Jacob Moleschott - A Transnational Biography: Science, Politics, and Popularization in Nineteenth-Century Europe 9783839439708

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Formalia and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Jacob Moleschott as Transnational Actor in European Cultural History
Jacob Moleschott and the Beginning of his European Career
Moleschott’s Popularization of Physiology and Dietetics in Germany
Zürich: Meeting Point of European Liberal Elites
Experimental Physiology in Turin and Popularization in the Kingdom of Italy, 1861-1878
Moleschott in Rome (1878-1893): Scholar and Senator between Internal and Foreign Politics
Cultural Politics: The Civilizing Mission of Science
Moleschott on Criminal Anthropology and Penal Law
Moleschott and Translation
Celebrating Moleschott, Remembering Moleschott
Conclusion: Jacob Moleschott, a Transnational Actor between Science and Politics
Bibliography

Citation preview

Laura Meneghello Jacob Moleschott – A Transnational Biography

Histoire | Volume 117

Laura Meneghello (PhD) is a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Assistant at the Chair of Modern European History of Knowledge and Communication at the University of Siegen. Her research foci are cultural and political history, the history of science and technology, as well as translation studies and the history of economics, media, and communication.

Laura Meneghello

Jacob Moleschott – A Transnational Biography Science, Politics, and Popularization in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Dissertation, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, accepted by the FB 04 Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften in 2016. The research for and writing of this dissertation were carried out at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2017 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover concept: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Typeset by Laura Meneghello Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-3970-4 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-3970-8

Table of Contents

Formalia and Acknowledgements | 9 Introduction: Jacob Moleschott as Transnational Actor in European Cultural History | 13

Object and Research Question | 13 State of Research, Theory and Method, Structure | 20 Sources and Archives | 33 Jacob Moleschott and the Beginning of his European Career | 37

The Moleschott Family in Leiden and ’s-Hertogenbosch | 40 The Gymnasium at Cleves and the Study of Classical Culture and Idealist Philosophy | 43 Studying Medicine at Heidelberg | 46 Back to the Netherlands: Medical Practice and Research in the Lab in Utrecht, 1845-1847 | 55 Back to Heidelberg: Popularization and Revolution, 1847-1856 | 60 Georg Forster: Moleschott’s Representation of a Politically Engaged Scientist | 94 Moleschott’s Anthropologie as Synthesis of All Disciplines: A Life’s Project | 100 Conclusion | 110 Moleschott’s Popularization of Physiology and Dietetics in Germany | 113

Women as Further Popularizers of Moleschott’s Work | 122 Nature as Organic Whole: “The Unity of Life” | 123 Dietetics | 133 Conclusion | 137 Zürich: Meeting Point of European Liberal Elites | 141

Moleschott at the University of Zürich, 1856-1861 | 147 Licht und Leben | 157 Conclusion | 161

Experimental Physiology in Turin and Popularization in the Kingdom of Italy, 1861-1878 | 163

Moleschott’s Arrival to his “Adoptive Fatherland” | 163 Cultural and Professional Life in Turin | 175 The Italian Citizenship: Moleschott’s “Grand Naturalization” | 181 A Public Personality on the Way to Full Political Engagement | 185 Moleschott’s Popularization of the Natural Sciences in Turin and its Transnational Reception | 189 Conclusion | 220 Moleschott in Rome (1878-1893): Scholar and Senator between Internal and Foreign Politics | 223

Moleschott and Women’s Rights | 229 Moleschott’s Engagement Against Anti-Semitism | 240 Moleschott’s Academic Activity and Popularization of Scientific and Political Ideas at the University of Rome | 245 Moleschott’s Conception of Science in the Debates on the Reform of Higher Education in Italy (1886-1887) | 259 Shaping the Body of the Nation: Moleschott and the Debate on Physical Education in Nineteenth-Century Italy (1878) | 287 Taxation and Nutrition: The Debate on the Abolition of the Grist Tax (Macinato) between Nutritional Theory, Political Economy and Social Policy (1880) | 303 Conclusion: Politics, Natural Science, and the Function of the Classics | 323 Cultural Politics: The Civilizing Mission of Science | 327

The Planned Congrès International pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (1866) | 329 The Monument to Giordano Bruno and its Political Meaning (1889) | 337 Moleschott’s Role of Mediator in the International Sanitary Conference (1885) | 351 Moleschott on Criminal Anthropology and Penal Law | 357

The Debate About the Conference on Criminal Anthropology (Rome 1885): Moleschott versus Tommasi-Crudeli | 359 Moleschott’s Speeches at the International Congress on Criminal Anthropology, Rome 1885 | 368 Italian Penal Law between Criminal Anthropology and Natural Philosophy | 378 Conclusion: Moleschott’s Speeches on Penal Law as a Form of Popularization and a Plea for Secularization | 383

Moleschott and Translation | 391

Criminal Anthropology and Moleschott’s Collaboration with Cesare Lombroso | 391 The Process of Translation and the Circulation of Knowledge | 408 Moleschott as Mediating Figure between Nations and Cultures | 414 Conclusion: Translation and Mediation | 427 Celebrating Moleschott, Remembering Moleschott | 429

Celebrating Moleschott: The Feste Giubilari in 1892 | 429 Remembering Moleschott: Moleschott’s Commemorations at the Senate and at the University | 434 Conclusion: Jacob Moleschott, A Transnational Actor between Science and Politics | 439 Bibliography | 449

Archives (with Abbreviations) | 449 Primary Literature by Jacob Moleschott | 453 Primary Literature by Authors Other than Jacob Moleschott | 467 Reference Works (with Abbreviations) | 471 Secondary Literature | 472

Formalia and Acknowledgements

This is a slightly modified version of my doctoral thesis, submitted in December 2015 and accepted by the FB04 Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften of the University of Giessen in 2016. I have written it between 2011 and 2015 as a member and scholarship-holder of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. I am very grateful for the generous scholarship granted by the GCSC in the framework of the Exzellenzinitiative supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The GCSC has provided a perfect framework for developing my research project not only through its scholarship, but also on the level of academic culture and networks, allowing a constant exchange of ideas and contact with new methods and approaches; it has also awarded me three grants for my archival research. Moreover, I am grateful to anyone who has truly helped me to improve this work and would like to thank all of the persons who somehow supported this project and kindly provided feedback and suggestions or discussed specific topics of this book or its general methodology with me: Friedrich Lenger and Carola Dietze, respectively First and Second Reader of my dissertation at the Historical Institute; Hubertus Büschel, coordinator of the Kolloquium FB04 during the time I was a member of the GCSC; Andreas Langenohl, Principal Investigator at the GCSC. Doris BachmannMedick, Senior Research Fellow at the GCSC, read my chapter on translation; together with Jan Surman and Fabian Link, she played an important role in drawing my attention to translation studies. Besides giving me her feedback on several chapters, Carola Dietze was so kind as to offer me the opportunity to work in her office during the crucial writing period. Paul Ziche suggested Moleschott to me as a possible research subject (thereby encouraging me to do scientific research at all) and allowed me to have early access to archival material when I was writing my Master’s thesis at Utrecht University in 2010; moreover, he read early drafts of two of the following chapters. At Utrecht University, Bert Theunissen also accompanied my very first steps in historical research on Moleschott and nineteenth-century natural sciences.

10 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY

I have presented some of my results at the following conferences and colloquia, whose organizers and members I thank for advice and discussion: the GCSC-Kolloquium and the Oberseminar Neuere Geschichte/Zeitgeschichte in Giessen; the Wissenschaftshistorisches Kolloquium at Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (Moritz Epple); the Colloquium Geschiedenis der Filosofie at Utrecht University; the Driburger Kreis of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik (DGGMNT), Lübeck 2016; the workshop on “The relation(s) between physics and metaphysics in the nineteenth century” in Gent in 2011; the conference on the “Making of the Modern Humanities” at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome in 2012; the yearly conference of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI), “Educating Italy” (London 2015); the conference “Translation in Science/Science in Translation”, Giessen 2017. I also thank all of the archivists who supported my research on Moleschott; a list of consulted archives is contained at the end of the book. In particular, Patrizia Busi (Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archigiannsio, Bologna) allowed me to use the catalogue of the Fondo Speciale Moleschott before it was officially available online; before that, a partial classification was kindly made available to me by Arianna Zaffini. EvaMarie Felschow, Universitätsarchiv Giessen, gave me her advice regarding Moleschott’s correspondence with Justus Liebig. Paola Novaria (Archivio Storico dell’Università di Torino), and the archivists from the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome offered me timely help despite my tight schedule. Silvano Montaldo and Pier Giorgio Montarolo (both University of Turin) provided access to other sources, respectively from the Museo Cesare Lombroso and from the Archivio Angelo Mosso. Further, I am thankful to the IPP (International PhD Programme, Giessen) for having granted me financial support for proofreading, to Friedrich Lenger for supporting my application, and, of course, to Melissa Favara for patiently proofreading my manuscript: it was always a pleasure working with her. I owe a lot to Stefan Rohdewald not only for helping me with the transliteration and translation of Russian titles, but also for his thoughtful advice and encouragement. Moreover, I am very thankful to numerous persons, colleagues and friends for reading my drafts, giving me their advice, sending me literature and sources, or welcoming me during my trips to the archives in different parts of Europe. My family supported me in several ways, both material and moral; notwithstanding the geographical distance, I always felt they were very close to me. Therefore, I am particularly grateful to my mother and sister, as well as to my father, who read the whole manuscript twice before I started to modify it for publishing. Finally, the Historical Seminar at the University of Siegen has provided me with an inspiring intellectual and academic environment for working on the manuscript before publishing, and I am very glad I have the chance to be a post-doc assistant at the Chair of Modern European History of Knowledge and Communication (Noyan Dinçkal).

F ORMALIA

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All translations contained in this book are mine, unless otherwise indicated. All quotes in languages other than German, French, and Latin, are translated into English in the text; however, I have cited them in the original language in the footnotes, in order to preserve the multilingualism of Moleschott’s biography and the plurality of languages involved in this transnational account of European history of science. Cities’ names are translated into English in the text, but appear in their original variant in the bibliographic data. In the source quotations, I have maintained the original orthography. The signature of the sources from the Fondo Speciale Moleschott, Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, is the one respectively valid when I viewed the manuscripts; in the cases when the signature is that of the present classification in the online inventory, this is characterized as “(new)”. In any case, through the new catalogue one should be able to find even the documents with older signatures without problems. The literature is cited according to a slightly modified version of rules of the Chicago Manual of Style. The titles by Jacob Moleschott, listed at the end of the book, tend to completeness and therefore also include a few titles that are not mentioned in the chapters: this part of the bibliography rather serves as a reference for an overview of Moleschott’s writings, and I explicitly refer to it at some point of the book.

Introduction: Jacob Moleschott as Transnational Actor in European Cultural History

O BJECT

AND

R ESEARCH Q UESTION

“[T]hat forehead encompassed a huge deal of human knowledge; from logarithms to music, from physics to psychology, to the most specific branches of practical medicine […]. Oh [his faith] was not the faith of our fathers, who made us happier perhaps, but slaves of the present and then of the past… It was the faith of a great rebel, a rebel in science and in the arts, in religion and in politics. It was the faith of a modern Capaneus,1 redeemed by the love for truth, who believed to be called – and perhaps that was an illusion – to change humanity’s destiny. […] He was more than a genius, often passing on human generations, like a luminous but fatal meteor; he was an idea, he was the apostle of the modern idea, which we will unfortunately not be able to see realized, but of which you, the young generation, shall finally see the dawn.”2

1

According to the Greek legend, Capaneus was a son of Hipponous and was one of the Seven against Thebes; he possessed enormous strength, but also arrogance: due to the latter, he was killed by Zeus while he was invading Thebes. Cf. René Nünlist (Basle), “Capaneus.” Brill’s New Pauly. Antiquity volumes ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Brill Online, 2015. Reference. Universitaetsbibliothek Giessen. November 29, 2015. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/capaneuse608490.

First

appeared online: 2006. Thereby Lombroso attributed to Moleschott positive qualities such as courage and strength, but also possibly less positive ones such as that of having too high an esteem of oneself and, due to one’s overestimation, pursuing illusory aims. Similarly to Prometheus, Capaneus can be considered as an embodiment of ὕβρις. 2

Cesare Lombroso, La mente di Moleschott. Da una conferenza tenuta allʼUniversità di Torino il 9 giugno 1893. Archivio di Psichiatria, Scienze Penali ed Antropologia criminale,

14 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY

These words resonated in the halls of the University of Turin on June 9, 1893, when the bronze bust of Jacob Moleschott by the sculptor Ettore Ferrari was uncovered, about three weeks after Moleschott’s death. The speaker was Cesare Lombroso, the founder of criminal anthropology, who saw himself as the heir of Moleschott’s scientific thought. The sculptor, Ettore Ferrari, was the same artist who created the statue of Giordano Bruno in Campo dei Fiori, in front of which Moleschott gave two speeches – one in Dutch and one in Italian, respectively in May and June 1889 – on the occasion of its inauguration. Ferrari was, in a way, the official sculptor of unified Italy, promoting its national ideology and its secular (and mostly anti-clerical) heroes.3 But who was Jacob Moleschott, actually? If Ettore Ferrari was the sculptor of his bust, then we might infer that he himself had become a figure in the pantheon of Italian national heroes. But what was his involvement in the program of Italian national ideology? And, above all, where did he come from, and which path did he follow before achieving such a position in the secular and nationalist Italian pantheon? How did it happen, in other words, that a physiologist, who became an Italian citizen only in 1867, came to occupy such a position? In fact, Jacob Moleschott was not born an Italian, but a Dutch citizen: he was born in ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1822 and died in Rome in 1893. He had a very international, that is to say, European career: he studied medicine in Heidelberg and, after having worked for two years as a physician and assistant in the lab of the chemist Johannes Mulder in Utrecht, he became Privatdozent at the University of Heidelberg. When the government of Baden did not appreciate his attempts to spread materialist theories in his courses on anthropology and in his popularizing writings, he lamented

14 (1893), 6: 1-4; the passages here reported are on pages 1 and 4: “quella fronte inquadrava unʼimmensa parte dello scibile umano; dai logaritmi alla musica, dalla fisica alla psicologia, ai rami più speciali della medicina pratica [...]. Ah! non era la fede soave dei nostri padri, che ci rendeva più felici forse, ma schiavi del presente e poi del passato… Era la fede di un grande ribelle: ribelle nella scienza, nellʼarte, nella religione e nella politica. Era la fede di un Capaneo novello, redento dallʼamor del vero, che si credeva, ed era forse illusione, chiamato a mutare i destini degli uomini [...]. Egli era più che un genio, che spesso passa sulle generazioni umane, come una meteora luminosa ma fatale; egli era unʼidea, egli era lʼapostolo della idea moderna, che noi purtroppo non vedremo attuata, ma di cui, voi giovani, finalmente vedrete lʼalbore.” The speech was also published in Jacob Moleschott, Per gli amici miei. Ricordi autobiografici, trans. Elsa Patrizi-Moleschott (Palermo, Milano: Sandron, 1902), 332-339. 3

Cf. Anna Maria Isastia, “Ferrari, Ettore”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 46 (1996), online version (last viewed November 25, 2015): http://www.treccani.it/enciclope dia/ettore-ferrari_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/.

I NTRODUCTION

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that he was not granted the “freedom of teaching” (Lehrfreiheit), and he left the University of Heidelberg. Later, he taught at the University of Zürich, until he was finally appointed Professor of Physiology at the University of Turin in 1861. He became Senator of the newly established Italian Kingdom in 1876 and Professor at “La Sapienza” in Rome in 1878. Together with Carl Vogt (1817-1895) and Ludwig Büchner (1824-1899), Moleschott is considered one of the most representative materialist scientists of the nineteenth century.4 Moleschott himself never took care to define the term “materialist science”, and, especially in his Italian writings, rather used the expression “scienza positiva”, that is, the natural sciences as they were conceived by positivism, as empirical and experimental. His life, spanning most of the nineteenth century, was contemporary with many important historical processes and events, as well as substantial structural changes; as we will see, not only are these relevant for the understanding of Moleschott’s life and career, but Moleschott was himself a significant actor in these very processes. This study is, therefore, a contribution to their history that focuses on the concrete microlevel of actors, discourses, and practices of knowledge transfer, rather than on the abstract macrolevel of structures and ideas.5 First, for the history of science, the nineteenth century is not only the time of the establishment of biology and physiology as scientific disciplines, but also a period of specialization, institutionalization and professionalization.6 In biology, several currents opposed each other, disagreeing on the problem of teleology and on the conception of organic life. This conflict can be summarized as the conflict between materialism on the one hand, rejecting any non-material principle as being at the basis of organic life, and vitalism on the other hand, defending the existence of a vital force

4

The correspondence between Carl Vogt, Ludwig Büchner, Jacob Moleschott, and the monist and popularizer of Darwinism Ernst Haeckel has been published by Christoph Kockerbeck (ed.), Carl Vogt, Jacob Moleschott, Ludwig Büchner, Ernst Haeckel: Briefwechsel (Marburg: Basilisken-Presse, 1999).

5

On science as a cultural practice, cf. Moritz Epple and Claus Zittel (eds.), Cultures and Politics of Research from the Early Modern Period to the Age of Extremes, vol. 1 of Science as Cultural Practice (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010), as well as Steven Shapin, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if it was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2010), 14, who defines science as a “historically situated, embodied […] set of practicesˮ.

6

Cf. Rudolf Stichweh, Wissenschaft, Universität, Professionen. Soziologische Analysen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994).

16 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY

(Lebenskraft) which would distinguish the organic from the inorganic realm.7 Second, industrialization reached countries such as Germany and Italy, bringing deep changes in their social structure, as well as in the panoramas of urbanization; this, in turn, implied an increase of hygienic problems and, as a reflex, brought the problem of poverty and of precarious hygienic conditions to the attention of the experts (both scientists and politicians).8 At the same time, the processes of food importation, conservation, and processing, which were made possible by economic change and technical developments, were the preconditions for conceiving nutritional theories implying the consumption of large quantities of animal proteins, especially of meat. Significantly, some of the scientists who, like Moleschott, theorized a diet based on animal proteins, were also well aware of the relations between nutrition and political economy, such as Johannes Mulder; others, such as Justus Liebig, foresaw the success of transnational companies processing and importing meat from South America. Both Mulder and Liebig were aware, on the one hand, that lower meat prices would mean greater meat consumption in Europe, and on the other hand, that precisely a greater meat consumption would stimulate a higher production, greater import, and thus lower meat prices.9 Third, the affirmation of the middle class (which was related to the abovementioned economic and social changes due to industrialization) and literacy implied the formation of a vast audience for the media developing at that time, 7

On this topic, cf. William Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function and Transformation (New York: Wiley, 1974); Timothy Lenoir, The Strategy of Life. Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth Century German Biology (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1982); Paul McLaughlin, Kant’s Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation: Antinomy and Teleology (Lewiston: Mellen Press, 1990). On the specific Italian development of biological thought in the nineteenth century, cf. A. Dini, Vita e organismo: le origini della fisiologia sperimentale in Italia (Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 1991). I have dealt with Moleschott’s position in these debates, comparing it with Kant’s, Hegel’s and Goethe’s conception of organism, in my Master’s thesis: Laura Meneghello, “Jacob Moleschott and the Conception of Science in the 19th Century: Scientific Materialism as ‘Totalizing’ Worldview” (Master’s thesis, Utrecht University, 2010).

8

On industrialization, cf. Friedrich Lenger, Industrielle Revolution und Nationalstaatsgründung (1849-1870er Jahre), vol. 15 of Gebhardt. Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, 10., völlig neu bearb. Aufl., 19. Jahrhundert (1806-1918), ed. Jürgen Kocka (Stuttgart: KlettCotta, 2003); on the emergence of metropolises, hygienic problems and the consequent need for hygienic norms and social discipline rules, cf. Friedrich Lenger, Metropolen der Moderne: eine europäische Stadtgeschichte seit 1850 (München: Beck, 2013), 162.

