Book review: “Ingegni minuti: Una storia della scienza in Italia”

By Lucio Russo, Emanuela Santoni

The book sketches a history of the science evolution in Italy from 1200 up to the XX century. While at the beginning Italy was a pivotal center for the birthday of the science as we intend today, after the Renaissance lights and shadows followed each other with a predominance of the latters. The title of the book “ingegni minuti” was the way Giambattista Vico referred to people dedicated to quantitative sciences, in a derogatory way, considering them less important with respect to literature, history, philosophy. That way of thinking is still radicated in our culture, also because reinforced by persons like Benedetto Croce (who referred to Vico explicitly during his fight against Enriques) and Giovanni Gentile who influenced and changed radically how education and school system is in Italy. Apart some occasional periods or people, science and technological progress in Italy is declined and still it is. We would need a community of people with a mindset like Vito Volterra for example to hope changing something.
Enjoy the book because full of historical facts that explain why we are here today.