Agostino Gemelli e le scienze fonetiche in Europa nella prima metà del Novecento

[Autom. eng. transl.] From the foundation of the Catholic University (1921) and up to the end of the 1950s, the figure of Agostino Gemelli stands out in the Italian scientific-cultural panorama, particularly the Catholic one - altogether poor and of modest level - for his strong international stature and for its intuitive and interpretative precocity. Aspects of originality are his training in Germany, civic and scientific commitment in two young disciplines (psychology and phonetics, nowadays distant by disciplinary sectors). Tireless and combative agitator of innovative ideas, open to confrontation and debate, he was a vigilant sentinel and attentive to the training of scholars and young people and held prestigious educational and cultural positions. The Psychology Laboratory, to which was added in 1929 a section of phonetics equipped with cutting-edge equipment, is at the center of a dense network of exchanges, a destination for visits by scholars from all over the world. Very long lists of prestigious names were drawn up: psychologists, linguists, physiatrists, philosophers, doctors, speech therapists, physiologists, phonetists met in the laboratory. The phonetic researches, conducted since the 1920s, have projected and imposed Gemelli on the international scene for their technologically advanced character, for the multidisciplinary approach, for the scholar's charisma, for his vast knowledge, method security and persuasive force. His studies on the voice were perhaps the most famous - and today the least known - in the late 1930s and up until the Second World War. On these studies we will dwell on our gaze deepening some significant presence of foreign phonetists / linguists in Milan; as well as some of the innumerable papers and scientific journeys of Gemelli.