9

I will deal with Moleschott’s and Mulder’s nutritional theories in the chapter about “Taxation and Nutrition”; on Justus Liebig, cf. the contributions in Justus Liebig (1803-1873). Der streitbare Gelehrte. Ausstellung vom 9. Mai bis 30. August 2003, ed. Präsident der Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen (Gießen: Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, 2003).

I NTRODUCTION

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above all journals and newspapers. As we will see, Moleschott was himself a typical representative of the European bourgeoisie, sharing and reproducing its norms and practices, its structures and its habits.10 Fourth, increasing literacy and a larger middle class were the precursors for the rise of scientific popularization as mass popularization: in the nineteenth century, there was a huge increase in printed media that reproduced, spread, and popularized scientific knowledge, presenting it as the empirical foundation of an enlightened worldview.11 As I will argue, Moleschott contributed to this great popularizing enterprise during his whole life, adapting his popularizing strategies to the different social contexts in which he lived and worked. Fifth, this was the time of secularization, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, but also triggered by social phenomena, such as urbanization and the increasing bureaucratic power of the state (which was e.g. holding registers of births and marriages).12 Sixth, it was the time of nationalism, which, together with the ideals of democracy and liberalism, was one of the leading political ideas of the century.13 This was evident in the recently formed nation-states of Italy and Germany, as well as in the revolution of 1848 and in the years preceding it (which correspond to the time when Moleschott studied in Heidelberg, as well as with the start of his Privatdozentur). This went hand in hand with secularization, since nationalism created a pantheon of secular heroes

10 On the German bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century and a comparison with other European countries, cf. Jürgen Kocka (ed.), Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert. Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich (München: dtv, 1988), in particular in vol. 1, Marco Meriggi, “Italienisches und deutsches Bürgertum im Vergleichˮ, 141-159. On the huge increase in the number of journals and newspapers in the nineteenth century, cf. Wolfgang König, Geschichte der Konsumgesellschaft (Stuttgrat: Steiner, 2000), 400. 11 Cf. Angela Schwarz, Der Schlüssel zur modernen Welt: Wissenschaftspopularisierung in Grossbritannien und Deutschland im Übergang zur Moderne (ca. 1870-1914) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999), as well as Andreas W. Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert: bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit, 1848-1914 (München: Oldenbourg, 1998); as an example of popularizing journals cited by Daum, we can mention Die Natur (co-founded by Moleschott’s father-in-law, Otto Ule), as an example of journals not exclusively popularizing the natural sciences but addressing the middleclass with broader topics, Die Gartenlaube. 12 Cf. Lenger, Industrielle Revolution und Nationalstaatsgründung, 243-247. Cf. also Owen Chadwick, The secularization of the European mind in the nineteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985). 13 On nationalism, cf. Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin Books, 1991), as well as Dieter Langewiesche, Nation, Nationalismus, Nationalstaat in Deutschland und Europa (München: Beck, 2000).

18 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY

and myths, which divinized the idea of the nation-state.14 Seventh, the ideals of freedom of research and academic freedom, as well as of the independence of research from political power, were considered to be central to the modern university.15 These aspects are very important with regard to Moleschott’s self-representation as a scientist, to his conception of science and scientific research, as well as to his idea of the university as an institution. The latter became evident in 1854, when he left the University of Heidelberg, as well as later on, in the 1880s, when he contributed to the debates on the reform of the Italian university system. In Germany and in Italy, the two countries where Moleschott worked for the longest time, his career developed in narrow contact with the political and social milieu, and he himself was, so to speak, always in the middle of important socio-political changes, not only participating, but actively contributing to them. I will try to understand Moleschott’s life and work in the framework of all of these processes, which characterized the second half of the nineteenth century, namely: newly-established nation-states and emerging nationalisms, economic liberalism and bourgeois ethos, the “Humboldtian ideals” of freedom of research and teaching, the secularization of European society, scientific popularization, and the emergence of the press as a mass medium. Moleschott was himself both informed by these historical developments and informing them as an actor of historical, political, and social change: not only as a Senator in Italy, but even long before, in Heidelberg as a teacher and as a student, he already engaged in the formation and popularization of nationalist ideas. As we will see, the popularization of science went hand in hand with the diffusion of political ideas. The aim of the following work is to study Moleschott’s life-path also as a means to a better understanding of the abovelisted central phenomena in nineteenth-century European history, focusing precisely on the relation between science and politics; popularization, the third element in the subtitle, can be considered as the link between the two former elements. It was namely through popularization that science and politics joined their efforts for the sake of a common, national interest. In Moleschott’s work, science was never popularized without reference to higher ethical and political values (libertarian values such as democracy and equality, but also utilitarian values such as efficiency and economic profit), and political (nationalist) ideas were never popularized without the help of scientific concepts. In this way, highly ideological and emotional attitudes were justified with the help of scientific ideas, thus as rationally and empirically founded. As we will see, all of Moleschott’s speeches and lectures delivered in Italy can be understood as a form of popularization. 14 Cf. Monika Flacke (ed.), Mythen der Nationen: ein europäisches Panorama (München: Koehler & Amelang, 2001). 15 Cf. R. Steven Turner, “Universitätenˮ, in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte, vol. 3 (1800-1870: Von der Neuordnung Deutschlands bis zur Gründung des Deutschen Reiches), ed. Karl-Ernst Jeismann and Peter Lundgreen (München: Beck, 1987), 221-249.

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The most striking particularity of Moleschott’s career is, to be sure, its transnationality: not only did he study abroad, not only did he become a politician, but he worked in several countries and, before moving for the seventh time, he became a member of the Italian Senate. As a person, Moleschott had the remarkable ability to adapt his theories, his style, and his research to new national and social contexts. Therefore, he is a perfect example of the transnational mobility of a scientist in the nineteenth century. In this sense, I consider the “mobilities turn” in cultural studies and sociology to be as central for the history of science.16 At the same time, some of my findings among Moleschott’s unpublished letters show that the processes of migration and adaptation in his career were not just determined by chance, but that instead he reflected on them and consciously chose to migrate in order to fully develop his intellectual potential and to increase his academic and political “capital”. The main thesis that is supported by my findings is that science and politics were deeply entangled in processes of nation-building in the nineteenth century, and that precisely transnational actors like Moleschott played a central role in these processes, both through their international networks and through their roles as cultural brokers, mediators, “quasi-ambassadors”, go-betweens, and translators.17 Thus, this study is the first academic biography of Jacob Moleschott, one which is not based exclusively or almost exclusively on his autobiography and which is not limited to an internal analysis of his German writings, but which instead takes into account a great number of unpublished sources as well as his later work, in particular his Senate speeches and his university lectures, assessing them through a contextualizing and comparative approach. What has been done in the research on Moleschott and on materialism so far, and which approaches have inspired my own work, will be the object of the next section.

16 Cf. Mimi Sheller, “Sociology after the mobilities turn”, in The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities, ed. Peter Adey, David Bissell, Kevin Hannam, Peter Merriman and Mimi Sheller (Routledge: London, 2014), 45-54. 17 The concept of “go-between” has gained increasing importance in recent research not only in cultural studies, but also in the history of science. Cf. for instance the edited volume by Simon Schaffer, Lissa Roberts, Kapil Raj, James Delbourgo (eds.), The Brokered World. Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770-1820 (Sagamore Beach: Science History publ., 2009). For the concept of “quasi-ambassadorˮ, cf. Martin Kohlrausch, Building Europe on expertise: innovators, organizers, networkers (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 159.

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S TATE

OF

R ESEARCH , T HEORY

AND

M ETHOD , S TRUCTURE

Surprisingly, the life and work of such a striking natural scientist, who moved from one country to another with extreme adaptability (both on the personal level and on the general level of his scientific and political ideas), has barely found a place in historical research so far. The publications that have appeared until this moment, including Gregory’s book on Scientific Materialism in 19th-century Germany, have considered Moleschott as part of the greater movement of “scientific materialism”.18 In the German Democratic Republic, Dieter Wittich has edited and annotated part of his major popularizing work, together with pieces from Carl Vogt’s and Georg Büchner’s popularizing books, understanding them, in line with Marx and Engels, as “Vulgärmaterialisten” and critically examining their theory of knowledge from the perspective of Marxism-Leninism.19 The articles and monographs completely dedicated to Moleschott are very few: the most recent ones are to be found in the Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana (2011), where some of the contributions of the conference held in Bologna in 200920 have been published as journal articles.21 Among these contributions, Alessandro Savorelli’s offers an interesting perspective on Moleschott’s thought in the cultural and philosophical context immediately following the Italian unification. Besides that, Giorgio Cosmacini has dealt with Moleschott from the perspective of the history of medicine and the history of ideas in his contribution in the Annali della Storia d’Italia in 198022 and, in 2005,23 in a biography in Italian which, however, almost exclusively focuses on Moleschott’s own autobiography and on Lombroso’s translation of the 18 Gregory dedicates chapter IV, pages 80-99, of his book to Moleschott; besides him, the other “materialists” who are the object of the book are Ludwig Feuerbach, Heinrich Czolbe, Ludwig Büchner and Carl Vogt. 19 Dieter Wittich (ed.), Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner. Schriften zum kleinbürgerlichen Materialismus in Deutschland (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1971). 20 “Jacob Moleschott (1822-1893): Scientist, Philosopher, Politician across Europe”, Bologna, November 2-3, 2009. 21 Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 541-660 (the whole section “Studi e ricerche” is dedicated to “Jakob Moleschott”). It includes my own contribution, based on my presentation “Rhetoric Imagery and the Image of Science”: Laura Meneghello, “Scientific Materialism and the Conception of Science: A Case-Study Based on the Work of Jacob Moleschott”. Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 554-564. 22 Giorgio Cosmacini, “Problemi medico-biologici e concezione materialistica nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento”, in Scienza e tecnica nella cultura e nella società dal Rinascimento a oggi. Annali 3 of the Storia d’Italia, ed. Gianni Micheli (Torino: Einaudi, 1980), 813-861. 23 Giorgio Cosmacini, Il medico materialista: vita e pensiero di Jakob Moleschott (Roma, Bari: Laterza, 2005).

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Kreislauf des Lebens, lacking any source-critical approach.24 In 1985, Udo Hagelgans published a short monograph (a dissertation as Dr. med.) on Moleschott’s scientific work from the perspective of the history of medicine, asking the question of the extent to which his findings are confirmed or refuted by successive research and thus assessing his work from the perspective of contemporary research in medicine and biology.25 In the 1860s, Walter Moser had also published a short monograph on Moleschott, based on his autobiography, on his German popularizing books and on some documents from Zürich university archives.26 Finally, van ter Laage published a book on Moleschott in Dutch in 1980, which presents an overview of his life and work, as well as the assessment and summaries of some letters from his Nachlass in Bologna and from the correspondence with the Dutch scientists Izaac van Deen and Franciscus Cornelis Donders.27 In my Master’s thesis, I have already dealt with Moleschott’s thought at some length and based on archival material;28 however, my approach was very different from that of the present work. In “Jacob Moleschott and the Conception of Science in the 19th Century: Scientific Materialism as ‘Totalizing’ Worldview”, I have interrogated the sources mainly from the perspective of the history of philosophy and the history of ideas; however, I have also taken into account the context of nationalism and the political and social environment of unified Italy, as well as the scientific context of the debates on vitalism and materialism. I have come to the conclusion that Moleschott had a “totalizing” worldview of the natural sciences, including into the domain of science, religious, ethical, and philosophical issues. In the present book, I consider Moleschott’s life and work by embedding them in the social and cultural history of the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as in the transnational networks of scientists, scholars, and politicians he belonged to. In this case study on a nineteenth-century scientist, scholar, and politician, the main research questions concern the interaction and entanglement of science and politics,

24 Cf. the review by Alessandro Savorelli, “Su Moleschott niente di nuovo: una biografia peggiorataˮ. Giornale Critico Della Filosofia Italiana, 2 (2006), 3: 514-521. 25 Udo Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1985). 26 Walter Moser, Der Physiologe Jakob Moleschott (1822-1893) und seine Philosophie (Zürich: Juris-Verlag, 1967). It was originally presented as “Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Zahnheilkunde der Medizinischen Fakultät der Universität Zürichˮ and consists altogether of 55 pages. 27 R.J.Ch.v. ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott: een markante persoonlijkheid in de negentiende eeuwse fysiologie? (Zeist: Druk Gregoriushuis, 1980). Although containing some interesting information, this book constitutes rather a collection of sources and their preliminary assessment than a coherent scientific work. 28 Laura Meneghello, “Jacob Moleschott and the Conception of Science in the 19th Century”.

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as well as transnational knowledge transfer and circulation.29 In the chapter on translation, I show how the circulation of knowledge took place, how its actors communicated, and how it was dependent, for a great deal, on translation and negotiation processes. The entanglement of science and rhetoric, or of science and politics, the importance of style for the circulation and transmission of scientific ideas, the mingling of private, professional and public spheres, which are theorized by Bruno Latour,30 are here exemplified through concrete case studies regarding the life of a scientist who has been one of the protagonists of such processes. As far as the transnationality of scientific cooperation and scientific networks is concerned, there could not be a better biography than Moleschott’s to illustrate this point – even and above all in the framework of nationalist ideology. In fact, Moleschott’s activity as a popularizer, a politician, and a member of international associations of scientists shows that engagement in nationalist issues did not exclude, but rather presupposed transnational networking. This makes clear why, in the case of Moleschott a biographical perspective is not only justified, but also proves to be the perfect way to exemplify central issues in current research in cultural studies and in the history of science – even after the criticism expressed by ethnologists, sociologists and post-modernism, which questions 29 On the entanglement of science and politics in the same period of time, cf. for instance Timothy Lenoir, Politik im Tempel der Wissenschaft: Forschung und Machtausübung im deutschen Kaiserreich (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1992); Volker Roelcke, “Auf der Suche nach der Politik in der Wissensproduktion. Plädoyer für eine historisch-politische Epistemologie”, in Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 33 (2010): 176-192; Sybilla Nikolow and Arne Schirrmacher (eds.), Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit als Ressourcen füreinander. Studien zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2007); Mitchell Ash, “Wissenschaft und Politik als Ressourcen für einander”, in Wissenschaften und Wissenschaftspolitik. Bestandsaufnahmen zu Formationen, Brüchen und Kontinuitäten im Deutschland des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Rüdiger vom Bruch (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), 32-51. 30 Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). On the Actor-Network-Theory, cf. Andreas Langenohl and Carsten Ochs, “Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie”, in Metzler-Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie: Ansätze – Personen – Grundbegriffe (5., aktualisierte und erw. Aufl.), ed. Ansgar Nünning (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2013), 12-14, as well as Andréa Belliger (ed.), ANThology: ein einführendes Handbuch zur Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (Bielefeld: transcript, 2006), and Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). My research does not focus on actors without intentionality for the simple reason that the sources available on Moleschott barely provide any information on them: we do not know anything specific enough about the objects in his laboratory to be able to make relevant statements on that.

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the very representation and conception of life as a linear narrative, as a coherent whole having its own sense (both as significance and direction, as argued by Bourdieu), unity, and totality.31 I take their critiques seriously, trying to deconstruct the unity, sense, and linearity given by Moleschott to the account of his own life; especially, I will attempt to make clear where it is likely that Moleschott interpreted his own life-path in the light of its later development, or purposefully represented it in a certain way because the reader would expect him to represent it in that way. This regards above all the representation of Italy as the necessary destination for his career, as well as the description of his love for the Italian culture and language as being deeply rooted in his life: both pertain to Moleschott’s construction of his own Italian national identity.32 A biographical perspective that is critical of Moleschott’s own autobiography (and, thus, of all secondary literature which uncritically takes up Moleschott’s own representation of his life), seems to be the best approach not only for representing the career of a nineteenth-century scientist in its political, social and ideological context, but also for letting the transnationality of his career and the transdisciplinarity of his fields of expertise emerge.33 In fact, biographies have the inestimable value of showing precisely the intermingling of roles, or the concentration of powers, in one life story.34 As we will see, through such a perspective it is possible to observe the entanglement of private and public aspects, of transnational collaboration and nationalist ideology, of science and politics in one single life and career. Saying it with Bourdieu, 31 Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, Raisons pratiques. Sur la théorie de l’action (Paris: Seuil, 1994), 8189. 32 Cf. Smith, National Identity, in particular chapter 4, “Nationalism and Cultural Identityˮ, and the subchapter “The Intellectuals and Nationalist Cultureˮ, 91-98. 33 The value of a biographical approach for the history of science, its possible advantages and disadvantages, have been described by Margit Szöllösi-Janze, “Lebens-Geschichte – Wissenschafts-Geschichte. Vom Nutzen der Biographie für Geschichtswissenschaft und Wissenschaftsgeschichte”. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 23 (2000): 17-35. doi: 10.1002/bewi.20000230104. 34 Some examples of biographies in the history of science: Margit Szöllösi-Janze, Fritz Haber, 1868-1934: eine Biographie. 2. Aufl. (München: Beck, 2015); Gabriel Finkelstein, Emil du Bois-Reymond: neuroscience, self, and society in nineteenth-century Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2013). For accounts of life-paths with a transnational dimension: Kader Konuk, East-West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010; Carola Dietze, Nachgeholtes Leben: Helmuth Plessner, 1892-1985 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006). With a focus on social history: Friedrich Lenger, Werner Sombart: 1863-1941; eine Biographie (München: Beck, 1994). With a focus on political history: Christopher Duggan, Francesco Crispi. From Nation to Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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one can conceive of Moleschott as the bearer of multiple “capitals”, which he never really kept separated, but rather “concentrated”, especially during specific phases of his career: the social, scientific, political, and familial capital went hand in hand.35 Moleschott’s uniqueness is precisely his ability to “accumulate” these different sorts of “capital” and to “concentrate” them in his hands, having apparently no difficulty at all in combining their different “logics”. In other words, Moleschott managed not only to transfer knowledge (scientific expertise, as well as practical and administrative knowledge, if we think about the university system or hygienic rules) between different national, political, and social contexts, but also to translate between different “fields” of knowledge and practice. This was also the condition for his great mobility and adaptability. It is in this sense that Moleschott can be considered, first of all, as a mediator and a translator (not only between languages, but also in the broad sense of “cultural broker”).36 In order to comprehend Moleschott’s figure as a translator (in both a narrow, i.e. literal, and a broad sense), I refer to research on translation (Translationsforschung). In recent years, translation studies have made clear the significance of the very activity of translation for cultural and knowledge transfer,37 showing that translation not only implies a change in the form of the transmission, but that it also shapes the content of the message, as well as the languages involved in this process. Moleschott’s biography can be best understood if one applies the theories of “travelling concepts” and “translation”38 on multiple levels: first, Moleschott was himself a translator; second, his work was translated into several languages and its reception in Europe and in the world depended on its translation (e.g. his Kreislauf des Lebens was translated by Cesare Lombroso). Third, he essentially contributed to knowledge transfer between several European countries at once; fourth, he showed great compatibility with basically any social system he came in contact with: even 35 For the concepts of capital sociale, politique, symbolique, scientifique, cf. Bourdieu, Raisons pratiques. 36 For a theoretical framework, cf. Doris Bachmann-Medick (ed.), The Trans/National Study of Culture: A Translational Perspective (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2014). The concept of “cultural broker”, originating from the field of anthropology and ethnology, has become commonly used also in historical studies on cultural transfer and mediation in recent years: cf. e.g. Marc von der Höh, Nikolas Jaspert and Jenny Oesterle (eds.), Cultural Brokers at Mediterranean Courts in the Middle Ages (Paderborn: Fink, 2013). 37 Cf. Michaela Wolf, Die vielsprachige Seele Kakaniens: Übersetzen und Dolmetschen in der Habsburgermonarchie 1848 bis 1918 (Wien, Weimar, Köln: Böhlau 2012), especially 19 ff. and 40 ff. 38 Cf. Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning (eds.), Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), especially Doris Bachmann-Medick, “Translation – A Concept and Model for the Study of Culture”, 23-44.

