Giuseppe Sergi. the Portrait of a Positivist Scientist
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doi 10.4436/jass.95007 JASs Historical Corner Journal of Anthropological Sciences Vol. 95 (2017), pp. 109-136 Giuseppe Sergi. The portrait of a positivist scientist Giovanni Cerro Fondazione Collegio San Carlo, via San Carlo 5, 41121 Modena, Italy e-mail: [email protected] Summary – Giuseppe Sergi (1841-1936) was one of the most important anthropologists and psychologists of the age of positivism and this article focuses on three domains of his scientific research: degeneration, eugenics and race. His concept of degeneration is defined as the development of special forms of human adaptation to the environment. This issue is closely related to his theory of the “stratification of character”, which had a profound impact on Italian psychiatry and criminal anthropology in the late nineteenth century. Thus, special emphasis is placed on the differences between Sergi and Cesare Lombroso regarding their definitions of criminality and genius. Concerning eugenics, the article analyzes Sergi’s key role in the Italian context, discussing his eugenic program based on both repression and education. His remedies against the spread of degeneration included not only radical and repressive measures, but also the improvement of popular education and the living conditions of the working class. In the field of physical anthropology, the article examines Sergi’s morphological method of classifying ethnic groups. Although sharply criticized in Italy and abroad, this method had two major effects. First, it led to the definitive split between Sergi and Paolo Mantegazza and to the foundation of the Società Romana di Antropologia in 1893. Second, it was the starting point for Sergi’s theory of Mediterranean “stock”, which claimed that European populations were of African origin in contrast to contemporary theories of Aryan supremacy. The article ends with a look at the heated debate over Sergi’s Mediterraneanism during the period of Fascism. Keywords – Giuseppe Sergi, Physical anthropology, Degeneration, Eugenics, Società Romana di Antropologia, Morphological method, Mediterranean race. Life and Work and abroad as a prolific scientist. His interests included anthropology, psychology, craniology, “Prof. Sergi senior: a face like a friendly 70-year- criminology, philosophy, pedagogy, sociology, old baby; chubby little cheeks, framed in white and biology. Moreover, his anthropological views beard, little hands. The sons hold the father in had sparked interesting debates and controver- extraordinary reverence. They are so anxious not to sies within the scientific community. Musil’s disturb him that when they want to speak to him portrait of Sergi’s family was particularly caustic. alone they join the queue of the other visitors in Sergi’s eldest son, Sergio, is described as “a smart the Anthropological Institute. They idolize their young Roman hackney-cab driver”, whose “soul mother. She is strictly devout, the sons, like their seems to be that of a seventeen-years-old” (Musil, father, are atheists” (Musil, 1999, pp. 161-162). 1999, p. 157). His brother Quirino was an “ide- alist”, engaged to an older woman, and the two This is how the Austrian novelist Robert brothers kept their sister Maria like “an old song- Musil recalled Giuseppe Sergi in his diaries, bird in a cage” so that she would remain “pure” when he met him between late September and and “untouched by life’s darkness”. She spent her early October 1913 during his stay in Rome. time playing piano for hours and the neighbors At the time, Sergi was widely known in Italy considered her an “idiot” (Musil, 1999, p. 162). the JASs is published by the Istituto Italiano di Antropologia www.isita-org.com 110 Giuseppe Sergi. The portrait of a positivist scientist Sergi, for his part, was a “freethinker” and “anar- Education, Ruggero Bonghi, requesting the chist”, imbued with prejudices against women creation of a professorship of psychology in Ital- (Musil, 1999, p. 157). ian high schools and universities (Sergi, 1876). Despite his unflattering opinions, Musil Although his proposal was not accepted (the emphasized an important aspect of Sergi’s per- first professorship of psychology was not created sonality, that is, his independence of thought. until 1905), Sergi obtained a private course of From a scientific perspective, Sergi was openly psychology at the University of Messina for the critical of several prominent scholars of his time: academic year 1878-1879. In 1879, he published Cesare Lombroso, founder of the Italian school his new psychology handbook, Elementi di psico- of positivist criminology, Paolo Mantegazza, the logia, which was translated into French ten years doyen of Italian anthropology, and the palaeoeth- later with the title La psychologie physiologique nologist Luigi Pigorini, noted for his studies on thanks to the work of Théodule Ribot (Sergi, the terramare, the pile-dwelling settlements in 1879, 1888a). This is proof of his growing repu- the Po Valley. tation abroad. Sergi was born in Messina on 