Pädagogik als akademisches Fach in Italien. Eine Skizze von den Ursprüngen bis zu den Sechziger Jahren

The paper aims at providing a sketch of the development of academic pedagogy, showing the turning points of a two centuries story. The first chairs of Pedagogy were set up in Pavia and Padua in the Habsburg Kingdom of Lombardy and Venetia. After the Unification of Italy (1861), the chair of Pedagogy entered in the unversity, in the Faculty of Arts, always linked with Philosophy and in a minor academic position. Due to the political situation, Catholic educationalists remained out of the university, which hosted Positivistic professors. Kantism and Herbartianism were also present. At the beginning of the XXth century the Neo-Idealism of Croce and Gentile strongly opposed Herbartism and Positivism, winning the battle when Gentile became Minister of Education and issued his School Reform (1923). Progressiv education was carried out by Giuseppe Lombardo Radice, but he being antifascist, his influence was hindered. Nontheless many elementary school teachers did apply his method. After Fascism's fall, the end of the war and the birth of the new Italian democratic State, the situation changed. In the Fifties Catholic pedagogy gained a relevant position. Liberal criticism and Dewey's theory were supported by a group centred in Florence. The Communist Party, at the time very strong in Italy, also had a wide audience in the university