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his departure from Heidelberg and his conflict with the University and Ministry in 1854 was sublimated and completely removed in the speech he gave in May 1886 for the five-hundredth anniversary of the University. Fifth, this led to his role as cultural mediator and official delegate (for and in different countries at once); sixth, Moleschott also had the ability to translate transversally from “capitals” and “fields” (in the sense of Bourdieu) into other “capitals” and “fields”.39 In the whole book, I have adopted a transnational approach to my research:40 even when focusing on a particular location in which Moleschott’s career took place, on one of his roles or, in Bourdieu’s words, on a particular “placement” or “déplacement”, I have always attempted to compare it with other, successive or previous moments in his life and career and with other roles. In this sense, in each chapter, I consider Moleschott’s life and work not only synchronically, but also diachronically; at the same time, I do not consider the stations of his life as being rigidly separated from each other, but I always try to understand them in the context of other events and other places. Finally, the object of the following work is the cultural and social history of a scientist and popularizer, scholar and politician in the nineteenth century, whose transnational career did not interfere with his adherence to the principles of nationalism: to the contrary, his international networks allowed his engagement in nationalist issues. Whereas there is enough literature on the construction of Italy as a nation and the ideology connected with it,41 this is seldom related to a biography,42 and even 39 Cf. Bourdieu, Raisons Pratiques, 88: Bourdieu identifies each “événement biographique” as implying “autant de placements et de déplacements dans l’espace sociale, c’està-dire, plus précisément, dans les différents états successifs de la structure de la distribution des différents espèces de capital qui sont en jeu dans le champ considéréˮ. 40 On transnational history, cf. the edited volume by Gunilla Budde, Sebastian Conrad, and Oliver Janz (eds.), Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Tendenzen und Theorien (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2006), in particular, on intellectual history, Emma Rothschild, “Arcs of Ideas. International History and Intellectual History”, 217-226. For the concept of transnationality as “travelling concept of travel”, cf. Frank Bösch and Hubertus Büschel, “Transnational and Global Perspectives as Travelling Concepts in the Study of Culture”, in Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, ed. Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 371-388. Cf. also the abovementioned volume by Doris Bachmann-Medick (ed.), The Trans/National Study of Culture. 41 E.g. Mario Isnenghi (ed.), I luoghi della memoria. Simboli e miti dellʼItalia unita (Roma, Bari: Laterza, 1996). On high culture and nationalist ideology cf. for instance Birgit Pauls, Giuseppe Verdi und das Risorgimento: ein politischer Mythos im Prozeß der Nationenbildung (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996). 42 With some exceptions, especially in the biographies of politicians, e.g. Christopher Duggan, Francesco Crispi.

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more seldom to the biography of a scientist.43 The present work seeks to show the contribution of a scientist to the process of nation-building, in particular in the Italian context.44 Whereas this issue has already been dealt with from the perspective of concept-transfer from biology to politics,45 I approach the issue of the interaction between science and politics in the newborn Italian nation-state through analyzing Moleschott’s career. The fact that, from 1876 on, he was both a scientist and a politician, does not imply that I shall only focus on the period after 1876 in my analysis of the interaction between science and politics: to the contrary, I will show that his political engagement as a scientist and as an expert dates from early in his career (specifically, he engaged in the Italian nation-building well before his official appointment as Senator). As the title suggests, the present work is not concerned with “materialism” as a current in nineteenth-century natural sciences and philosophical thought, but on a specific actor in the landscape of nineteenth-century natural sciences, nationalism, politics, and popularization. Moreover, it is not concerned with the material culture of the laboratory in Moleschott’s scientific practice, or the conditions of experiments, or on the relations between actors and networks in the lab, for the simple reason that the sources are very scarce and do not display any specificity.46

43 Cf. for instance Rainer Brömer, Plastidules to humans. Leopoldo Maggi (1840-1905) and Ernst Haeckelʼs naturalist philosophy in the Kingdom of Italy; with an edition of Maggiʼs letters to Ernst Haeckel, vol. 14 (2009) of Annals of the history and philosophy of biology (Göttingen: Univ.-Verl., 2011) (here, the issue of nationalist ideology could have been dealt with more prominently) and Constantin Goschler, Rudolf Virchow. Mediziner, Anthropologe, Politiker (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2002). 44 Concerning the role of intellectuals (professors, historians, theologians, economists) in German nationalism, cf. Hedda Gramley, Propheten des deutschen Nationalismus: Theologen, Historiker und Nationalökonomen (1848-1880) (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2001). Concerning the engagement of Italian scientists in politics, cf. Silvano Montaldo, “Scienziati e potere politico”, in Scienza e cultura nell’Italia unita, Annali 26 of the Storia d’Italia, ed. Francesco Cassata and Claudio Pogliano (Torino: Einaudi, 2011), 37-61. 45 Cf. e.g. Silvia Caianiello, “Collettività ed individuo nell’Ottocento: il ruolo della teoria cellulare”. Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, 23 (2003), 3: 402-419; on Rudolf Virchow cf. Renato G. Mazzolini and Klaus-Peter Tieck, Politisch-biologische Analogien im Frühwerk Rudolf Virchows (Marburg: Basilisken-Presse, 1988). 46 The reports of some experiments, partly written down by Moleschott, are conserved in the Archivio Angelo Mosso (Università di Torino, Sezione di Fisiologia del Dipartimento di Neuroscienze). On the history of Moleschott’s Nachlass, specifically of the Fondo Moleschott in Bologna and the criteria for its inventory process, cf. Patrizia Busi, “Moleschott

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Popularization does constitute one of the main topics of the book: Moleschott’s career is characterized by the constant presence and deep impact – both on his own academic and political career, as well as on the audience of readers and, more broadly, on the whole national society through his advice as a governmental expert – of popularization.47 Gender research and theory,48 even though not a central topic in my book, is nevertheless relevant: first, I consider Moleschott’s wife, Sophie Strecker, as an essential actor not only in his personal and familial life, but also and above all in his scientific career, highlighting her role in shaping both the intellectual environment (through her work as a poet and translator) and the material conditions of Moleschott’s work (financially enabling the establishment of his own laboratory). Second, the reception of Moleschott’s thought and nutritional theory was partly fostered by women – or, better, through publications written by women for women, in such disparate domains as the moral implications of his worldview and the application of his nutritional theory to everyday cooking.49 Third, Moleschott himself engaged in the issues of women’s rights, specifically the right to vote and the right to

nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna: storia del fondo archivistico e criteri d’ordinamento”. Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 588-598 (on the Archivio Angelo Mosso, page 590). 47 On scientific popularization in nineteenth-century Germany, cf. Andreas Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert; Angela Schwarz, Der Schlüssel zur modernen Welt. On the popularization of Ernst Haeckel’s theories in Italy, cf. Rainer Brömer, Plastidules to humans. 48 Cf. Karin Hausen, Geschlechtergeschichte als Gesellschaftsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012). 49 An interpretation of Moleschott’s scientific theories as the basis of true morality can be found in the popualrizing book by Mathilde Reichardt-Stromberg, Wissenschaft und Sittenlehre (Gotha: Scheube, 1856). For the application of Moleschott’s and Liebig’s nutritional theories to everyday cooking, cf. Anonymous, Die neue Köchin. Von der Verfasserin des Kochbuches “Lina”: Die Köchin wie sie sein soll und muss, bereits in sechs starken Auflagen erschienen; 888 auserlesene Speiserezepte und 84 Speisezettel mit Hinweisung und Berechnung nach jeder Jahreszeit; besondere Anleitungen nach Liebig und Moleschott (Augsburg: Jenisch und Stage, 1857) as well as Wilhelmine Rührig, Frankfurter Kochbuch. Enthaltend 765 auserlesene Kochrezepte, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Bedürfnis bürgerlicher Küchen. Nebst einer wissenschaftlichen Einleitung über die richtige Ernährung des Menschen und Zubereitung der Speisen nach Grundsätzen von J. Liebig und Jac. Moleschott. Bevorwortet von Heinrich Walter (Frankfurt am Main: Küchler, 1856), later published as Kochbuch fürʼs Deutsche Haus, enthaltend 1093 auserlesene Kochrecepte für vornehme und bürgerliche Küchen. Nebst einer wissenschaftlichen Einleitung über die Ernährung des Menschen und die Zubereitung der Speisen nach den Grundsätzen

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practice one’s profession. In this respect, Moleschott’s biography, although being the biography of a male scientist, offers the possibility to illuminate the women’s role in the production and reception of scientific knowledge, as well as in the entanglement of science and politics exemplified by Moleschott’s activity. The current biography is based on archival material, including Moleschott’s drafts of his unpublished and unfinished work, the “Anthropologie”, as well as on his work in the field of scientific popularization, his lectures, his public speeches, and the speeches he gave at the Italian Senate. On the one hand, I consider them in their political and historical context, tracing the origin of Moleschott’s ideas and comparing his work with that of other European scientists in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, I analyze their content and form in detail, including rhetorical imagery. My methodological approach involves both a close reading and a broad reading, both discourse analysis and the embedment of the texts in their broader cultural, social, and political context. I thus refer to the methods of cultural history, entangled history (histoire croisée), and historical comparison.50 Only in the combination of these different theoretical and methodological approaches is it possible to comprehend Moleschott’s life and career in its full significance. In what follows, I will highlight the overall structure of this work and the function of its single chapters. The structure articulates in two main parts, respectively corresponding to the early stages of Moleschott’s career, and to his Italian years as an established and nationally as well as internationally renowned scientist and, later on, as a politician. Each part is not isolated from the other parts; to the contrary, they are connected with each other, e.g. through comparisons with former and future developments of his career, or through the reference to theories that influenced Moleschott’s thought at an earlier stage of his life. Moreover, each of these main parts first deals with some information about the most important events of Moleschott’s von J. Liebig u. Jac. Moleschott, und Bemerkungen über Fleisch- u. Malzextrakt von Heinr. Walter (Frankfurt am Main: Jägerʼsche Buch- und Landkarten-Handlung, 1887). 50 On cultural history, cf. Peter Burke, What is cultural history?, 2nd ed. (Cambridge : Polity Press, 2008). On histoire croisée, cf. Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empirie et réflexivitéˮ, in De la comparaison à lʼhistoire croisée, ed. Michael Werner (Paris: Seuil, 2004), 15-52 ; also in Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 58 (2003), 1: 7-36. On discourse analysis in the history of science, cf. Philipp Sarasin, Geschichtswissenschaft und Diskursanalyse (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), in particular his chapters on metaphors as objects of the history of science (“Infizierte Körper, kontaminierte Sprachen. Metaphern als Gegenstand der Wissenschaftsgeschichte”, 191230); cf. also Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses: une archéologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), as well as, by the same author, L’archéologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1969).

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biography and their contexts, in order to concentrate, later on, on a detailed analysis of specific texts and documents. Such a combination of close and broad reading aims at understanding Moleschott’s thought in its cultural and ideological context, his biography in his social and political context, and his texts and speeches in the context of contemporary discourses and references to the classics. Chronologically, the first part starts with Moleschott’s family and its cultural background, it goes forth with the years of his education and of his university studies, with the relatively short period as a physician and as assistant in the laboratory of Johannes Mulder in Utrecht, with the time of his great German popularizing works when he was a Privatdozent in Heidelberg, his leaving the university, and his new start in Zürich. The second part deals with Moleschott’s appointment as Professor of Physiology in Turin, with his gradual but relatively fast naturalization culminating with the citizenship he received in 1867, his political career at the Senate from 1876, and correspondingly, his transfer to the University of Rome two years later. Geographically, the first part relates to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, whereas the second part focuses on the Italian nation-state, specifically on the cities of Turin and Rome. Interestingly, both Turin and Rome were respectively the capital cities of the Kingdom when Moleschott started to live and work there. Apparently, Moleschott was looking for the center rather than for the periphery. Let us summarize the topic of the next chapters, their research question as well as their function in the overall structure of the book in more detail. In the first chapter, dealing with Moleschott’s life from its beginnings in ʼs-Hertogenbosch, his education and his studies, the central topic is the reconstruction of his familial and educational, cultural and religious background, which will enable us to better comprehend his conception of nature, of science, and of society. Later in this chapter, we will follow the development of Moleschott’s early career, from the beginnings as a translator between Dutch and German, then as a physician in Utrecht, to the Privatdozentur in Heidelberg. The second chapter deals with the aspects of his thought which he mainly developed in his German popularizing writing, concerning the conception of science and of nature, as well as his theory of nutrition, with special attention to its social implications and to the role of proteins. As we will see, these issues will be important in order to understand his Senate speech on the abolition of the grist tax thirty years later. I will argue that the “tree of knowledge” was the idea at the basis of his conception of the relation between scientific disciplines (especially of the interactions between the natural sciences and the humanities), whereas the key concept of Kreislauf plays a central role in Moleschott’s organicism and therefore in his conception of biology as well as in his theory of nutrition. As it turns out, Moleschott’s conception of science included ethical, political, as well as philosophical and religious issues. Examining the entanglement of epistemic and ethical values, I show the centrality of the concept of “humanity” both for Moleschott’s conception of science and for his political and social engagement, which should be understood in the framework

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of nineteenth-century liberalism and nationalism. In the third chapter, I will deal with Moleschott’s new beginning in Zürich after having decided to leave the German university, focusing on his opening lecture, as well as on his contacts with European revolutionaries in exile in Switzerland. The next chapters deal with the second phase of Moleschott’s life, from 1861 to 1893, starting with the appointment to a professorship at the University of Turin and ending as a nationally renowned and socially engaged politician, professor at the University of Rome, honorary professor at the University of Turin, member of several academies, societies and international associations. The fifth chapter analyzes in more detail the issues that his work as an academic and as a politician concerned in Italy. These have never really played a role in the publications on Moleschott so far (with the exception of single passages from certain speeches), and the “Italian” phase of his career has always been only very briefly dealt with in the accounts of his life.51 In this section, the main sources will be Moleschott’s public speeches (including his Senate speeches) and his lectures, integrated with information derived from his correspondence and the unpublished drafts from his Nachlass. First, I will show the continuity between the idea of science expressed in Moleschott’s lectures and the idea of research and of the university he defended at length during several Senate speeches on higher education: this is one of four examples of how Moleschott applied his ideas to the political field – joining in this way his “capital” (in the sense of Bourdieu) as a scientific expert with his “capital” as a politician. I thereby focus on the role of science in the process of nation-building, analyzing the debate on secondary education and Moleschott’s role in the transfer of knowledge from other European countries to Italy (especially insofar as the influence of the German educational system is concerned), dealing with central questions in the configuration of the educational system such as the institution of laboratories and the “Philosophical Faculty”. Second, I will focus on Moleschott’s contribution in the debate on the introduction of physical education in school (1878), considering it as a

51 E.g. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 99; van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott: een markante persoonlijkheid in de negentiende eeuwse fysiologie?, 103-139, Moser, Der Physiologe Jakob Moleschott (1822-1893) und seine Philosophie, 26-28, Adele Patriarchi, Jacob Moleschott ed il materialismo dell’Ottocento (Roma: Pellicani, 1997), 64-71. The fact that this period has been taken into consideration only briefly and mostly superficially, even though it constitutes the most important phase of Moleschott’s career and covers almost the whole second half of his life (thirty-two years: thereby Italy is the place where Moleschott spent the longest period in his life), is surely due to the fact that his own autobiography is interrupted right before the beginning of this period. Published sources are definitely not enough in order to understand and describe the development of Moleschott’s life, thought and career during the last thirty years of his life, and one must take into account Senate reports and unpublished correspondence.

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way of educating the young Italian population and introducing them to common values, national feelings, hygienic standards, and disciplinary rules: also on this occasion, his arguments as a politician were supported by scientific theories. Third, I will show how his and Johannes Mulder’s nutritional theories were the basis of his arguments in favor of the abolition of the grist tax. Finally, in the sixth chapter I will deal with Moleschott’s contribution in the field of cultural politics (in the broad sense of the word “cultural”), represented by his engagement in scientific associations, as well as by his public speeches: for instance, the speeches he gave on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue for Giordano Bruno in 1889 are an example of his engagement in secularizing cultural politics. Moreover, I consider hygiene and cultural politics as further spheres in which Moleschott’s idea of science and of its function in the society (that is, its “civilizing mission”) shaped institutions and political decisions. In all of these fields, I will focus on the popularizing value of Moleschott’s contributions, as well as on his usage of both his expertise52 as a scientist and of exempla and sententiae from ancient culture. The main research question will center on Moleschott’s engagement (as a scientist, as a politician, as a citizen) in the formation and diffusion of the institutional and ideological background of the nationstate. In the seventh chapter, I will focus on Moleschott’s speeches on criminal anthropology and on the reform of Italian penal law: on the one hand, these are also part of the application of scientific theories to society, as they have been dealt with in the preceding chapter. On the other hand, the elements of criminal anthropology present in the speech are already a product of Moleschott’s disciple Cesare Lombroso; therefore, this chapter constitutes a link to the next chapter, dealing with the reception of Moleschott’s theories in Lombroso’s criminal anthropology. I will thereby analyze both Moleschott’s speeches at the opening and at the conclusion of the conference on criminal anthropology held in Rome in 1885 and his Senate speeches on the reform of penal law. In particular, in these two chapters I will consider the role played by Moleschott as a scientist, a member of academia, and a politician, in shaping the “education of the Italians”.53 In fact, after the political unification of Italy in 1861, the so-called “real unity” was still to be achieved: the population of the newly established nation-state was wildly diverse, and the economic, cultural and social differ-

52 On expert cultures, cf. for instance Martin Kohlrausch, Katrin Steffen and Stefan Wiederkehr (eds.), Expert Cultures in Central Eastern Europe: The Internationalization of Knowledge and the Transformation of Nation States since World War I (Osnabrück: fibre, 2010). 53 I have presented a paper on this topic at the conference “Educating Italy (1796-1968 ca): Local, national and global perspectivesˮ at the Italian Cultural Institute in London, December 4-5, 2015, and I am grateful for the interesting discussions.

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ences were a great obstacle to the governing of the country. The formation of a national consciousness and national sentiments was primarily achieved through education; however, the role scientists played in this process has not been sufficiently studied yet. The eighth chapter concerns the reception of Moleschott’s thought by Cesare Lombroso: through a “translational” approach, I will deal with the reception of materialism in criminal anthropology and the highly important role played by translation in the origin, as well as in the reception, adaptation, and transformation of Moleschott’s ideas in Cesare Lombroso’s criminal anthropology. Moreover, I will focus on Moleschott’s own role as a translator and mediator, considering both his work as a translator in the strict sense, the translations of his main works into other languages, as well as Moleschott’s engagement in processes of “cultural mediation” between nation-states. The inclusive attitude which we have observed with regard to his conception of science is mirrored by Moleschott’s own conciliating attitude and his abilities as a mediator and a translator (both in the narrow and in the broad sense). Thus, this chapter is a contribution to translation studies54 because it shows a concrete example of cultural translation and traveling concepts in the natural sciences: whereas cultural and translation studies have mainly focused on theoretical aspects so far, dealing with metaphors as traveling concepts and their potential as analytical concepts,55 concrete studies on how concepts actually traveled are still largely missing. Here, I show how the process of translation took place: in the case of the translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens by Cesare Lombroso, I trace the processes of negotiation of single concepts; in the case of Moleschott’s role as a delegate, I illustrate the function of a nineteenth-century scientist and politician as cultural broker. The same is true for the chapter on the reform of higher education, where I underline Moleschott’s role as a mediator and an expert between German and Italian systems of university education and organization. At the same time, the process of popularization can also be considered as a process of translation, more precisely as a double one: on the one hand, knowledge is spread among a much broader audience, and on the other hand, scientific language is made understandable for a larger audience. It is

54 I thank Doris Bachmann-Medick for her feedback and suggestions after reading the chapter on translation. The following theoretical remarks are inspired by our discussion on June 9, 2015, as well as by her keynote lecture on “Migration as Translation” held at the GCSC on April 28, 2015. 55 Cf. the contributions in Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning, Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture. On “nomadic concepts” and some examples of their transdisciplinary transfer, cf. Jan Surman, Katalin Stráner, and Peter Haslinger, “Nomadic Concepts: Biological Concepts and Their Careers beyond Biology”. Contributions to the History of Concepts, 9 (2014), 2: 1-17. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/choc.2014.090201.