20 March 1841. In November 1879, he began to teach theo- His mother Alessandra Brigandì was a house- retical philosophy at the Accademia Scientifico- wife and his father Paolo Sergi was a municipal Letteraria in Milan. Here his colleagues harshly worker. We do not have much information about criticized his evolutionary ideas. Tired of this his childhood and youth but at the age of thir- hostile work environment, Sergi decided to teen, his father and a brother died in the cholera apply for a teaching position in philosophy and epidemic, which had decimated the local popu- anthropological psychology at the University of lation. After that, as his son Sergio Sergi wrote Bologna. Although he had never published any- later, he was “educated to the school of pain” thing anthropological before, the academic com- and “had his mother as model and loving guide” mission decided in his favour and in October (S. Sergi, 1937). After graduation, Sergi enrolled 1880 he took up the chair of anthropology in the in the faculty of law at the University of Messina, faculty of literature and philosophy. but interrupted his studies in 1860 to join Gari- However, he did not receive a hearty wel- baldi’s Camicie Rosse (Red Shirts) at the battle of come in his new institution either. From the Milazzo. Nevertheless, he obtained a diploma to outset, Sergi complained that he was considered teach philosophy and taught at schools in Noto, a mere “naturalist” and that he did not have suf- Messina and Benevento. In the meantime, he ficient funding for his anthropological research. learnt Greek and Sanskrit and started studying Therefore, in 1881, he decided to move to the comparative philology and ancient philosophy, faculty of natural sciences. Soon after, he became especially pythagorism. In 1868, he published his a member of the editorial board of the Rivista di first philosophical work, Usiologia ovvero scienza Filosofia Scientifica, founded by the psychologist dell’essenza: the word usiologia was a neologism and anthropologist Enrico Morselli. In the same from the ancient Greek term ousia, which means year, he made his contribution to the spread of essence, substance (Sergi, 1868). Herbert Spencer’s theories in Italy writing the Besides his interest in philosophy, Sergi dedi- foreword to the Italian edition of The Study of cated himself to psychology adopting a material- Sociology and translating The Data of Ethics istic approach by reducing psychic phenomena to (Sergi, 1881a,b). Disappointed that he had not physiological factors. Between 1873 and 1874, he been awarded a professorship in experimental wrote a two-volume handbook, Principi di psico- psychology at the University of Bologna, in Sep- logia sulla base delle scienze sperimentali, ad uso tember 1884 Sergi moved once more, this time delle scuole, in which he explained the principles to the University of Rome, where he taught until of experimental psychology (Sergi, 1873, 1874). his retirement in 1916. This was probably his In 1876, Sergi wrote to the Minister of Public most productive period as one of the preeminent G. Cerro 111 scientist of the positivist school. He formulated delinquents (Sergi, 1886-1887). In 1889, he pub- his principal theories on degeneration, human lished his seminal work Le degenerazioni umane emotions, classification of crania and Mediter- printed by the leading positivist publishing house, ranean populations, and wrote his major sci- Dumolard (Sergi, 1889a). entific works. In Rome, he demonstrated his In December 1889, Sergi finally realized one organizational skills and created both an anthro- of his dreams when the Minister of Public Edu- pological laboratory, which was equipped with a cation, Paolo Boselli, authorized the creation of large number of psychological instruments, and the first official laboratory of experimental psy- a small museum with skeletal exhibits (Manzi, chology in Italy, at the University of Rome (Sergi, 1987). Sergi obtained permission to set up the 1894c). The laboratory was to carry out research laboratory and the museum near the Church of on psychic and natural phenomena, contributing San Pietro in Vincoli, in the School for Engineers to the advancement of psychological science. This (Sergi, 1916b). In 1886, Francis Galton, Charles research center trained an entire generation of Darwin’s cousin and a pioneer of eugenics, vis- Italian psychologists including Sante De Sanctis, ited his laboratory and was deeply impressed by who in 1905 was the first to hold a chair of psy- the quality and quantity of the instruments. In chology in Italy at the University of Rome, and particular, Galton tested the Hipp chronoscope, Francesco Umberto Saffiotti, who developed psy- used to measure the reaction time to external chological research by studying school children, stimuli. After 1886, Galton returned to Rome soldiers and factory workers. In 1894, in the vol- several times. His last voyage dates to 1903 ume Dolore e Piacere, Sergi presented a theory of (Sergi, 1911b). Sergi was also a guest at his home human emotions, where the latter were the result in Rutledge Gate, London.