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The paper will focus on the paradigmatic profile of exile Filippo Pistrucci (1782-1859) as director and teacher at the Free Italian School from 1841 to 1848, linking this pedagogic role to his performances of Improvisatore [sic] both in public and private venues in London; to his journalistic writings published in proletarian and protestant journals and foreign language papers addressing foreign workers and immigrants (such as Apostolato Popolare, Il Pellegrino, L’Educatore, L’Eco di Savonarola); to philanthropic actions, organised by reformist’s circle, for all continental refugees and marginalised childhood. Promoting and supporting civil engagement within the context of Victorian democratic thought, nationalism and Protestantism, collecting some lessons given to poor Italian boys and workers in the self-anthology of Letture (1842) or enhancing militant impulse in all his literary works (tragedies, extemporaneous verses, letters, pedagogical sketches, memoir), Pistrucci’s artistic path testify – both in its empirical and theoretical manifestations – a special devotion to Mazzini’s cause on national education. Through the analysis of his biographical profile, the study of his political engagement with Young Italy, together with religious adherence to Reformated Church, the paper shows how Pistrucci produces a critique of catholic pedagogical model, prospecting a new one based on active citizenship, community ethics and social contract between different classes and generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the thought of Adele Costa Gnocchi, pupil and assistant of Maria Montessori. She spread in the world the Montessori pedagogical model of “support to a new life”. In addition to her more popular projects, as Montessori Children’s Pre-school Assistant and Montessori Birth Center, in Rome, the paper describes the model of cosmic religiosity of Costa Gnocchi, at the base of her insights on “sacredness” of the birth and care of the child 0 -3 years. The biographical and religious path of Costa Gnocchi, in some ways still obscure, is reconstructed through various correspondence with people close to her, including those, unpublished, with the Montessori, mother and son. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows some events related to the disciplines of artes reales and artes sermocinales in the first half of the fifteenth century in schools which were mainly devoted to the study of Greek and Latin classic authors in their original form and with new methodologies. The main focus is on some authors who were studied deeply and in a unique way in Vittorino da Feltre’s school, in Mantua: Euclid, Aristotle’s Poetics, the texts of Greek musicographers, Livy. They prove that the persuasive function of a sermo cannot be separated from scientific and philosophical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper deals with some difficulties in the Italian school system process of unification according to Law Casati, due to a complex interrelation between the central State and the local authorities about vet education. The Regio Istituto tecnico in Bergamo represents an interesting case study, because the initial unsuccessful choice of introducing a mineralogical and metallurgical curriculum was produced by the lack of a fruitful debate with the local stakeholders and an inadequate understanding of the wide educational and professional initiatives offered by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the reconstruction of the main educational and cultural experiences lived by the Italian philosopher Mario Dal Pra (1914-1992), during his childhood and youth in Veneto (a region in the North-East of Italy). The classical studies in the seminary of Vicenza, the involvement in the local Catholic Movement (Azione Cattolica and then Fuci), the studies in Philosophy at the University of Padua under the guide of Erminio Troilo represented the pillars of his initial formation as a Catholic young scholar during the dreadful Fascist period. This kind of perspective, so effective in those years, was suddenly changed by Dal Pra into a new look on reality, philosophy and religion − influenced by a critical rationalism − after his commitment in Italian Resistance movement during the second world war. For this reason, an in-depth analysis of his “Venetian years” could offer an unreleased reading of his intellectual and religious origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Montessori Pedagogy shows very different possible faces in different historical-cultural contexts. In the 1920s and early 1930s, for example, Montessori Pedagogy was strongly related to fascist pedagogy and education in Italy. This paper focuses on theory-immanent explanations for this phenomenon, based on an analysis of Montessori’s books and lectures at international courses and congresses (1910-1935) and archive research (Fondazione Giovanni Gentile, Archivio Capitolino, Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, and Segreteria particolare del duce). Explanations are found in the combination of formal aims and exclusive orientation on the methodical, based on Montessori’s implicit anthropology, and in lacking criteria for the child to choose for or against something, which eventually leeds to auto-education towards fascism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]