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in this context that science meets literature, and that style becomes an essential element in the transmission of scientific ideas and the worldview relating to them. Finally, in the closing sections I will draw some conclusions on what Moleschott’s biography teaches us about the interaction between science and nationalism in the nineteenth century, as well as on the coexistence and cooperation of nationalism and international networks. Moreover, I will assess Moleschott’s life as the life of a natural scientist who became a politician in a foreign nation, and who substantially contributed to its ideological and structural building. Whereas mobility was quite common among students and scholars in the nineteenth century,56 it is characteristic for Moleschott’s case that his career was, starting from his school years, so transnational, and that in the third country (or fourth, considering Prussia and Baden as two separate states, as they actually were at the time of Moleschott’s stay in Cleves and in Heidelberg) he moved to, he became a public and political personality. Thus, I will look back at the changing forms of scientific popularization during his career and consider his Italian speeches and lectures as a development of Moleschott’s popularizing strategies and their adaptation to a new social context. Through the approach of memory studies (Erinnerungskultur),57 I will explore the celebrations held in his honor and show how he was transformed into a hero after his death, becoming part of both a national and a scientific pantheon.

S OURCES

AND

A RCHIVES

The absence of Moleschott as a research object in recent historical research (in social and political history as well as in the history of science) can be partially explained if we consider the great variety of languages in which the main sources are written. These mirror Moleschott’s own international career, as well as his love for classical culture (or, perhaps, just his usage of it): they are written in Dutch, German, Italian, but also French (the international language, e.g. at conferences) and, to a lesser extent, English (some correspondence), Latin (Moleschott’s dissertation and the theses 56 Cf. Nicola Marcucci, “The Quest for Obligation: ‘Translating’ Classical Sociological Languages through Moral and Political Vocabulary”, in Transmissibility and Cultural Transfer: Dimensions of Translation in the Humanities, ed. Jennifer K. Dick and Stephanie Schwerter (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verl., 2012), 75-90, here 76: “Nationalization and internationalization […] were not opposing processes in the 19th century. The development of an intra-state academic institutional field was encouraged by nation-building processes.” 57 Cf. the volume by Astrid Erll (ed.), Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2008), in particular: Astrid Erll, “Cultural Memory Studies: An Introduction”, 1-18; Mario Isnenghi, “Italian luoghi della memoria”, 27-36.

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he defended for his Habilitation) and some ancient Greek (especially some sentences in the speeches he gave at the Senate, as well as one of his notebooks). The Dutch sources are primarily constituted by his correspondence with other scientists and friends (especially Franciscus Cornelis Donders and Izaac van Deen), as well as with the members of his family in the Netherlands. Moreover, I have quoted pieces from Johannes Mulder’s popularizing works on nutrition and Donders’ opening lecture to show the continuity with Moleschott’s view on nutrition as he expressed it in some Senate debates, on the one hand, and with one of his own lectures, on the other hand; also, I refer to the Dutch version of his speech on Giordano Bruno given in 1889. The German sources are very extensive and include Moleschott’s autobiography (which has been translated into Italian by his daughter Elsa), his major popularizing books on nutrition, his handbooks for physicians, and the drafts of his planned but never completed magnum opus, the “Anthropologie”. Besides that, in his Nachlass there is a great deal of correspondence with scientists, family members (and the family of his wife, Sophie Strecker, in Mainz), and his friends and colleagues in Heidelberg and Zürich. Finally, his university lecture given in Zürich, as well as his minor biographical works on Herrmann Hettner and Georg Forster and his speeches held on official occasions in Germany (for instance, on the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg) are in German. As we shall see in the last chapter, all of his Italian university lectures have been translated into German and published by Emil Roth in Giessen. A far as the Italian sources are concerned, these are, at this point, the least studied (with the exception of the translation of his autobiography): they include Moleschott’s university lectures, his Senate speeches, the correspondence with other scientists and politicians, the notes and drafts for his lectures, and other public speeches. Moleschott’s Nachlass deserves a short introduction of its own: it is preserved in the Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna; however, Moleschott never worked in Bologna and had no particular relationship to the city or to its university. The Nachlass has been donated to the library by Irnerio Patrizi, whose first wife was Moleschott’s daughter Elsa, and who became Professor of Physiology in Bologna; the donation took place in 1936 and is testified by a letter partly written by Patrizi’s second wife, Anna Maria Andrenelli.58 Unfortunately, the Nachlass was partially destroyed during World War II, in January 1944,59 and the remaining documents have been mixed with other documents; this, added to the multiplicity of languages of the documents, has made the attempts to organize and make an inventory of the Nachlass particularly difficult, and explains, at least in part, why a (not yet complete) catalogue

58 Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 590-591. 59 Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 592.

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has been published only in 2014.60 A great part of the archival research underlying this work had been carried out before the publication of the catalogue, on the basis of the partial inventory edited by Marcel Desittere in 1992 (consisting, sometimes, of a very detailed description of the documents he had viewed, however available only as loose sheets in nine boxes). Only at the time of my last archival research, in September 2013, was I able to utilize a proof version of the new catalogue.61 Instead, Moleschott’s library had been donated to the Academy of Medicine of Turin by his daughter Elsa and his son Carlo Moleschott in 1893;62 unfortunately, it was completely destroyed in July 1943,63 so that it is not possible to reconstruct precisely which books Moleschott possessed and which journals he read. Thus, one should first of all be aware of the fact that the material which is available to us is both quantitatively limited, if compared to the material which was left by Moleschott himself after his death, and already filtered by many persons and through different processes. As Patrizia Busi observes,64 on the basis of two statements made by Moleschott, we can infer that he himself had an idea about how he wanted his papers and documents to be ordered, as well as of what he wanted to be available to the public, and of what instead should not become part of the “tradition” about him. First, regarding a collection of documents about his colleague Filippo Pacini, which had been collected by his daughter Elsa and which he wanted to donate to a public library, he stated that he did not want his friends to be shown in their bathrobes (“veste da camera”) and “in the secret laboratory of their thoughts”.65 Second, in his autobiography he described how he learned from Tiedemann in Heidelberg to keep an archive of his files and papers, adding that, even though this could seem to take too much time at the beginning, it would later allow for saving effort and time.66 Moreover, one should not forget that the Nachlass was donated to the 60 Since April 2014, the catalogue of the “Archivio di Jacob Moleschott” (also known as “Fondo Speciale Jacob Moleschott”) is available online at: http://www.cittadegliar chivi.it/pages/getDetail/idIUnit:1/archCode:ST0011#contenuto (last viewed June 20, 2017). 61 I thank the archivist, Patrizia Busi for having made it available to me as first user. Before 2013, my research in the “Fondo Moleschott” was based on the preliminary inventory by Arianna Zaffini, who was carrying out the editing of the catalogue, and on Marcel Desittere’s partial inventarization. 62 Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 589. 63 Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 590. 64 Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 596. 65 Moleschott, BCABo, FSM, B IV 5, quoted in Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 596. 66 Moleschott, Per gli amici miei, 79-80, quoted in Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 596.

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library of the city of Bologna (a public institution) by Moleschott’s heirs during the time of Fascism: this might have had some influence concerning the choice of the material which the family Patrizi kept in their private collection (whose most important letters, conserved in Bologna in the collection of Ms. Raffaella Sacchetti, have been published by Marcel Desittere)67 or the decision about some material which should rather be destroyed or better not be handed over to a public library.68 Further important archival sources for an assessment of Moleschott’s career are constituted by his personal files at the University of Heidelberg, at the University of Zürich, at the University of Turin, at the University of Rome (La Sapienza), and among the personal files of the Ministry of Public Education, in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome. Due to some damage that occurred during a fire and a flood (the latter in 2001), the material left at the archives in Turin is not complete; the files at the Archive of the Senate in Rome do not provide any additional information beyond the Senate reports. Moreover, I have followed the traces of some of his correspondence “spread all over Europe”,69 especially with the scientists and friends who were very close to him (including Berthold Auerbach and Hermann Hettner, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach; Édouard Desor, Archives de l’État de Neuchâtel; Izaac van Deen and Cornelius Donders, Bijzondere Collecties, UB Amsterdam), or who had a relevant role with respect to Moleschott’s scientific positions (e.g. Justus Liebig, at the Staatsbibliothek München and in the Handschriftenabteilung, Universitätsbibliothek Gießen). Finally, a very important source, especially for the second part of this work, were the reports of the parliamentary debates Moleschott took part in; although his most important contributions have been published separately as pamphlets by the publishing house (typographers) of the Senate, the Senate reports contain unedited material and allow for a broader understanding of Moleschott’s role in the debates.

67 Marcel Desittere, “Un carteggio privato della famiglia Moleschott conservato a Bologna: documenti”. Filologia critica, 28 (2003), 1: 96-113. 68 This could be the case with some material concerning Moleschott’s engagement in freethinkers’ societies, which were strictly forbidden at the time of Fascism. 69 Desittere, “Un carteggio privato”, 96; Busi, “Moleschott nella biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 592.

Jacob Moleschott and the Beginning of his European Career

The following chapter will deal with the development of Moleschott’s career, as well as with his cultural background, until the end of the time he spent in Heidelberg. It thereby also provides the contextual information necessary to understand the writings and the speeches we will further analyze in detail. It will focus on some aspects that are usually left out of the biographical information about Moleschott that one finds in existing secondary literature, namely the role played by his wife, Sophie Moleschott, in his scientific activities, and the international networks of scientists with whom he collaborated. In this way, I will try to reveal the hidden role played by women in scientific research and popularization. At the end of the chapter, I will examine the reasons that pushed Moleschott to start writing what he considered his magnum opus, the Anthropologie. Examining the meaning of this enterprise, which Moleschott never finished, but which he worked on during three decades, will constitute a link to the next chapter, dealing with Moleschott’s conception of science and of nature. Based on both edited and not yet edited primary sources, this chapter shall give some information on the religious, cultural, and scientific environments that informed Moleschott’s thought and activity. In particular, its aim is to illuminate some issues in Moleschott’s life and work which have not been sufficiently reflected yet, such as the abovementioned gender issue, as well as to reconsider critically the representation of certain events as they are depicted in Moleschott’s own autobiography, such as the relationship with Liebig. Whereas all of Moleschott’s biographies existing so far are mainly based on Moleschott’s own account of his life and career, therefore reproducing his self-representation and the image that Moleschott wanted to communicate about himself, I will apply source criticism to the descriptions, the data, and the interpretations of the events as Moleschott depicts them in his autobiography. My task is not only to make complete the existing information about Moleschott’s life, work, cultural environment and thought through the analysis of unedited and not yet studied

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material (such as his correspondence, the drafts for his university lectures and for his Anthropologie, as well as the Senate reports), but also to uncover the image of science and of himself as a scientist which Moleschott wanted to convey in his writings. One should be aware that his autobiography, Für meine Freunde (covering the period up to his time in Zürich and edited posthumously by his daughter Elsa in 1894) was a wonderful occasion for Moleschott’s own self-representation as a scientist and as an engaged citizen, but also as a father, a husband, and a man. In his autobiography, Moleschott represented himself as a typical member of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie, who pled for more social justice but did not fundamentally question the existing social order:1 he was clearly a liberal, even though he had declared that his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel would be a contribution toward a truly socialist society.2 In conformity with his liberal views and with his bourgeois ethos, he tended to represent himself as a self-made man and, at the very beginning of his autobiography, he took care to underline that he had learned from his father to love work (also called “die süße Gewohnheit des Fleißes”) and that, his whole life long, he had considered work as something pleasant and desirable rather than as a burden.3 As far as his private life is concerned (and insofar as one can speak of a private life separated from a public, professional, and academic life, which, especially in Moleschott’s case, were constantly intermingled), the way he pictured the relation to his daughter, his wife, and the other members of the family, as well as with his closest friends makes clear that emotions occupied a highly important place in his life. Even though it might seem to be completely natural that emotions play an important role in one’s life (both private and otherwise), this point should not be overlooked; first, because emotions

1

This was precisely the critique addressed to Vogt, Büchner and Moleschott by Marx and Engels and, later on, by the reception of scientific materialism in the German Democratic Republic (cf. Wittich, Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner). Frederik Gregory, although representing the materialists as socialists and revolutionaries, comes to a similar conclusion in his last chapter on materialism and society, stating that e.g. Ludwig Büchner was completely integrated and feeling at ease in that very society he criticized in his book Darwinismus und Sozialismus, oder Der Kampf um das Dasein und die moderne Gesellschaft, published in Leipzig in 1894 (cf. Gregory, Scientific Materialism in 19th-Century Germany, 212).

2

Jacob Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel: für das Volk (Stuttgart: Enke, 1850), 132: “Dieser Gedanke aber ist der Keim jeder sozialistischen Lebensregelˮ. Moleschott had just argued that, should the workers not eat a sufficient amount of calories, this would not be convenient for their employer, since it would inevitably imply that they would work less, which would cause an economic disadvantage for the employer. This is what Moleschott called “the kernel of every socialist rule of life”.

3

Jacob Moleschott, Für meine Freunde. Lebens-Erinnerungen von Jacob Moleschott. Giessen: Roth, 1894), 6-7.

T HE B EGINNING

OF

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have long been neglected in the history of science and in scientists’ biographies; second, because materialism is often taken as synonymous with the reduction of all expressions of life to physiological processes. The account of Moleschott’s own life seems to refute this point: for example, he narrates that, one night in Heidelberg, when a big wooden house in their neighborhood was burning, the only things he and his wife took with them when they escaped to safety was a bag containing their love letters.4 Moleschott accorded great value to his emotional life not only in his autobiography: from his official correspondence with the University of Rome, we learn that he asked for a longer leave, explaining that his deep sorrow at the death of his elder daughter did not allow him to fulfill his professional tasks.5 Another source showing the importance of feelings in Moleschott’s life is the abovementioned correspondence with his future wife Sophie Strecker at the time of their engagement. Moleschott confided to Sophie not only his intimate feelings, but also his hopes concerning political change, career plans, and some family issues. As we will observe also with respect to Moleschott’s relation to other scientists, private and professional issues can hardly be separated from one another. Regarding the relation with other scientists and public personalities, Moleschott belonged to broad networks, which allowed him relatively fast communication with his colleagues in every part of Europe, as well as with his publishers and with the contributors to his scientific journal, the Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere. At the same time, even after moving to Italy, he was able to maintain frequent contact with his former colleagues at Heidelberg, especially with his friends who were part of the circle of Christian Kapp. Moleschott’s wife Sophie played a significant role also in this respect, since she was the one who kept in contact with some scientists and friends, such as the geologist Édouard Desor (1811-1882) in Neuchâtel. Not only did she take care of constantly sending him repayment for the money he had lent Moleschott at the end of the 1850s,6 in a time of financial uncertainty for the Moleschott family, but she also reported her husband’s and her own political opinions and concerns. In general, through Desor the Moleschotts maintained contact with other scientists living in Zürich and in Switzerland. Moleschott’s correspondence shows that private and public issues were strongly intermingled with each other. For instance, Moleschott had a “forced” contact with 4

Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 194. These letters are now preserved in BCABo, FSM, 23.1 (new).

5

Jacob Moleschott to “caro Dottore” [=Moriggia?] (Rome, June 5, 1879): Archivio Storico Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo “Moleschott Jacopo M.C. Prof. Ordi. Di Fisiologia Sperimentale”, AS 169.

6

Édouard Desor to Jacob Moleschott (Neuchâtel, January 23, 1860): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Édouard Desor. He encloses a “Schuldschein” of the value of 1000 Francs dating January 25, 1860.

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Édouard Desor because of the financial debt he owed him. However, the letters he sent him attaching the amount of money due were, during several years, also an occasion for exchanging opinions about the political situation in Italy and in Europe, for keeping in touch with his former Swiss colleagues, and finally, also for exchanging some information about their respective ongoing research.7 His correspondence with Gabriel Gustav Valtentin is another example of the intermingling of scientific and private issues.8 In conformity with the thesis defended by Bruno Latour and the Actor-Network-Theory, but also, before him, by Paul Feyerabend and by Ludwik Fleck,9 Moleschott’s biography shows that there is no pure science separated from the public sphere of politics and the private sphere of affections. The private and the public spheres are always part of the research process and therefore of the formation and justification of scientific knowledge. At the same time, as we will see in more detail in the chapters about Moleschott’s time in Italy, specifically in Rome, Moleschott’s correspondence with other scientists and personalities shows the strong coexistence of nationalist ideologies and international cooperation (not only on the scientific level, but also precisely for pursuing and spreading nationalist ideas).

T HE M OLESCHOTT F AMILY IN L EIDEN AND ’ S -H ERTOGENBOSCH Jacob (Jacobus Albertus Willebrordus, mostly called Koos within the family) Moleschott was born in ’s-Hertogenbosch, North Brabant, on August 9, 1822 to Jo(h)annes Franciscus Gabriel Moleschott (1793-1857) and Elizabeth Antonia (or Antonetta) van der Monde (1795 - post July 15, 1866).10 Apparently, the family name 7

Correspondence sent by Jacob and Sophie Moleschott to Édouard Desor: AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 55-56.

8

Burgerbibliothek

Bern,

Nachlass

Valentin,

Korrespondenz

an

Valentin,

Mss

hh.XXVIII.65. 9

Cf. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern); Ludwik Fleck, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache: Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv, ed. Lothar Schäfer and Thomas Schnelle (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980); Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (London: Verso, 1975).

10 Jacob Moleschott’s birth certificate is available in the on-line collections of the archives of the municipality of ’s-Hertogenbosch, identification number G058593 (http://denboschpubliek.hosting.deventit.net/detail.php?nav_id=0-1&id=38978727&in dex=8, last viewed September 6, 2016). Cf. also van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 7; she bases on the data of the Rijksarchief Den Bosch (Geboortebewijs, Bevolkingsregister 1814-1830) and the Gemeentearchief Den Bosch (Archiefstuk 163). The genealogic tree,

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“Moleschott” indicates a place, meaning something like “millwork”, thus “he who comes from the place where the millwork is”.11 His father was a physician in ’sHertogenbosch (“huisarts” and, later on, “gemeente-arts”, i.e. physician of the town),12 and his grandfather on his father’s side, Jacobus Adrianus Franciscus Moleschott (1763-1839) had owned a pharmacy in Leiden. The pharmacy was located in the Koude Hoek, where the Haven, the Oude Vest and the Oude Singel flow into the Herengracht.13 His mother’s father was a physician in ’s-Hertogenbosch; the family was Catholic and his mother herself was a devout Catholic. On the contrary, Moleschott describes his father as being an atheist and a freethinker.14 In his autobiography, Moleschott explains his father’s rejection of religion because of an episode in his childhood, namely the fire in the family’s pharmacy: on that occasion, no help came from the Catholic population, whereas the Protestant population had proved to be ready to help the family financially.15 Moleschott used this episode to justify his father’s critique of religion and anti-clericalism, which Jacob himself shared from the time of high school at the latest.16 Jacob, also called Koos (or, with a diminutive, Koosje) by his family, was the eldest son (two elder children had died very young)17 among his two brothers (Fredericus Wilhelmus, born in 1824, and Franciscus Henricus Laurentius, born in 1827) and one sister (Sophia Maria, born in 1825); his complete name was Jacobus Albertus

where the dates of birth and of death of most of the family members are reported, is on pages 288-289. Contrarily to what van ter Laage reports here, Elizabeth van der Monde did not die in 1854, since she wrote a letter to her grandson and Jacob Moleschott’s son Karel or Carl or Carlo in 1866, saying that she was 71 years old: cf. Elisabeth Antonetta van der Monde to Karel Moleschott (Cleves, July 15, 1866): BCABo, FSM, A II 25 7. 11 Cf. Josef Karlmann Brechenmacher, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Familiennamen (Zweite, von Grund aus neugearbeitete Auflage der “Deutschen Sippennamen”), vol. 2 (Limburg an der Lahn: Starke Verlag, 1961), 279: art. “Mol(l)e(n)schott”, which he defines as a place name (Örtlichkeitsname) deriving from mittelniederdeutsch “molenschot = Mühlenwehr”. The only cited example of a famous person bearing this name is precisely “der Materialist Jakob Moleschott (1822-1893)”. The name is not mentioned among the German-Jewish surnames: cf. Lars Menk, A Dictionary of German-Jewish Surnames (Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu, 2005). 12 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 8. 13 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 22; van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 286. 14 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 11, 66. 15 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 287, reports that there are no documents concerning such an event in the archives of the city of Leiden. 16 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 66-67. 17 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 4.

