986 it co-produced with RAI the nature documentary series Pan.[6][7] In 1989 it was launched a spin-off for the younger readers, Airone Junior, renamed Dodo in April 1995.[8][9]
Airone was described as a "magazine similar to National Geographic, but perhaps more conservation-minded",[10] and it was referred to as "a stunning natural history magazine, the best of several European magazines".[11] In an article about the first ten years of the magazine, the L'Unità journalist Antonio Del Giudice pointed how the magazine was "not just an editorial phenomenon, but also a cultural, political e social phenomenon".[2]
The circulation of Airone was 94,000 copies in 2007.[12] In December 2013 the magazine had a circulation of 83,000 copies per month.[13]
