The Soncino family (משפחת שונצינו) is an Italian Ashkenazi Jewish family of printers, deriving its name from the town of Soncino in the duchy of Milan. It traces its descent through a Moses of Fürth, who is mentioned in 1455, back to a certain Moses of Speyer, of the middle of the fourteenth century. The first of the family engaged in printing was Israel Nathan b. Samuel, the father of Joshua Moses and the grandfather of Gershon. He set up his Hebrew printing-press in Soncino in the year 1483, and published his first work, the tractate Berakot, Dec. 19, 1483. The press was moved about considerably during its existence. It can be traced at Soncino in 1483-86; Casalmaggiore, 1486; Soncino again, 1488–90; Naples, 1490–92; Brescia, 1491–1494; Barco, 1494–97; Fano, 1503-6; Pesaro, 1507–20 (with intervals at Fano, 1516, and Ortona, 1519); Rimini, 1521-26. Members of the family were at Constantinople between 1530 and 1533, and had a branch establishment at Salonica in 1532-33. Their printers' mark was a tower.
The last of the Soncinos was Gershom b. Eliezer, a grandson of Gershom b. Moses, who established the first printing press of the Middle East in Cairo circa 1557. It is obvious that the mere transfer of their workshop must have had a good deal to do with the development of the printing art among the Jews, both in Italy and in Turkey. While they devoted their main attention to Hebrew books, they published also a considerable number of works in general literature, and even religious works with Christian symbols.
The Soncino prints, though not the earliest, excelled all the others in their perfection of type and their correctness. The Soncino house is distinguished also by the fact that the first Hebrew Bible was printed there. An allusion to the forthcoming publication of this edition was made by the type-setter of the "Sefer ha-Ikkarim" (1485), who, on page 45, parodied Isa. ii. 3 thus: "Out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Soncino" (). Abraham b. Hayyim's name appears in the Bible edition as type-setter, and the correctors included Solomon b. Perez Bonfoi ("Mibhar ha-Peninim"), Gabriel Strassburg (Berakot), David b. Elijah Levi and Mordecai b. Reuben Baselea (Hullin), and Eliezer b. Samuel ("Yad").