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Willebrordus.18 Even though his forename as well as the forename of his father, Gabriel, could indicate some Jewish origin, and it is possible that one of his ancestors converted to Christianity, Jewish culture does not seem to have played a role in his education (moreover, his father, his mother, and his grandfather were all baptized as Catholics).19 He was subject to the influence of his father’s freethinking, to which he adhered later on in his life.20 What is sure is that, later on in his private and public life, he had very good relationships with many Jewish scientists and scholars, e.g. the physiologist Izaac van Deen in the Netherlands, the literary scholar and popularizing writer Berthold Auerbach in Germany, his assistant Simone Fubini and Cesare Lombroso in Turin, and the Senator and mathematician Luigi Cremona. What is more, as we will see, he himself publicly fought against anti-Semitism when he was in Rome, supporting a petition against the expulsion of Jews from Russia, and finally writing the foreword to the Antisemiten Hammer, “an anthology of world-literature” against anti-Semitism, published in Germany in 1892. Already during the very first years of his education, Jacob Moleschott had private lessons in Latin and Greek: in ’s-Hertogenbosch, he attended the Hulskamp school and the so-called French school of Van Bühl. Then, he was sent to a college in Boxtel, which van ter Laage identifies as the Duinendael, a college with the possibility of accommodation for boys from “good families”. Later on, he went to a French school

18 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 31 (note 4), whose givens are retrieved from the city archives of ’s-Hertogenbosch: the third name Willebrordus is reported in the birth certificate, whereas in the population register (bevolkingsregister) of the town she found Franciscus instead of Willebrordus. 19 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 286-287, reports the dates and places of their baptisms. 20 He is listed among freethinkers in Joseph Mazzini Wheeler, A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (London: Progressive Pub. Co., 1889), 229. Cf. also Bert Gasenbeek, J.C.H. Blom, and Jo Nabuurs, God noch autoriteit: geschiedenis van de vrijdenkersbeweging in Nederland (Amsterdam: Boom, 2006), 58. As we will see further on, his public speeches given in Rome are often centered on the “libero pensiero” and, as we will see, the celebration and the statue of Giordano Bruno, to which Moleschott contributed, were an expression of the freethinking movement. In his autobiography, Moleschott declared that when, in Utrecht, he was offered the opportunity to join a secret society in order to increase the number of his patients, he refused (Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 137). However, he also reported that during his time in Utrecht, he got the chance to meet the “Baumeister Roose, den ich in der besten Gesellschaft kennen lernte”, who introduced him to the measure and rules of gothic architecture (“steuerte meiner Schwärmerei für die dichterische Auffassung gothischer Baukunst, indem er sie auf Maß und Regel zurückführte”), and which could be a hint of contact with freemasonry, the art of building gothic cathedrals according to certain rules (Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 147-148).

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in ’s-Hertogenbosch and attended Latin and Greek lessons with the Evangelic-Lutheran religious community in the same town.21 Moleschott was then meant to attend the Latin school in Utrecht, together with his brother Frits: he would have lived at the house of one of the teachers, but that did not work out as planned, since the teacher eventually said that he was already hosting some boys from Protestant families and could not accept a Catholic.22 Then, following the advice of Bernard van der Monde, one of his mother’s brothers, the young Moleschott was sent to the humanistic gymnasium in Cleve (a town close to the Dutch border and at that time belonging to Prussia). As we will see in the next section, these years would be of fundamental importance for his education, especially as far as the contact with ancient and classical culture, as well as with German idealism, is concerned.

T HE G YMNASIUM AT C LEVES AND THE S TUDY OF C LASSICAL C ULTURE AND I DEALIST P HILOSOPHY Moleschott attended high school at Cleves, at that time belonging to Prussia, where he learned Latin and ancient Greek: he belonged to that majority of nineteenth-century natural scientists for whom the knowledge of classical culture and the usage of Latin and Greek expressions were fundamental elements of education, as is evident from his public lectures and his Senate speeches.23 Since Cleves was, at that time, part of Prussia, Moleschott had to attend school in German; this was not problematic at all, since he improved his knowledge of the language very fast.24 In Cleves, the young Moleschott not only began to be fascinated by the Latin and Greek classics, but also by the Hebrew language25 and, according to his own memoirs, even some Arabic.26 He read in Latin works by Tacitus; in Greek, works by Plato and Sophocles; in Hebrew, some parts of the Old Testament, some Psalms and the book of Hiob; in Arabic, some verses of the Koran. It was above all a merit of the school director Ferdinand Helmke, who had studied not only ancient, but also oriental languages, including Chinese, that Moleschott could be introduced to the study of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, as well as to the works of the German classics, especially of 21 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 14-17. Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 31, note 6. 22 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 9, as well as the letter at page 293 (letter from Moleschott’s grandfather, Leiden, April 20, 1836). 23 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 55. 24 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 46-47. 25 In fact, in his notes in BCABo it is possible to find a few words annotated in Hebrew in one of his notebooks, together with some grammatical and orthographical exercises in Latin and Greek; cf. Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni” (manuscript): BCABo, FSM, B I 6 b, [9]. 26 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 55-60.

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Goethe and Schiller. Helmke’s educational influence must have been particularly important, especially if we consider the fact that Moleschott, together with his cousin Henry van der Monde, had accommodations at Helmke’s house.27 Through Helmke, he got acquainted with the works of Tacitus, Plato and Sophocles in the original language,28 as well as with Schiller, Goethe and Tasso.29 From an English teacher called Chapman, the young Moleschott learned the English language, reading Milton and Shakespeare, as well as Pope, Byron, and Moore’s Paradise Lost, and translating Latin texts by Julius Caesar into English.30 At the same time, Moleschott started to get acquainted with Hegelian philosophy through his teacher of Latin and Greek, Moritz Fleischer.31 Together with Berthold Auerbach in Heidelberg, Molechott considered Fleischer to be one of his most intimate friends.32 Under his guidance, Moleschott read Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics and on the history of philosophy: these lectures would deeply influence his conception of science and of culture. In fact, as he expressed it e.g. his opening lecture given in Turin in 1861, L’unità della vita, according to him science had gradually developed and specialized, but the specialization of disciplines presupposed a unifying principle, or a “common ground”, as he would call it in his Senate speeches on higher education. In his autobiography, Moleschott wrote that it was to Fleischer’s credit if he never forgot the importance of “general science” (allgemeine Wissenschaft) over specific disciplines (Fachstudium).33 It was also Moritz Fleischer’s sentence “ich erkenne Niemand über mir und Niemand unter mir” which, apparently, left an enduring impression in Moleschott’s mind.34 With Fleischer, Moleschott had a rich correspondence (22 letters from December 30, 1842 to August 7, 1876) about disparate issues: Moleschott was regularly sending him his works, which Fleischer appreciated very much.35 Finally, it was in those years that, according to his autobiography, the young Moleschott started to be critical vis-à-vis traditional religious beliefs. However, the decisive element which made him abandon the Catholic position defended by his mother was a discussion with his father, in which the latter made explicit his

27 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 9. 28 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 58. 29 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 61. 30 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 64-65. 31 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 55-58. 32 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (s.l., March 28, 1850): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/6 (microfiche 015648). 33 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 58: “[…] daß mir nie die allgemeine Wissenschaft über dem Fachstudium aus dem Sinn gekommenˮ. 34 Ibidem. 35 Correspondence sent by Moritz Fleischer to Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, 11.20 (new).

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atheist position.36 Concerning the influence of his father in religious and moral issues, Moleschott emphasized that his critical attitude vis-à-vis religion and his affinity with freethinking implied an increased attention to morality: “Mein Vater, der schon als Jüngling ein Freidenker geworden war, suchte bei der Erziehung die Rolle des Glaubens so viel als möglich zu beschränken, um dafür der Pflege der Sittlichkeit eine desto größere Sorgfalt angedeihen zu lassen.ˮ37 Moleschott reports that when, for his final exam, he had to write an essay on Christian hope explaining it as an outcome of belief, he defended an alternative view, explaining hope as a consequence of love.38 He held his father responsible not only for the development of his own critique of religion and for the shaping of his character, but also for his interest in the natural sciences and, in particular, in medicine as a science.39 In fact, in the field of critique of religion, as well as in the scientific and professional fields, Jacob Moleschott’s father, Franciscus Gabriel Moleschott, had a great influence on his son. This had been recognized also by Ludwig Feuerbach, who expressed regret for the elder Moleschott’s death: “Ich habe schon aus und seit der Dedikation Ihrer “Nahrungsmittel”, erste Ausgabe, eine stille Verehrung für Ihren Vater gefaßt […].”40 In fact, Moleschott had dedicated his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel to his father. However, we might infer that Moleschott, at least during high school and at the beginning of his studies, did not have an overtly anti-religious attitude: in fact, his father himself recommended that he go to church on Sundays, since being identified as an atheist could have been inopportune.41 Moleschott’s father also advised him not to engage in discussions with religious people, out of prudence; however, his own sympathies for agnosticism or atheism are clear from other letters he sent to his son.42 In a letter written on May 26, 1840, his father complained about the religious intolerance of those who had promised to accept his son (and Jacob’s brother) Frits at the colleges in Cleves and Keeken, but eventually refused. In a letter dated April 5, 1840, he again complained about the clergy, this time because a Catholic priest had refused to give him some information about a school in Neuwied, where he wanted to send 36 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 66. 37 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 11-12. 38 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 66-68. Also van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 12. 39 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 6-7. 40 Ludwig Feuerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Bruckberg, July 13, 1858), in Ludwig Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), vol. 20 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. Werner Schuffenhauer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), 191. 41 Johannes Franciscus Gabriel Moleschott to Koos (=Jacob Moleschott) (’s-Hertogenbosch, January 25, 1840): BCABo, FSM, A I 21 a3. 42 Johannes Franciscus Gabriel Moleschott to Koos (=Jacob Moleschott) (’s-Hertogenbosch, July 6, 1841): BCABo, FSM, A I 21 a36.

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his daughter.43 Moleschott’s mother, Elisabeth van der Monde, also advised him to go to church on Sundays44 and wrote him some news about the first communion of his brother.45 Moreover, she advised her son not to engage in discussions regarding the Enlightenment and to be cautious in all issues regarding religion and politics.46

S TUDYING M EDICINE

AT

H EIDELBERG

Following in the footsteps of his father, Moleschott began to study medicine; however, he did not study at Leiden, as his father and maternal grandfather did, but at the University of Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, starting from the summer semester of 1842. Apparently, his father would have liked him to study jurisprudence, and Moleschott himself would have liked to study medicine in Berlin, where he could have been closer to the cultural and academic environment of idealism that fascinated him so much.47 He chose Heidelberg because his father had advised him to study at a smaller university than Berlin, where he could really be in contact with his professors and have the chance to attend the laboratories and, thereby, to get acquainted with the methods of experimental science. Moreover, there were famous scientists teaching in Heidelberg: for instance, he attended Theodor Bischoff’s48 lectures on 43 Both letters in BCABo, FSM, A I 21. 44 Elisabeth Antonetta van der Monde to Koos (=Jacob Moleschott) (s.l., May 6, 1842): BCABo, FSM, A I 21 b12. 45 Elisabeth Antonetta van der Monde to Koos (=Jacob Moleschott) (‘s-Hertogenbosch, March 26, 1840): BCABo, FSM, A I 21 a7, as well as Elisabeth Antonetta van der Monde to Koos (‘s-Hertogenbosch, May 10, 1840): BCABo, FSM, A I 21 a 13. 46 Elisabeth Antonetta van der Monde to Koos (=Jacob Moleschott) (‘s-Hertogenbosch, April 25, 1842 and June 10, 1842): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Elisabeth Antonetta van der Monde. 47 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 78-79. 48 Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm Bischoff (Hannover 1835 - Munich 1843) was born in Hannover in 1835 and studied natural sciences in Bonn, where he wrote a PhD thesis in botany in 1829. He then went to Heidelberg to study medicine. He wrote his PhD on the physiology and anatomy of the nerves in 1832. He obtained his Habilitation at the University of Heidelberg with a study on embryology in 1834. In 1835 he was teaching comparative and pathological anatomy in Heidelberg, and in 1836 he became Extraordinarius at the same university. In 1843 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Giessen, where he founded the Institute for Anatomy and Physiology. In 1854, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Munich. Similarly to Moleschott, he also engaged in educational politics; however, in 1872 he published a pamphlet against women being allowed to study medicine, since he believed them to be “anatomically” inapt

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botany and Wilhelm Delff’s49 lectures on chemistry. Two more scientists were especially meaningful for the development of his research interests during the time of his studies, namely the anatomist Friedrich Tiedemann (1781-1861) and the physiologist Leopold Gmelin (1788-1853).50 Their research had a deep influence on Moleschott: in fact, these are among the most cited authors in the notes of his Anthropologie and in the sketches of his lectures in physiology. Both of them paid great attention to experimental science, breaking with the tradition of speculative natural philosophy (Gmelin is considered to be the founder of physiological chemistry). They published a book on digestion (Verdauung nach Versuchen, Heidelberg 1827-1828), which deeply influenced Moleschott’s research interests.51 However, he did not depict them as great teachers: to the contrary, in his autobiography he explains how plain and boring their lectures were; instead, he appreciated the lectures of the chemist Wilhelm Delffs.52 He also appreciated Theodor Bischoff very much, both as a teacher and as a scholar, so that he perceived it as a loss for his studies and for the faculty when Bischoff left Heidelberg and accepted an appointment in Giessen in 1843.53 In his autobiography, Moleschott writes that he tried to make Gabriel Gustav Valentin,54

for such an activity. That Moleschott did not have the same opinion resulted from the fact that his daughter Elsa studied medicine in Rome. For his biography, cf. Christian Giese, Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff (1807-1882): Anatom und Physiologe (Gießen: Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1991). 49 Friedrich Wilhelm Hermann Delffs (Kiel 1812 – Heidelberg 1894) was a chemist, from 1843 Extraordinarius at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Heidelberg and from 1853 Ordinarius for Chemistry and Toxicology. Cf. Dagmar Drüll, Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1803-1932, ed. Rektorat der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität-Heidelberg (Berlin, Heidelberg, Tokio: Springer, 2012), from here on HGL, 45. 50 Friedrich Tiedemann (Kassel 1781 – Munich 1861) was an anatomist and physiologist: he became professor at Heidelberg in 1826, defending evolutionary theory and experimental science. Cf. HGL, 269-270. Leopold Gmelin (Göttingen 1788 – Heidelberg 1853) was Professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg from 1814 (as Extraordinarius), from 1817 ordinary professor and director of the laboratory of chemistry. He had gotten acquainted with experimental science in Paris in 1814/15, and collaborated with Tiedemann. Cf. HGL, 85-86. 51 Cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 5. 52 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 87-90; van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 13, observes that his judgments are about the same as those given by Adolf Kußmaul, who studied at Heidelberg in the same period of time. 53 On the appointment of Bischoff as “ordentlicher Professor der Medizin”, cf. Christian Giese, Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff, 134 ff. 54 Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Breslau 1810 – Bern 1883) was a German-Jewish physiologist. He studied medicine in Breslau and became Professor of Physiology and Animal Anatomy

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whom he had personally met in Bern, be appointed as successor to Bichoff in Heidelberg, but without any success. However, we might infer that Moleschott was very happy with Bischoff’s successor, Jacob Henle,55 who, as we will see, would be the supervisor of his thesis and would also support his coming back to Heidelberg to become a Privatdozent in 1848.56 In Heidelberg, Moleschott got in contact with Moritz Carrière,57 an idealist philosopher; at that time, Moleschott’s interest in idealism was still very intense, and at the beginning of his studies, he read Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes, his Geschichte der Philosophie and his Aesthetik.58 Even later on, when he took some distance from idealism or, better, became an adept of Feuerbach’s version of idealism,59 Moleschott never understood the natural sciences as in opposition to philosophy or (Zootomy) at the University of Bern in 1836. He was the first Jewish professor at a German-speaking university. The physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyně, whom Moleschott cited at length in the drafts of his Anthropologie, had a great influence on his thought. Cf. Erich Hintzsche, Gustav Gabriel Valentin. Versuch einer Bio- und Bibliographie (Bern: Haupt, 1953). 55 Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (Fürth 1809 – Göttingen 1885) studied medicine at Bonn and Heidelberg. His supervisor in Bonn was the physiologist Johannes Müller, to whom he became assistant in Berlin. In 1840 he became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Zürich; in 1844 he had the same professorship at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1852 at the University of Göttingen. HGL, 109. Just like Valentin, he was born into a Jewish family; his uncle Elkan Henle fought for the rights of the Bavarian Jewish. Cf. Fritz Dross and Kamran Salimi (eds.), Henle. Bürgerliches Leben und “rationelle Medicinˮ: eine Ausstellung im Klinikum Fü rth, 10. Juli - 10. Sept. 2009 (Fürth: s.n., 2009). 56 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 95-96. Moleschott also wrote to van Deen how happy he was to have Henle as a teacher: cf. Marie Anne van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap tusschen drie physiologen”. De Gids, 78 (1914): 457. 57 Moritz Philipp Carrière (1817 in Griedel near Darmstadt – 1895 in Munich) was a German idealist philosopher and historian. He studied at Giessen, Göttingen and Berlin, and he travelled to Italy and became Extraordinarius in Giessen in 1842, where he taught philosophy. In 1853, he was appointed Extraordinarius at the University of Munich, and one year later he became Ordinarius in Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He was a member of the Burschenschaft Alemannia Gießen and edited, together with Carl Vogt, the Freie Hessische Zeitung from the politically “hot” spring of 1848. He was thus a politically engaged revolutionary and spread nationalist ideas. He married a daughter of Justus Liebig and, on the philosophical level, tried to join pantheistic and deistic views. Cf. “Carrière, Moritz Philippˮ, in Hessische Biografie, http://www.lagis-hessen.de/pnd/119355841 (May 10, 2014) 58 Cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 84. 59 Cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 181.

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the humanities in general. As we will see, both in his lectures in Turin and in the Senate speeches given in Rome, he pled for a cooperation of “naturalists” and “philosophers”. It was Moritz Carrière who introduced him to the historian Friedrich Schlosser60 and to Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim,61 at that time Privatdozent at the Faculty of Jurisprudence, transmitting to Moleschott a great deal of Romantic culture. He also made him acquainted with Bettina von Arnim,62 who sent him her congratulations for his book on Georg Forster in 1855.63 In the clinic, his teachers were Benjamin Puchelt,64 Maximilian Chelius65 and Franz Nägele;66 the last one imparted to him an interest in histological research.67 Moleschott depicted his years at the university as being completely dedicated to study, sitting at his desk like a true scholar, and avoiding the pubs that, to the contrary,

60 Friedrich Christoph Schlosser (Jever, Wilhelmshaven 1776 – Heidelberg 1861) was a German historian. He studied theology and history, became very popular with his publications and, in 1819, was appointed Professor of History at Heidelberg. HGL, 235-236. 61 Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim (Frankfurt 1819 – Berlin 1880) was a German-Jewish publicist and philosopher. He studied jurisprudence in Göttingen, Heidelberg and Berlin and was concerned with the ideas of liberalism, free trade, nationalism, and international law. In 1841, he became Pivatdozent for Staatswissenschaft and Völkerrecht at Heidelberg: it was in the 1840s that Moleschott met him, when he was engaged with the radical-democrats in the 1848-revolution. Cf. Dirk Hainbuch and Florian Tennstedt (eds.), Sozialpolitiker im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1871 bis 1918, vol. 1 of Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte der deutschen Sozialpolitik 1871 bis 1945 (Kassel: Kassel University Press, 2010), 120. 62 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 104-105. On Moleschott and the German Romantic writer and novelist Bettina von Arnim (1785-1859), see Ursula Püschel, “Ein menschlich-historisches Netzwerk: anläßlich eines Briefs von Jacob Moleschottˮ, in Ursula Püschel, Bettina von Arnim – politisch. Erkundungen, Entdeckungen, Erkenntnisse (Bielefeld: AisthesisVerl, 2005), 13-20. 63 Bettina von Arnim to Jacob Moleschott (Wiepersdorf bei Juterbog in Preußen, January [?] 27, 1855): BCABo, FSM, 5.25 (new). 64 Friedrich August Benjamin Puchelt (Bornsdorf 1784 – Heidelberg 1856) studied medicine in Leipzig, where he became first Extraordinarius and then Ordinarius of Pathology and Therapy. He was appointed Professor of Pathology at Heidelberg in 1824. HGL, 210. 65 Maximilian Josef von Chelius (Mannheim 1818 – Heidelberg 1876) was a surgeon and ophthalmologist, Ordinarius at the University of Heidelberg from 1818 until 1864. HGL, 38. 66 Franz Carl Joseph Naegele (Düsseldorf 1778 – Heidelberg 1851) was a gynecologist; he held the Chair for “Geburtshilfe” at Heidelberg from 1810. HGL, 188. 67 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 94; also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 6.

