Scientific popularization and Italian Children's Encyclopaedias. A historical and pedagogical path from Thirties to Seventies in Twenty Century

Abstract

Scientific dissemination for children is an important sector of editorial production for the young generations, because it often represents their first match with the field of technological and scientific knowledges whose impact on social and cultural reality has been very significant in the last two centuries. The various studies on scientific dissemination for youth have often overlooked encyclopaedias for children which were works particularly widespread, consulted and read by young people for many decades. The article examines the history of children’s encyclopaedias in Italy from the point of view of scientific dissemination, analysing their transformations and the different approaches to describe discoveries and inventions. In particular, it intends to bring out the difficult relationship between children’s encyclopaedias and Darwinian evolutionism: a theory that has long been told in disguised, censored or biased ways. At the same time, the article will review the main protagonists of these editorial adventures such as Arthur Mee, Giuseppe Latronico, Fernando Palazzi, Fabbri Publisher, Father Guidetti, the group of innovative intellectuals of the publishing house La Ruota, Lucio Lombardo Radice.