PAOLO MANTEGAZZA'S VISION: The Science of Man behind the World's First Museum of Anthropology (Florence, Italy, 1869)

Abstract

This article examines some significant yet little-known early anthropological achievements in Italy. These include the world's first museum of anthropology, founded in 1869 by Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910) at Florence (Firenze), Italy, where that same year he also established Italy's (and the world's) first cattedra (university professorship) of anthropology. Mantegazza sought to develop a unified “science of man,” with a broad definition of the new discipline that brought together human physiological, ethnographic, and “comparative psychology” collections within his new anthropology museum, later complemented by a companion “psychological” museum. Even though Mantegazza's Florentine school of anthropology ended under Fascism, today the surviving Museum of Anthropology in Florence is still the repository of important ethnographic collections from early Italian traveler-explorers and other contributors. Their study was an important component of Mantegazza's science, which is receiving new attention by modern Italian anthropologists.