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most of his fellow students tended to visit.68 He did not belong to any students’ associations (Burschenschaft, Landmannschaft, Corps or Verbindung), but soon became a member of the circle of scholars and revolutionaries at the house of Christian Kapp,69 which would become essential for his popularizing and political engagement, especially around and after 1848.70 Particularly Chelius and Puchelt, but also Wilhelm Delffs, Jacob Henle, and Johann Philipp Gustav Jolly, offered the possibility for social contact in the evenings.71 Moreover, Moleschott was in good relationships with some Dutch (the old Miss von Anting and the Ludens, a family from Amsterdam) and the Reitz’s, a family from Cape Town who lived in Heidelberg, so that he declared himself to be very satisfied with his social life as a student.72 Moleschott reports that, at that time, he read the Hallische Jahrbücher, later published as Deutsche Jahrbücher (since Moleschott’s library has been destroyed, we must rely on his autobiography for any information about his readings), and he got acquainted with David Friedrich Strauss’s and Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s critiques of religion.73 This point allows for a better understanding of his attitude towards religion: in fact, David Friedrich Strauss theorized a scientific theology, which would 68 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 81. 69 Johann Georg Christian Kapp (Bayreuth 1798 – Neuenheim, Heidelberg 1874) was Professor of Philosophy at Erlangen, until he moved to Heidelberg, where he became honorary professor in Heidelberg in 1839; he was a liberal and democrat and in 1844 he willingly left the university because of political reasons. He was an engaged democrat and participated in the 1848 revolution and participated in the Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt am Main. Cf. HGL, 131. 70 On the beginning of scientific popularization in Germany after 1848, cf. Andreas Daum, “Naturwissenschaften und Öffentlichkeit in der deutschen Gesellschaft: Zu den Anfängen einer Populärwissenschaft nach der Revolution von 1848ˮ. Historische Zeitschrift, 267 (December 1998): 57-90, DOI: 10.1524/hzhz.1998.267.jg.57. 71 Johann Philipp Gustav von Jolly (Mannheim 1809 – München 1884) was Professor of Physics and director of the laboratory of physics at Heidelberg from 1839 (Extraordinarius), ordinary professor from 1846, and from 1854 ordinary professor in Munich. Cf. HGL, 128. 72 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 107-108. 73 David Friedrich Strauss (Ludwigsburg, 1808-1874) was a German theologian and philosopher. He studied in Tübingen and Berlin (where Hegel was teaching). His views were democratic in politics and close to pantheism and monism in philosophy. When, in 1839, he was appointed professor at Zürich, the scandal was so great that he was immediately placed on retirement. Cf. Eduard Zeller, “Strauß, David Friedrichˮ in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 36 (1893), 538-548. Friedrich Theodor Vischer (Ludwigsburg 1807 – Gmunden am Traunsee 1887) was a German philosopher, literary scholar and politician; in 1848, he took part at the Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt, representing the democrats.

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operate historically and not dogmatically. Strauss was influenced by idealism, historicism and the conception of science as being free from presuppositions (voraussetzungslos), a conception which was typical for the natural sciences in that period.74 Moleschott even began to translate into Dutch Vischer’s book Dr. Strauss und die Württemberger and Strauss’s Friedliche Blätter, but could find no publisher.75 About one year later, he went to Giessen in order to meet Justus Liebig, who welcomed him and showed him his laboratory. In fact, Moleschott willingly visited Giessen before his essay Kritische Betrachtung von Liebig’s Theorie der Pflanzenernährung (published in Haarlem by the Teyler’s Genootschap, De Erven François Bohn, 1845) would be published. This essay was not based on any experimental results, but just on some general criticism of Liebig’s argument and had been written on the occasion of a competition held by the Teyler’s society in Haarlem: the society would award the best essay written as a critique of Liebig’s treatise on plant’s nutrition. Moleschott learned that his essay would be awarded when, at the end of 1844, he visited Caspar Reinwardt,76 Professor of Natural History in Leiden, who was a member of Teyler’s society and, not knowing the identity of the author, described to him, full of admiration, the winning essay. Having to choose between a gold medal and four hundred Florins as an award from the Teyler’s society, he chose the latter, and bought his first microscope.77 This can be understood as a kind of self-representation contributing to the shaping of an image of Moleschott as self-made scientist, on the model of the liberal idea of the self-made man who, independently and without external financial help, reaches a higher social and economic position. For example, Moleschott reported that he paid for his final examination with the money he had earned with the translation of Johan-

He became Extraordinarius in Tübingen in 1837 defending pantheistic views in his opening lecture (which caused his being suspended). Cf. Richard Weltrich, “Vischer, Friedrich” in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 40 (1896), 31-64. 74 On the theological debates Strauss engaged in, cf. Johannes Zachhuber, Theology as Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany. From F.C. Baur to Ernst Troeltsch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), especially chapter 4. 75 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 84-85; Moleschott, Per gli amici miei, 76. 76 Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (Lüttringhausen, Prussia 1773 – Leiden, The Netherlands 1854) was a Dutch botanist and Professor of Natural History subsequently in Harderwijk, Amsterdam and Leiden; he joined a colonial journey to the East Indies and founded a botanical garden in Indonesia. For an interesting biography, cf. Andreas Weber, Hybrid ambitions: science, governance, and empire in the career of Caspar G.C. Reinwardt (17731854), Doctoral Thesis, Leiden 2012 (Amsterdam: Leiden University Press, 2012). 77 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 116-117.

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nes Mulder’s Versuch einer allgemeinen physiologischen Chemie (Heidelberg: Winter, 1844).78 In 1844, Moleschott not only translated Mulder’s Versuch einer allgemeinen physiologischen Chemie, but also his short publication Über den Werth und die Bedeutung der Naturwissenschaften für die Medicin. As we will see, such an early engagement with Mulder’s theories, but also his early interest in the diffusion of the natural sciences among a broader audience (thus, a form of popularization), would deeply influence his future career. In fact, in his preface to the translation of Mulder’s Über den Werth und die Bedeutung der Naturwissenchaften für die Medicin, Moleschott remarked that his aim was to provide the students of medicine with the significance of the natural sciences for medicine, something which was often absent from their curricula.79 Moreover, Moleschott’s active role in European knowledge transfer went beyond Germany: for instance, already in 1844 he sent to Gabriel Gustav Valentin – who was Professor of Medicine in Bern from 1836 to 1882 and director of the Institute of Anatomy and whom he had met personally – his own translation of Mulder’s work on physiological chemistry, as well as the copy of a short lecture by Mulder, while he was simultaneously passing on Valentin’s work to Tiedemann.80 One year later, Moleschott also offered to Valentin that he could do something for him in Utrecht or in Holland, should he need anything, thus explicitly presenting himself as a mediator.81 Liebig and Valentin were not the only scientists whom Moleschott decided to meet during the time of his studies in Heidelberg. In 1843, for example, Moleschott travelled to Bern in order to meet the natural philosopher Lorenz Oken,82 whom he always held in high esteem: he credited him with transferring the unitary concept of 78 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 120. In a letter to Ernst von Siebold, who was asking about his translation of Mulder’s work, Moleschott replied that he feared that his translation of the conclusion would never be published, due to some delays and problems with the publisher: cf. Jacob Moleschott to Ernst von Siebolt (Heidelberg, May 1, 1849): Staatsbibliothek München, Autogr. X., Jacob Moleschott. 79 Jacob Moleschott, “Vorwort des Uebersetzersˮ in Gerardus Johannes Mulder, Über den Werth und die Bedeutung der Naturwissenchaften für die Medicin, trans. from Dutch by [Jacob] Moleschott (Heidelberg: Winter, 1844), 3-6. 80 Cf. Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Heidelberg, March 7, 1844): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65. 81 Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Heidelberg, February 22, 1845): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65. 82 Lorenz Oken, born Okenfuß (Offenburg 1779 – Zürich 1851) was a naturalist, botanist, biologist, and ornithologist, and one of the most important representatives of German Naturphilosophie. Cf. Olaf Breidbach, Hans-Joachim Fliedner, and Klaus Ries (eds.), Lorenz Oken (1779-1851). Ein politischer Naturphilosoph (Weimar: Böhlau, 2001).

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knowledge of Hegel and Schelling to the natural sciences, and even with introducing the concept of evolution into the natural sciences.83 In Zürich, he met the anatomist and pathologist Jacob Henle, who would be appointed Professor of Anatomy in Heidelberg in 1844 and would assume a key role in Moleschott’s scientific career. In the same year, Moleschott started to do scientific research under the guidance of Henle, who was previously at the University of Zürich, and who suggested that he write a thesis in anatomy, with microscopic research either on the liver or on the lungs. Moleschott eventually chose the latter, writing his thesis, De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis, and obtaining the degree of doctor medicinae on January 22, 1845, with the grade summa cum laude.84 In his dissertation, we can already find the leading motto of his thought, stating that only the study of physical phenomena can help medicine in its healing task, and that, for this reason, there cannot be medicine without physiology: “nullam extra physicae studia medicum invenire salutem, immo artem non esse medicinam, nisi a physiologia proficisceretur”.85 As we can see, while explaining the function of the lungs and, in particular, the connection between bronchioles and lungs-vesicles and understanding for the first time the nature of emphysema,86 Moleschott also made some programmatic statements regarding the experimental and empirical character of scientific research. With a rhetorical question, he asks: who does not prefer that, in the natural sciences, there be conflicts between opinions rather than between observations?

83 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 101-102. 84 The documents regarding Moleschott’s “Promotionsverfahrenˮ are collected in: “Akten der Medizinischen Fakultät 1845 Iˮ. UAH, H-III-111/51. Moleschott’s degree (“Diplomˮ) is conserved in Akten der Medizinischen Fakultät 1845 I. UAH, H-III-111/51. 63: “Quod bonum felix faustumque sit / sub auspiciis / augustissimi et potentissimi principi / ac domini domini/ Leopoldi / Magni Ducis Badarum Ducis Zaringiae / et quae sunt reliqua: / Rectoris Academiae Magnificientissimi / Prorectore Academiae magnifico / viro summe venerando / Ernesto Anton Lewald / Theol. Phil. D. Magno Duci Badarum A. Consil. Eccles. Theol. Professore Publ. Ord. / Nos Decanus Senior ceterique Professores / Ordinis Medicorum / in Litterarum Universitate Ruperto Carola / in virum doctissimum et clarissimum / Jacobum Moleschott / Sylva-Ducensem / examine rigoroso summa cum laude superato / jura et privilegia / Doctoris Medicinae Chirurgiae et Artis Obstetriciae / rite contulimus et hoch diplomate sigillo ordinis nostri munito testati sumus / P.P. Heidelbergae in Universitate Literaria Ruperto-Carola / A.D. XXII mensis Januarii MDCCCXLV.” Cf. also Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 119-120. 85 Jacob Moleschott, De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis. Dissertatio anatomico-physiologica (Heidelberg: Groos, 1845), III. Also cited in Paul von Grützner, “Moleschott, Jacobˮ, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 52 (1906), 435-438, here 437. 86 Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 7.

54 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “Quis est autem, qui in naturae scientia non maluerit inter opiniones esse pugnam quam inter observationes? ut primum enim historia rem in ditionem suam redigit, de iis, quae menti visa sunt mox actum est, quum ea quae oculi visa sunt, non nisi difficillime cadant.”87

In his dissertation, thus, he already defended the primacy of the senses (here, in particular, he refers to sight: oculi) on speculation (quae menti visa sunt), explaining it as an essential feature of empirical research (historia). The end of his dissertation can be interpreted as a declaration of his scientific method, one that refuses a teleological approach and only relies on induction and on observation to reach its results: “Saepius enim plures ad eundem finem viae perducere posse videntur: non igitur ex fine via, sed ex via finis cognosci poterit.” At the beginning of his dissertation, Moleschott declared his intellectual debt to Moritz Fleischer, who not only taught him Latin (the language in which the entire, 42 page-long dissertation is written) and ancient Greek, but also introduced him to the study of philosophy.88 At the end, in presenting his theses, he pays a tribute to Jacob Henle, his supervisor and guide in the natural sciences: “Rectissime illustrissimus Henle in physiologia causalem, quae dicitur, methodo praeferendam esse docet”.89 Here, Moleschott makes clear his own position vis-à-vis teleology, saying that Henle is right in stating that causal explanations are preferable to teleological ones. As we will see, Henle would be a key figure for Moleschott’s career at Heidelberg, since it was because of his recommendation that he became a Privatdozent two years later. However, before that, Moleschott spent roughly two years in Utrecht as an assistant of Johannes Mulder. Significantly, however, already at the time of his PhD, Moleschott imbued his career with an international orientation, since he sent a manuscript of his thesis to the Institut de France, Académie Royale des Sciences,

87 Moleschott, De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis, 35. 88 Moleschott, De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis, III. 89 Moleschott, De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis, 42. The previous theses read as follows: “I. Vesiculis, non canalicula bronchiola terminantur. II. Falso haecce inter mammalium et avium pulmones differentia statuitur, ut illis non nisi terminales vesiculae, his parietales solae adsint. III. Emphysema vesiculare non inter hypertrophias, sed inter atrophias est recensendum. IV. Pulmonum vesiculae per se ipsas moveri possunt. V. Ut bronchiolorum termini investigentur, aëre quam liquore impleri bronchia praestat.” (Moleschott, De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis, 41).

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which accepted it and let it become part of its library.90 Twelve years later, Moleschott’s Untersuchungen (mentioned as “Recherches sur lʼhistoire naturelle de lʼhomme et des animaux”) also became part of the library of the Institute.91

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In 1845, Moleschott decided to move to Utrecht. In the spring of that year, he passed the colloquium doctum in Leiden and was thus allowed to practice as a physician: in addition to the research he carried out in the lab, this would be his main profession during the following two years in the Netherlands.92 In Utrecht, he worked as an assistant to the chemist Gerardus Johannes Mulder (1802-1880), whom he had first met the previous year, and developed a close friendship with the ophthalmologist (later Professor of Physiology in Utrecht) Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818-1889), who was also one of Mulder’s assistants and an expert in the physiological studies of sight. In fact, Moleschott would give a speech in honor of Donders in 1888, celebrating him as an excellent natural scientist. This is a typical example of Moleschott’s transnational publishing and popularizing activity: in fact, it appeared in Dutch, in Italian, and in German.93 Mulder’s special field of study was nutritional science; this would become very relevant for Moleschott’s later career, since from that time on, and especially during his time as a Privatdozent in Heidelberg, the physiology of nutrition would be his main field of study. This was the subject of his popularizing works, such as the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel: für das Volk (Stuttgart: Enke, 1850) and of his handbooks, the 90 Flourens (Institut de France – Académie Royale des Sciences) to Jacob Moleschott (Paris, August 4, 1845): BCABo, FSM, 11.21 (new). Flourens was in charge of reporting about Moleschott’s thesis at the Academy. 91 Flourens (Institut de France – Académie Royale des Sciences) to Jacob Moleschott (Paris, October 12, 1857): BCABo, FSM, 11.21 (new). The Untersuchungen are mentioned as Recherches sur lʼhistoire naturelle de lʼhomme et des animaux. 92 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 125-126. A confirmation can be found in the documents at the University of Rome, where it is reported that Moleschott had received permission to practice as a physician in Leiden in April-May 1845 (“Approvato Dottore di Medicina, Chirurgia ed Ostetricia nell’università di eidelberga [sic] 22 gennaio 1845, leida [sic] 17 aprile, 30 aprile, 3 maggio 1845, torino [sic] 20 maggio 1865”): Archivio Storico Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo “Moleschott Jacopo”, AS 169. 93 Respectively as: “Franciscus Cornelius Donders”. De Gids, 52 (1888): 221-222; “Francesco Cornelio Donders”. La nuova antologia, 17 (1888): 192-212; Franciscus Cornelius Donders: Festgruss zum 27. Mai 1888 (Giessen: Roth, 1888).

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Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel. Ein Handbuch der Diätetik (Darmstadt: Leske, 1850; 2nd ed. Giessen: Roth, 1859) and the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren. Ein Handbuch für Naturforscher, Landwirthe und Arzte (Erlangen: Enke, 1851). In the introduction to his Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren, Moleschott made clear that it was to Mulder’s credit that the attention of the scientific community had been directed towards the reciprocal relation (Wechselwirkung) between matter, form, and function (Stoff, Form und Verrichtung).94 Interestingly, Moleschott sent a copy of his book also to Rudolf Wagner,95 the opponent of Carl Vogt at the Naturforscherversammlung in Göttingen,96 who promptly thanked him for it. This means that Moleschott did not see in him an opponent, and that what is normally interpreted as a clear-cut juxtaposition in nineteenth-century science, namely the division between vitalists and materialists, was actually bridged by personal contacts and exchanges of scientific works between these two sides. In fact, even though Moleschott explicitly opposed vitalism in biology, especially in his Kreislauf des Lebens and in the opening lectures he gave in Turin, he nevertheless considered representatives of this current such as Rudolf Wagner and Justus Liebig as being worthy of receiving a copy of his works. As we will see in the next chapters, Moleschott interpreted nutrition as being not just a scientific, but also a political issue, and Mulder’s theories played a key role in his views even forty years later, when he engaged in the Senate debates about the abolition of the grist tax (macinato). Mulder himself had published some pamphlets with popularizing aims and political implications, such as De voeding van den Neger in Suriname (1847), De Voeding in Nederland in verband tot den volksgeest (1847) and De voeding van Nederlanders (1854). However, due to a conflict between Mulder and Liebig about the nature and function of proteins,97 the relationship between Mulder and Moleschott was spoiled, and Moleschott lamented that Mulder did

94 Jacob Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren. Ein Handbuch für Naturforscher, Landwirthe und Arzte (Erlangen: Enke, 1851), XVIII. 95 Cf. Rudolf Wagner to Jacob Moleschott (Göttingen, December 7, 1857): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Rudolf Wagner. 96 Cf. Kurt Bayertz (ed.), Der Materialismus-Streit (Hamburg: Meiner, 2012), as well as Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 29 ff. (chapter 2, “Reaction in the Fifties”) and 164 ff. (chapter 8, “Controversies in Biology”). 97 On the conflict, cf. E. Glas, “The Liebig-Mulder controversy. On the methodology of physiological chemistry”, in Janus. Revue internationale de l’histoire des sciences, de la médecine, de la pharmacie et de la technique, 63 (1976): 27-46, as well as William H. Brock, Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 171 (on Mulder and Liebig) and 311 (on Moleschott and Liebig) and Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century, 131-135.

