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Book
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Paolo Mazzarello
The unfaithful Darwinist
Lombroso e l’evoluzione
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- Overview
- The book at glance
- About the author
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Paolo Mazzarello
The unfaithful Darwinist
Lombroso e l’evoluzione
- Overview
- The book at glance
- About the author
Overview
A traitorous translation, a capital work in the history of thought and two great scientists: these are the ingredients of Mazzarello’s new book.
The work in question is Darwin’s Origin of Species. The translation is the French one, published in 1862, by Clémence Royer, a liberal and progressive philosopher, which came into the hands of a young Lombroso, a military doctor about to join the expedition to repress banditry in Calabria.
In contact with a harsh and savage world, the scientist was among the first - if not the first - to concretely apply Darwin’s theory to the study of nature in Italy. Having become a professor in Pavia and then in Turin, Lombroso never stopped using evolution as a cognitive tool. From a distant source sprang racial hierarchies, populations, abnormal and criminal behaviour, and the mental inferiority of women.
It is on this basis that Paolo Mazzarello re-reads Lombroso’s anthropological vision, offering an evocative and original interpretation, which also allows him to shed new light on the early spread of Darwinian theories in Europe.
The book at glance
About the author
Paolo Mazzarello teaches History of Medicine at the University of Pavia. He is the author of many essays and scientific biographies. These include Il Nobel dimenticato. The life and science of Camillo Golgi (2006), The professor and the singer. La grande storia d’amore di Alessandro Volta (2009), E si salvò anche la madre (2015), L’intrigo Spallanzani (2021), Storia avventurosa della medicina (2023).
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Book formats
Digital formats