By Cristiano Turbil
This became a common theme in Mantegazza’s work and political activity. In 1865, Mantegazza was elected, for the municipality of Monza, as a member of the italian parliament. He served first in the parliament and then in the senate for over 20 years. For Mantegazza, politics was the only way to implement his medical ideas and vision of science on a national level. On 4 November 1880, Mantegazza gave a talk titled ‘La Scienza nell’Italia Nuova’ (Science in the New Italy) at the Istituto di Studi Superiori Pratici e di Perfezionamento (University of Firenze). In the talk, while celebrating the achievements of the young italian kingdom, Mantegazza clearly emphasised the need for the rise of national science in both its professional and popular forms, and without distinction between the two. The unification of the country started, for Mantegazza, a period of prosperity for the nation. However, this prosperity which was clearly reflected in the development of the italian economy, art and literature did not happen for italian science. This was because, he explained, italian politicians were unable to see the importance that science was acquiring in many other countries across Europe. italian science was lacking in foundation and scope. Therefore, Mantegazza insisted that scientific research should be largely supported by the italian government, especially via internal funding. This was because, he explained, the improvement of any scientific knowledge should be the highest aspiration of any civil society.
In 1881, Mantegazza advanced the idea to stop thinking about having a science of the right or of the left. Instead, he suggested creating a nationally founded science of the nation. In order to do that, he asked italian scientists to go out of their laboratories and museums to communicate and explain the message of science to everyone. On 1 January 1884, Mantegazza returned to this point in the first edition of the italian scientific periodical La Natura (the italian version of the far more famous English periodical Nature). In the article, he urged italian scientists to popularise their work in order to use science as a guide for society and to make it accessible to everyone.
In just over 30 years of constant work, Paolo Mantegazza contributed, like no other, to the establishment of popular science in Italy. His efforts to make science popular were conducted through various initiatives on both a professional and popular level. The study of Mantegazza’s life and work tells us part of the history of italian popular science but also, more specifically, shows how popularisation of science did not only contribute to the extension of scientific literacy but also to constructing a sense of national identity and cohesion in a country which was, for far too long, divided. Mantegazza’s call to reach out to the public, in particular, offers an insight into an early form of the public culture of science.
Read the full paper Paolo Mantegazza and the dream of ‘making’ science popular circa 1860–1900 by Cristiano Turbil
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0963662517695117
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Cristiano Turbil is a historian with an expertise in nineteenth and early twentieth-century British and European medicine and science. His current research is focused on the popular representation of scientific and medical ideas, with particular emphasis on the social and political reception of controversial public health campaigns in post-unified Italy. Cristiano is currently working as a teaching fellow in the history of medicine and science in the STS Department at University College London.