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not mention him at any point in his autobiography.98 In fact, Moleschott had promised Mulder to translate his reply to Liebig into German, but he eventually refused to complete this task because he thought Mulder’s tone too aggressive, even though in principle he sided with him. Nevertheless, one year later Moleschott translated one of Mulder’s books on nutrition, De Voeding in Nederland in verband tot den volksgeest, and Mulder’s nutritional theories would be very influential on Moleschott’s thought.99 Together with Mulder’s assistants Franciscus Donders and Izaac van Deen (1804-1869, from 1851 Professor of Physiology in Groningen), Moleschott was cofounder and editor of the Holländische Beiträge zu den anatomischen und physiologischen Wissenschaften (Düsseldorf-Utrecht, 1846-48), the first journal of physiology in the Netherlands.There, he published the results of his research on the existence of elastic fibers in the vesicles of the lungs, as well as a contribution on the water contained in the air of human exhalation. With van Deen, he would always maintain a good relationship and exchange a rich correspondence. In 1849, Moleschott still recalled his first meeting with Donders in 1844 in his house in the Springweg in Utrecht, and their discussions late into the night, as a joyful and enthusiastic moment.100 In his autobiography, he considered Donders as an older brother,101 whereas he praised van Deen as a “wissenschaftlicher Arzt”, that is, as a physician considering medicine as one of the natural sciences, as a medical doctor who was at the same time a researcher, doing experiments in physiology with frogs and, in his remaining time, reading books and scientific journals.102 This was precisely the way Moleschott understood the task of a physician, including himself: scientific research and medical practice both belonged to his profession. Moleschott described his friendship with Donders as the focal point (Brennpunkt) of his time in Utrecht.103 With him, he did some research on the changes in the amount 98

Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 129.

99

Jacob Moleschott, Die Ernährung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeist. Eine Uebers. von Gerard Johannes Mulderʼs Schrift: de Voeding in Nederland in verband tot den volksgeest. Nach dem Holländ. von Jac. Moleschott (Utrecht, Düsseldorf: Bötticher, 1847). Cf. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 85; on Mulder and his laboratory cf. H.G.K. Westenbrink, “Biochemistry in Holland”. Clio Medica, 1 (1966), 2: 153-159.

100 Van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 450: “Weet gij het nog, hoe wij de geheele physiologie doorliepen om overal harmonie te vinden? Gij kent nu den indruk, dien uw boek op mij gemaakt heeft en voor dien indruk zeg ik u dank. Want hij behoort tot de aangenaamste mijns levens.” I could not find this sentence in the letters preserved in UB Amsterdam, Bijzondre Collecties. 101 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 129-130. 102 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 140-142. 103 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 129; van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschapˮ, 476.

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of leucocytes in relation with nutrition.104 The friendship between Jacob Moleschott, Franciscus Donders, and Izaac van Deen is a typical example of the close connection between private, professional, and public life in Moleschott’s biography. As it turns out, differentiating between the private and the public levels is an abstraction that can hardly be conducted without losing much of the significance of their entanglement. During his time in Utrecht, Moleschott tried to find a suitable position in the Netherlands, but he did not succeed. He hoped that he or van Deen would get the vacant Chair of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Leiden, but this did not happen.105 It was after these episodesthat he published the polemic article “Die medicinischen Lehranstalten an den Hochschulen Niederlands”, printed in the Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde,106 in which he harshly criticized the Dutch system of higher education, the lack of the figure of the Privatdozent, and the appointment of professors not on the basis of their merits, but of personal connections. In that article, he also denounced the difficulties that van Deen encountered because of his Jewish origins. The admiration for the structure of the German university system and the defense of the institution of the Privatdozentur would remain a key concept during the rest of his life: as we will see, in the Italian debates on higher education, he suggested a reform of the Italian university based on the German system. Interestingly, during his time in Utrecht Moleschott first met Moritz Schiff,107 a scientist whose career, just like Moleschott’s, would continue in the Kingdom of Italy, namely in Florence. Their careers had a nearly parallel development: Schiff had

104 This was published as “Untersuchungen über die Blutkörperchen”. Holländische Beiträge zu den anatomischen und physiologischen Wissenchaften, 1 (1848), 360-378. Cf. Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 9. Moleschott found out that leucocytes increased after eating and that their increase is greater after a meal rich in proteins. The composition of the blood would remain a key theme in Moleschott’s physiological research, e.g. in his publication “Über das Verhältnis der farblosen Blutzellen zu den farbigen in verschiedenen Zuständen des Menschen.ˮ Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 4 (1854), 8: 113-117 (in a popularizing format, this issue had played a central role already in his Kreislauf des Lebens and in his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel). According to Hagelgans, Moleschott was most probably one of the first scientists, if not the very first, who observed an increase of leucocytes during pregnancy and menstruation (which he erroneously imputed to an increased consumption of food in that period): cf. Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 54-55. 105 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 142-143. 106 Jacob Moleschott, “Die medicinischen Lehranstalten an den Hochschulen Niederlandsˮ. Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde, 7 (1848): 472-479. 107 Moritz Schiff (Frankfurt am Main 1823 – Geneva 1896) was a German-Jewish physiologist and chemist, who, similarly to Moleschott, had a European career. He studied at

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studied in Göttingen and, later on, in Paris (he was a disciple of François Magendie), was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Bern in 1855, and in the 1860s collaborated with Moleschott in research on the nerves (the vagus and the sympathicus).108 Moreover, Moleschott got acquainted with other medical doctors (Schneevogt and Heije from Amsterdam), the chemist Edouard Henri von Baumhauer (1820-1885), and scholars who frequented Donders’s house, or who were already friends of Moleschott’s father (e.g. the mathematician Willem Wenckebach).109 However, in his autobiography Moleschott wrote that, in 1847, he felt some dissatisfaction with his medical practice as a physician in the Netherlands and was missing the German intellectual milieu;110 he refused an offer to teach legal medicine in Utrecht and decided to go back to Heidelberg: “Ich hatte mich zu sehr an den Flügelschlag des Deutschen Geistes gewöhnt, ich hatte mich zu gern in Strömungen Deutscher Literatur und Deutscher Weltweisheit gebadet, als daß mir bei aller Vorzüglichkeit der Menschen, die mich mit ihrem Wohlwollen oder ihrer Bekämpfung beehrten, nicht etwas gefehlt hätte.”111

The same feeling of dissatisfaction, due to the perceived provincialism of Holland and an overall less progressive and less interesting environment than at Heidelberg,

Heidelberg, Berlin and Göttingen, was a student of François Magendie in Paris, then director of the ornithological section of the zoological museum (Senckenberg Museum) in Frankfurt. He worked at the Istituto die Studi Superiori in Florence from 1863 until 1876, when he became Professor of Physiology in Geneva. In 1848, he served as a surgeon for the revolutionaries of Baden; just like Moleschott and Carl Vogt, he was a politically engaged scientist, and “exiled” polyglot publishing in German, French, and Italian. Cf. August W. Holldorf, “Schiff, Josef Moritzˮ, in NDB, 22 (2005), 748-749. 108 Cf. Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 9-10. 109 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 129, 138-139 and 151-152; also van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 18. Wenckebach was Professor of Mathematics in Utrecht: cf. Adolph Stephanus Rueb, Ter nagedachtenis van W. Wenckebach, math. mag., phil. nat. doct., hoogleeraar in de wiskunde aan de Hoogeschool te Utrecht, overleden 2 Januarij 1847 (Utrecht: Van der Post, 1847). With the chemist Edouard Henri von Baumhauer, who was working in Mulder’s lab until 1845, Moleschott published a booklet on potato diseases entitled Het wezen van aardappelziekte en de middelen ter voorkoming en genezing van dezelve (Utrecht: August Bötticher, 1845). For some biographical information, cf. Jorissen, “Baumhauer, Edouard Henri von”, in Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek (NNBW), 1 (1911), 253-254. 110 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 160-161. 111 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 154-155.

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becomes apparent in Moleschott’s letters to Donders and van Deen.112 Anyway, by 1846 Moleschott had written to Valentin that he would try to get a professorship in a “physiologische Wissenschaft”, e.g. in “physiologische Chemie”, at a German university; he was aware of the fact that this would not be easy, he explained, but he aimed at such a position because it would allow him to dedicate himself to his favorite subject of study.113

B ACK TO H EIDELBERG : P OPULARIZATION AND R EVOLUTION , 1847-1856 Becoming a Privatdozent In the summer of 1847, Moleschott started to teach as a Privatdozent in Heidelberg: it was Henle who recommended him to the faculty. As far as his scientific interest is concerned, he collaborated with Tiedemann, who was writing a treatise on physiology, and dedicated all of his efforts in research and teaching to the issue of nutrition. However, it was Henle who presented his theses for the Habilitation in order to get the venia docendi and thus become a Privatdozent. Moleschott held his Probevorlesung on the role of respiration in metabolism, as Gmelin had wished him to do. He started his research using a kitchen as his laboratory and began his teaching activity using a small room as a lecture hall.114 The theses for his Habilitation were publicly defended at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Heidelberg on April 20, 1847.115 In the first thesis, he stated that there could be a difference between the functions of organs only if their composition

112 The letters are contained in UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, Bibliotheek van de Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot bevordering der Geneeskunst, E.f. 67-110 (Jacob Moleschott to Izaac van Deen, E.f. 104: Sophie Moleschott to van Deen) and E.f. 115-147 (Jacob Moleschott to Franciscus Cornelis Donders). They constitute a great deal of the article by van Herwerden; moreover, they are summarized, partly reproduced, and integrated in the account of van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 20-24. 113 Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Utrecht, July 25, 1846): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65. 114 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 166-168. Cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 10. 115 The documents concerning Moleschott’s Habilitation are preserved in Akten der Medizinischen Fakultät 1847: UAH, H-III-111/54. 45-47. In UAH, H-III-111/54. 47, Henle presented the theses to his colleagues (on April 16, 1847), and Tiedemann and Gmelin approved them.

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(materia) is different; in the second, he maintained that plants take their nutriment (elementa organica) not only from the air, but also from the soil. In his third thesis, Moleschott took a position vis-à-vis the debate on the composition of proteins and the presence of sulfur in them, siding with Mulder but at the same time standing in a more moderate position, admitting that the presence of sulfur is a necessary, but not sufficient, element in the composition of proteins. The fourth thesis describes a method (namely fermentation) to isolate sugar in urines. In the fifth thesis, Moleschott stated that the view, according to which the only function of nutrition is to allow respiration, is erroneous; in the sixth, he stated that blood contains sodium bicarbonate, in the seventh that bile is not sodium choleine, and in the eighth that the nature of a certain acid, quid in ventriculo invenitur, is unknown.116 He thus ends recognizing, in a certain sense, the limits of scientific knowledge (although with reference to a specific case), similarly to what the physiologist Emil Du-Bois Reymond would state in his famous Ignorabimus speech (Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens) in Berlin in 1872.117 After the first years, which he describes as a time “des Ringens und Kämpfens”,118 Moleschott started to be a well-renowned teacher and many students were interested in his lectures, which were completed with practical exercises held at his house. In this time, his research concentrated on the histology of the lungs, the composition of 116 Akten der Medizinischen Fakultät 1847. UAH, H-III-111/54. 46: “Theses / physiologicochemicae / quas / auctoritate / gratiosi Medicorum Ordinis / in Alma / Litterarum Universitate Heidelbergensi / pro venia docendi / rite imperanda / die XX mens April MDCCCXLVII / hora locoque solitis / publice defendet / Jac. Moleschott, / Med., Chir. et Art. Obst. Doctor / Heidelbergae / Typis Georgii Reichardii MDCCCXLVII. / Theses / I. Nulla in functione diversitas, nisi diversa etiam materia. / II. Non ex aëre solo, verum etiam ex humo plantae elementa organica excipiunt. / III. Proteinum, quamquam non esse videtur sine sulphure, eandem tamen habet vim ad explicandam corporum albuminosorum constitutionem. / IV. Ut saccharum in urina agnoscatur, ceteris certior methodus videtur fermentatio. / V. Errant qui docent: nutrimenta quaedam soli respirationi inservire. / VI. In sanguine bicarbonas sodae. / VII. Bilis non est choleinas sodae. / VIII. Fugit nos acidi, quod in ventriculo invenitur, natura.” 117 The so-called Ignorabimus-speech is: Emil Du Bois-Reymond, “Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens [1872]ˮ, in Du Bois-Reymond, Reden von Emil Du Bois-Reymond. Mit einer Gedächtnisrede von Julius Rosenthal, ed. by Estelle Du Bois-Reymond, 2nd edition (Leipzig: Veit, 1912), vol. I, 441-473. Cf. the biography by Finkelstein, Emil du BoisReymond. On the question of the limits of knowledge in the conceptions of German scientists in the nineteenth century, cf. Ferdinando Vidoni, Ignorabimus! Emil du Bois-Reymond und die Debatte über die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main, New York: P. Lang, 1991). 118 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 167.

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blood and blood cells, the functioning of the liver and of the milt, as well as with animal emissions of CO2 (hydrogen carbonate); in physiological chemistry, he focused on the analysis of milk and of the bile.119 The composition of blood and blood cells would become the issue of a popularizing lecture given in Turin in 1864:120 this shows the continuity between Moleschott’s scientific research and his popularizing activity. At the same time, it is an example of the transnationality of his scientific popularization, as well as of his excellent rhetorical ability. In fact, the lecture was held at the Società torinese per letture scientifiche e letterarie, an association addressing the bourgeoisie of the city of Turin with the aim of spreading both scientific and humanistic knowledge, but it was translated also into Dutch and German.121 In the Wintersemester 1850/51, Moleschott was teaching “physiology of metabolism” (we can assume that the content of his book Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren at least partly corresponds to the content of this course) and “physiology of the blood”.122 Moleschott’s first lecture (Vorlesung) was in physiological chemistry, and he was later proud of the fact that his audience was restricted, but excellent and international (from Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands).123 In the Sommersemester 1851, he taught “experimental physiology” and “organology, the doctrine of the anatomical type of the organs, as an introduction to comparative anatomy and physiology” (this course was “public” and took place in the evenings, thus it did not address students of medicine only).124

119 Letter from Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, January 3, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 102. Cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 11. 120 Jacob Moleschott, Unʼambasciata fisiologica esposta nella società torinese per letture scientifiche e letterarie, il dì 21 marzo 1864 (Torino: Loescher, 1864). 121 The German translation was published as Eine Physiologische Sendung: in der Turiner Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche und litterarische Vorlesungen am 21. März 1864 vorgetragen (Giessen: Roth, 1864), and the Dutch one was called Eene physiologische zending (Rotterdam, 1864). In the next chapters, we will deal with the topic, public audience, and style of this lecture in more detail. 122 Acten der medicinischen Facultät im Jahre 1850, unter dem Decanate von Leopold Gmelin: UAH, H-III-111/57. 30 (Vorlesungen im Winter-Semester 1850/51, signed by Moleschott on June 22, 1850), underlined in the original: “1) Physiologie des Stoffwechsels (im Pflanzen- und Thierreich), an den drei letzten Wochentagen, Abends von 6-7. 2) Physiologie des Bluts, Dinstags Abends von 6-7 publiceˮ. 123 Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth (Giessen: Roth, 1883), 6-7. 124 Acten der medicinischen Facultät im Jahre 1850, unter dem Decanate von Leopold Gmelin: UAH, H-III-111/57. 91 (Vorlesungen für das Sommersemester 1851, signed by Moleschott on December 10, 1850), underlined in the original: “(1) Experimentalphysiologie, täglich von 11-12. (2) Organologie, die Lehre vom anatomischen Typus der Organe,

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It was in the Wintersemester 1852/53 that he started to teach, besides experimental physiology for students of medicine, also a course in “anthropology, explained through demonstrations and experiments”, which took place on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 3 to 4 p.m., was part of the courses of the Philosophical Faculty, and was open to the students of all faculties.125 The course was offered also in the summer term of 1853.126 As we will see, his course on anthropology was at least partly responsible for the warnings he received from the Ministry of Baden and the University of Heidelberg. In fact, Moleschott’s lectures, his handbooks, and his popularizing books were the expression of his political engagement for a progressive and democratic government, a more equal society, and national unification. For him, pleading for better nutrition for the working class meant defending socialist principles, whereas he understood his nutritional advice also as a means to help repressed folks to achieve their independence.127 On the cultural and political levels, Moleschott, as well as his politically engaged colleagues and friends, perceived 1848 as a clear break: until 1848, Moleschott was praising Germany and its politically progressive and culturally advanced environment, suggesting not only that the Dutch follow the Germans’ progressive attitude, but that the Netherlands themselves be incorporated in a united German nation-state.128 After 1848, he started to see and feel the effects of political repression, which eventually led to leaving the university in 1854. In particular, his meetings with Hermann Hettner,129 who also became Privatdozent in the same period, were significant for Moleschott’s passion for literature and als Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie und Physiologie, Mittwochs und Donnerstags, Abends von 6-7, öffentlichˮ. 125 Acten der medicinischen Facultät von dem Jahre 1852, unter dem Decanate des Geheime Hofrath Prof. Dr. Puchelt: UAH, H-III-111/59. 52: “Winter 1852/53: 1) Experimentalphysiologie, täglich von 9-10. NB!) 2) Anthropologie, durch Demonstrationen und Versuche erläutert, an den drei ersten Wochentagen von 3-4. D[r.] Jac. Moleschott (NB! Unter den Vorlesungen der philosophischen Facultät aufzuführen)ˮ. 126 Acten der medicinischen Facultät von dem Jahre 1852, unter dem Decanate des Geheime Hofrath Prof. Dr. Puchelt: UAH, H-III-111/59. 99. 127 In his Kreislauf des Lebens, Moleschott maintains that natural scientists, guided by empirical knowledge, know the solution to the social question: cf. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 96. 128 Jacob Moleschott, “Die medicinischen Lehranstalten an den Hochschulen Niederlandsˮ. Cf. also Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 146-147 and Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 53-54. Cf. Moleschott to Donders (Heidelberg, May 5, 1848): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 119. 129 Hermann Julius Theodor Hettner (1821-1882) was a German art historian and literary scholar. He became Privatdozent in Heidelberg in 1847, and, in 1848, he belonged to the

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his political engagement. The two scholars were good friends, shared the same political views, and often visited each other: in fact, they used to live in the same house starting from 1847, the “Thomas’sche Haus” in the Hauptstraße, at the corner of the Dreikönigsstraße: Moleschott lived on the second floor, Hettner on the first floor.130 In 1851, Moleschott moved into Hettner’s apartment, Hettner having just moved to Jena.131 In 1883, when he had been living in Italy for more than twenty years, Moleschott dedicated to Hettner a pamphlet in German, wich was entitled Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth and was published by Emil Roth in Giessen. There, he celebrated Hettner’s talents as an engaged literary scholar and remembered the time he spent together with him and other engaged intellectuals in Heidelberg. The admiration and friendship was reciprocal: in fact, Hettner himself sent Moleschott a copy of one of his books (most probably, of his Literaturgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts),132 asking him his opinion about his style and the literary form.133 Thus, Moleschott was considered by his friends, even by literary scholars such as Hermann Hettner, as an expert in the form and style of popularizing writings. In his turn, Hettner made suggestions to Moleschott for improving the style of his Lehre Nahrungsmittel, advising him, for example, to use the word “Fettbildner” instead of “Fettbilder”. Two women, namely Hettner’s wife Marie and Moleschott’s wife Sophie, also helped him to improve the style of his book.134 The friendship with Berthold Auerbach135 would also be one of the most important in his life: not only did they have in common liberal political ideas, but also popularization (of literature in the case of Auerbach, of science in the case of Moleschott), which was for both of same circle of engaged scholars as Moleschott, together with Ludwig Feuerbach and Gottfried Keller. Cf. Heinz Otto Burger, “Hettner, Hermann”, in NDB, 9 (1972), 32 ff. The correspondence sent by Hettner to Moleschott is preserved in BCABo, FSM, 13.22 (new); the drafts of some of Moleschott’s letters to Hettner in BCABo, FSM, 40.3 (new). 130 Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 6. 131 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 217 and Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 58. Cf. also van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 43. 132 Hermann Hettner, Literaturgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. In 3 Teilen (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1856). 133 Hermann Hettner to Jacob Moleschott (Dresden, January 14, 1856). BCABo, FSM, 13.22 (new) [letter 54]: “Lieber Moleschott, hier mein Buch. […] sage mir dein Urtheil. Namentlich sage mir auch, ob du mit Stil und Art der Behandlung zufrieden bistˮ. 134 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 200. 135 Berthold Auerbach, born Moses (Moyses) Baruch Auerbach (1812-1882) was a GermanJewish publicist, novelist and poet. In the same way as Moleschott published books of scientific popularization that aimed at influencing public opinion, Auerbach’s novels dealt with broad ethical and political issues. Cf. Fritz Martini, “Auerbach, Bertholdˮ, in NDB, 1 (1953), 434-435.

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them a way to spread a progressive worldview. Besides Berthold Auerbach, Hermann Hettner introduced him also to Gottfried Keller136 and Bernhard Fries.137 In the period around 1848, Moleschott was hoping to get a position in Zürich, as it appears from two letters he sent respectively to Donders and to van Deen on May 5, 1848,138 as well as from two letters to Berthold Auerbach dating from the same period.139 In the letter he wrote to Auerbach on February 13, 1848, Moleschott informed him that he did not have any news about Zürich. At the same time, he told him that, due to the increasing importance attributed to one’s nationality, he feared that it would be impossible for him to go back to Germany and teach in German universities once having obtained a position in Switzerland: “[…] Geschiehtʼs doch nicht, um so ist aber mein Trost, so wie der Umstand, daß vielleicht jetzt wo man meines Erachtens die Nationalität zu sehr betont, ein Ruf in die Schweiz die Rückkehr nach Deutschland auf gar zu lange unmöglich machen könnte.”140

It is interesting to notice that, at this point in his life, Moleschott was not a wholehearted nationalist, as he would become later on, from 1861 in Italy at the latest: to the contrary, he seems to criticize the importance accorded to nationality in the current epoch. 136 Gottfried Keller (Zürich, 1819-1890) was a Swiss poet and politician. In 1848, he engaged in the political democratic movement. He was in Heidelberg from 1848 until 1850 and an engaged democrat. Cf. Jürgen Rothenberg, “Keller, Gottfriedˮ, in Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), 11 (1977), 437-455. 137 Bernhard Fries (Heidelberg 1820 – München 1879) was a German painter, the son of a bankers’ family. Cf. Arthur von Schneider, “Fries, Jacob Daniel Georg Gottlieb Bernhardˮ, in NDB, 5 (1961), 603-604. 138 Cf. Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, May 5, 1848): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 84; Moleschott to Donders (Heidelberg, May 5, 1848): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 119. Cf. also Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 46. Other documents concerning his application are not known: it is likely that the prospect did not get past the very beginning, as had been the case with his wish to get a position in Giessen. 139 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Mainz, February 13, 1848): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/1 (microfiche 015648) and Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, June 20, 1848): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/3 (microfiche 015648). In the first letter, Moleschott wrote that he did not know anything about Zürich yet, i.e. he did not know whether he would get a position there or not. In a second letter, sent on July 13, 1848, he would announce to Auerbach that he had not become a professor in Zürich. 140 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Mainz, February 13, 1848): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/1 (microfiche 015648).

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In July of the same year, Moleschott believed the possibility of getting a position in Zürich to be nonexistent: “Die Züricher Professur ist so gut wie verloren”, he wrote to Auerbach on July 13, 1848.141 These letters show us that, even though he did not have imminent reason for leaving Heidelberg before 1853-1854, Moleschott was attempting to find a better position in another country. In one of his letters to him, van Deen informed Moleschott that he was leaving for a research trip to Denmark and asked him whether he should not try to find a suitable position for him in that country.142 After having praised German freedom as opposed to Dutch conservatism, Moleschott was beginning to experience the opposite feeling in Heidelberg after 1848. For instance, in September 1852 he asked van Deen whether he could find a position in the Netherlands for his colleague, the zoologist Emil Adolf Roßmäßler (Leipzig, 1806-1867).143 Together with Moleschott’s brother-in-law Otto Ule,144 as well as with Karl Müller, Roßmäßler was the founder and editor of the popularizing journal Die Natur beginning in 1852. Anyway, even in 1855, when Moleschott had lost his previous academic position, van Deen wrote to him advising him not to go back to the Netherlands: according to him, Moleschott would not feel at ease in the conservative Dutch academic environment (even their common friend Franciscus Cornelis Donders had, according to him, the same conservative behavior as all other Dutch professors).145 Before and after the 1848 revolution, Moleschott was in contact with many protagonists of cultural innovation and with committed democrats. He attended the meetings in the house of Christian Kapp, where he met Ludwig Feuerbach, and which he described as follows: 141 Jacob Moleschott (however, part of the letter is written by Sophie Moleschott) to Berthold Auerbach (Mainz, July 13, 1848): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/4 (microfiche 015648). 142 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 51 (the letter is summarized on pages 295-296, and is dated “before August 1852”). 143 Moleschott to van Deen (“’s Bosch” [=’s-Hertogenbosch], September 4, 1852): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 97. Cf. also Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 51 (basing on the same letter). On Roßmäßler as another example of a politically engaged scientist, cf. Peter E. Fäßler, “Roßmäßler, Emil Adolf (Adolph)”, in Sächsische Biografie, Online-Ausgabe: http://www.isgv.de/saebi/ (last viewed July 18, 2017). 144 Otto Ule (Lossow, near Frankfurt an der Oder 1820 – Halle an der Saale 1876) had studied theology, mathematics, and natural sciences in Halle and Berlin; he was a popularizer, especially of Alexander von Humboldt’s Kosmos. He had married a sister of Sophie, Marie Strecker. Cf. Wilhelm Heß, “Ule, Otto Eduard Vincenz”, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 39 (1895), 180-181; Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 195, 204, 229. 145 Van Deen to Moleschott (Groningen, July 2, 1855): BCABo, Corrispondenza I. van Deen. Cf. van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 52.

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“Und trotz der Unruhe des Gastherrs, der so bekannt geworden durch seinen wiederholten Austritt aus der Badischen Kammer und dem Frankfurter Parlament, trotz seiner aufregenden Regsamkeit war jenes Haus für alle unsre Gesinnungsgenossen eine feste Burg, sein reizender Garten über dem Necker, der bis zum Philosophenweg auf dem Heiligenberg führte, ein geweihtes Luftwäldchen, in welchem alle Fragen wiederhallten, welche die besten Kreise Deutschlands beseelten.”146

In the political context of the late 1840s, Moleschott’s sympathy fell towards the February Revolution in France and for the Paulskircheversammlung in Frankfurt; at Heidelberg, most of his friends were engaged in the publication of the newly founded democratic newspaper Deutsche Zeitung.147 Moleschott understood himself to be a socialist and democrat, but his conception of socialism was restricted to sufficient and better (according to his view, this meant rich in proteins) nutrition for the people.148 Feuerbach and Moleschott stood in a relationship of mutual admiration: in a letter to Friedrich Kapp, Feuerbach described Moleschott as a “[…] ausgezeichneten, prinzipiell freien Naturforscher und wissenschaftl[ichen] Freund von mir”.149 Writing to Moleschott eight years later, Feuerbach expressed his gratitude for the Skizzenbuch,150 which Moleschott had sent him, asking him to write a review. He confessed that he had not read it yet, but nevertheless expressed once more his admiration towards Moleschott, confiding to him that they both shared the same philosophical concerns: “Aus diesem Grunde habe ich Ihre Schrift zurückgelegt, weil Sie ja mein sind – mein im doppelten Sinne, nicht nur als Verfasser Ihrer früheren, mir aus alter lehrreicher Erinnerung so teuern Schriften, sondern teilweise auch als Verfasser dieser neuesten Schrift […]. Mein hauptsächliches Lesen und Studieren bezieht sich schon seit fast zwei Jahren auf den Streit des Spiritualismus und Materialismus.”151

In another letter, Feuerbach expressed admiration for Moleschott’s work, but at the same time revealed that the knowledge of the natural sciences was missing for him 146 Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 31-32. 147 Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 30. 148 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 212; cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 11 149 Ludwig Feuerbach to Friedrich Kapp (January 27/28, 1853), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 8. 150 Jacob Moleschott, Physiologisches Skizzenbuch (Giessen: Roth, 1861). 151 Ludwig Feuerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Rechenberg, March 13, 1861), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 335-336.

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in order to enable him to understand the complete meaning of Moleschott’s work. However, he said, he was hoping that the time would come soon, when “the Moleschott of physiology and chemistry” would substitute “the Duns Scot of Christian philosophy, religion and politics”.152 Kapp’s and Auerbach’s houses, as meeting points of revolutionaries and of liberal democrats, would have a central meaning for Moleschott: on the one hand, it was there that he found the intellectuals who would inform his political and philosophical thought, such as Feuerbach, Hettner, and Auerbach. On the other hand, it was at Knapp’s house and through Auerbach’s mediation that he met the woman who would be his faithful partner across three countries.

Sophie Strecker: Poetry and the Lab The occasion upon which he first met Sophie, his future wife, was due to the fact that she had come to Heidelberg in order to help Berthold Auerbach, whose wife had just died of puerperal fever, with his newborn child; the words Moleschott wrote to Auerbach about Sophie are full of enthusiasm and joy: “Im Streckerʼschen Hause! Lieber, lieber Auerbach, der Ort, an dem ich schreibe, wird Dir alles verrathen, was ich Dir so gerne längst gesagt hätte, wenn ich es Dir Augʼ in Auge hätte sagen können. Ach! warum bist Du nicht glücklich, mein guter, theuer Freund, daß Du einstimmen könntest mit all Deiner wohlthuenden Wärme in den Jubel, der mir viel Worte unmöglich macht? Die Sophie meine Braut! dieses kleine, liebe, herrliche Wesen mein, mein mit einer Wärme, von der ich nur eine dunkle Ahnung hatte, wenn ich Dich oder Hettner über Euer Glück hörte! [...] Nicht wahr, Du kennst meine Sophie und mich genug, um zu wissen, daß es sich um etwas mehr, [...] um etwas Höheres als Liebe handelt.”153

152 Ludwig Feuerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Bruckberg, October 12, 1850), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), vol. 19 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. Werner Schuffenhauer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), 244. 153 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Mainz, July 13, 1848): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/4 (microfiche 015648). The letter is followed by some greetings handwritten by Sophie. Emphasis in the original. As we can see from this passage, Moleschott communicated his deepest joys and sorrows to Auerbach, not only concerning his engagement to and marriage with Sophie, whose family Auerbach was close to, but also familiar worries and joys, situations of uncertainty, and sickness (e.g. when his daughter Marie was improving in condition after meningitis).

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Similar enthusiastic expressions can be found in a letter Moleschott sent to Izaac van Deen in the days.154 Anyway, Sophie was not the first girl he had liked: first, he was fascinated by one of the daughters of the Luden family in Heidelberg; then, with Elisabeth (or Betsy) van Zwijndregt, a girl from a Protestant family, with whom he broke off an engagement before he became engaged to Sophie, on June 18, 1848.155 Two days later, he would inform his friend Berthold Auerbach that his relationship with “Elisa” (certainly meaning Elisabeth or Betsy van Zwijndregt) was broken; he addressed to him the following words, and explained his own emotions and psychological situation through literary comparisons: “Lieber Auerbach, Du wirst diesen Brief nicht von mir erwarten und viel weniger seinen Inhalt. Was ich da aber zu erzählen habe, mein treuer Freund, ist zu wichtig, als daß es Aufschub erleiden könnte. Ich bin nicht etwa Professor in Zürich geworden. Nein, ich habe Dir um Negatives zu berichten. Zur Sache. Mein Verhältniß zur Elisa ist aufgelöst. Von Seiten des Herzens habe ich einen traurigen Winter und Frühling erlebt. Du weißt, daß ich im Oktober acht Tage in Cleve war. [...] Statt auf das Fleisch und Blut der Gegenwart habe ich auf einen Traum jugendlicher Erinnerungen meine Hoffnungen gebaut gehabt. Sie war mir kaum so viel, wie dem Eduard die Charlotte in den Wahlverwandtschaften.”156

In this sense, for Moleschott, the spring of the revolution in 1848 was a spring of love and of strong feelings. He and Sophie took care to bind together their correspondence:

154 Jacob Moleschott to Izaac van Deen (Heidelberg, July 21, 1848): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 87: “Ik heb in de Pinksterdagen te Mainz een meisje leeren kennen, dat door zelfstandige ontwikkeling in het godsdienstige, in het leven en in de politiek geheel en al mijne zienswijze deelt. Een woord van mij! en zij spreekt mijne diepste, mijne heiligste gedachten uit! als zij Beethoven speelt, is het mij als of haar vingers gevoel volgden.” 155 Jacob Moleschott to Sophie Strecker (Heidelberg, June 21, 1848): BCABo, FSM, 23.1 (new). Also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 457, and van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 45-47, report the same information, based on a not-further specified letter sent by Moleschott to van Deen. 156 Moleschott started his letter writing that he had not become a professor in Zürich: instead, he had to communicate to Auerbach “something negative” (namely, that he had broken his relationship with “Elisa”, meaning Elisabeth or Betsy van Zwijndregt): Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, June 20, 1848): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/3 (microfiche 015648).

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the letters they sent to each other during the period of their engagement are still available to us as a book containing about two-hundred letters.157 Moleschott and Sophie married in 1849; together, they had two sons and three daughters. The first son, Karel Jan or Carl or Carlo, was born in 1851. Hermann or Arminio (in a letter to Auerbach, Moleschott told him that, if his child would be male, he would call him Hermann in honor of Hermann Hettner)158 was born in 1856 and died in 1884. The first daughter, Marie or Maria, was born in 1861 and died in 1879. The second daughter, Elsa (or Elisabeth), was born in 1861 (right before Moleschott’s moving to Italy) and died when she was still a little child, probably in 1867. The third daughter was born in 1867, and she was also called Elsa.159 She studied medicine and died in 1897 while giving birth to a child; she played an important role at her father’s side, especially in the latest years of his life.160 Carlo Moleschott (1851-1928) followed in the footsteps of his father: he studied engineering at the new polytechnic university in Turin and had a quite successful career, publishing a handbook for engineers and becoming, just like his father, an expert and member of governmental technical commissions (his company was responsible for the first electric light installations in several Italian cities).161 Sophie was born in Mainz in a bourgeois family in 1830: she was the daughter of Georg Strecker, a prominent citizen of Mainz and a winedealer.162 What she demanded from her partner was that he be a republican and a freethinker.163 Not only did she show great interest in Moleschott’s scientific research, but she also allowed him to build his own lab and buy the instruments with an inheritance that she had just obtained.164 There, Moleschott could conduct research on the respiration and the 157 Jacob Moleschott and Sophie Moleschott, Corrispondenza 1848-1849 (more precisely, the letters were written in the period between June 19, 1848 and February 27, 1849, i.e. between their engagement and their marriage): BCABo, FSM, 23.1 (new). 158 Jacob Moleschott to Hermann Hettner (Heidelberg, October 11, 1855): FSM, A III 1 oo 48 (Desittere) = 40.3 (new). 159 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 290, as well as the genealogical trees she retrieved from the information she obtained from the archivist of the Gemeentearchief Leiden, 288289. 160 Many of Moleschott’s notes in that period have been dictated to Elsa and transcribed by her. On Elsa’s role in the organization of her father’s papers cf. also Busi, “Moleschott nella Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 596. 161 Busi, “Moleschott nella Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”, 589. 162 Hubert Steinke, “Jakob Moleschottˮ, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz: http://www.hls-dhs-dss.chD14555.php (last viewed October 6, 2015). 163 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 181-191. Cf. also Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 87. 164 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 189.

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blood composition of frogs.165 She accompanied Moleschott through all of the steps of his career, being for him a strong support, not only morally, but also in keeping in contact with the German world. She composed poems, which she never published, and she is the author of many detailed drawings (especially of hairs and their structure) in Moleschott’s Physiologisches Skizzenbuch.166 After moving to Italy, she took some time in order to get acquainted with the new environment; she learned Italian and adapted to the new life as much as possible. However, her melancholic crises became more frequent with time and, as we can infer from the letters of condolence received by Moleschott, she committed suicide on October 20, 1891.167 Moleschott himself left this issue completely out of his autobiography, where he depicted daily life with Sophie and their relationship as being idyllic.168 Anyway, from the correspondence, it is evident that she repeatedly suffered from melancholic crises at least from the time of their moving to Turin, in 1861.169 In Heidelberg, Sophie was for Moleschott a precious assistant in his laboratory. In his autobiography, Moleschott described their cooperation in some detail, emphasizing her participation in several stages of his research, from capturing frogs and holding them during the experiments to cleaning the glass surfaces he needed for chemical and microscopic examination: “Brauche ich’s zu erzählen, daß sie mir half beim Froschfang, daß sie mir die Gläser putzte, die ich brauchte für chemische Versuche oder mikroskopische Beobachtungen, ja, daß sie, die so selbständig war, daß sie nicht gern Gehülfendienste leistete, mir, wenn es galt, sogar die Frösche hielt? Es war das Leben und Treiben einer Zweieinigkeit, dessen Triebkraft darin zum Ausbruch kam, daß, als sie im Jahre 1851 eine mäßige Erbschaft machte, sie mir die betreffende Summe ohne Weiteres zur Verfügung stellte, damit ich mir die Mittel verschaffte, meiner geliebten Physiologie als Lehrer und Forscher auf dem Versuchswege leben zu können.”170

165 Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 11. 166 Some of her poems are conserved in BCABo, FSM; the drawings are in Moleschott, Physiologisches Skizzenbuch, chapter IV (“Der Hornpanzer des Menschen”). 167 The letters of condolence for Sophie’s death received by Moleschott are conserved in Bologna; many of them have been summarized by van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 319-332. 168 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 181-191. 169 Cf. for instance Jacob Moleschott to Édouard Desor (Turin, January 17, 1862): “Meine Frau leidet aber an einer so hochgradigen Melancholie […]ˮ. AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 55. 170 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 194.

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Thus, Sophie allowed Moleschott’s independent activity as an experimental physiologist, letting him dispose of the money from her inheritance for that purpose. At the same time, as we will see later on, she took care of corresponding on financial matters, both with Édouard Desor and Izaac van Deen, and supported his decision to leave the University of Heidelberg.

The Meeting with Justus Liebig and the Controversies between the two Scientists Both with regard to politics and to science, the period from the beginning of Moleschott’s studies in Heidelberg to the culmination of his career as a professor in Turin displays a series of significant events. As far as the natural sciences are concerned, this was a time of great changes and debates in physics and biology, such as the debate between vitalists and anti-vitalists, Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, and Robert Mayer’s law of energy conservation in 1845.171 As we will see, Moleschott, who praised them in his lectures in Turin and Rome, held both Darwin and Mayer in high esteem. Moreover, the political sphere was rich with important events in the years around the 1848 revolution in Germany and Europe: it was the time of nationalism, of the rise of new nation-states such as Germany and Italy, but also of the affirmation of democratic and liberal ideas. Moleschott’s engagement in scientific popularization and the courses he taught on anthropology, which were open to participants from all faculties, should also be understood in the sense of a personal contribution to spreading the ideas of liberalism and democracy. The reason why Moleschott was not exiled after the failed revolution and in the period of repression which followed, in the same way as Büchner and Vogt were, is perhaps due to his relatively low profile in that period, having just started his career one year earlier. In fact, his most important popularizing works on nutrition, such as the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel and the Kreislauf des Lebens, were all published starting in 1850. However, Moleschott must have understood that, in Heidelberg, his possibilities of having an academic career were not great: indeed, he tried to get a position as extraordinary professor in Giessen, where Theodor Bischoff, previously at Heidelberg, held the Chair of Physiology and Anatomy starting from 1844. Moleschott relied on the help of Justus Liebig, who had previously recommended Bischoff; however, with Moleschott, things were different. Apparently, Liebig did not recommend him to the faculty or to the Minister of Hessen-Darmstadt as he did for Bischoff – which is no

171 On Robert Mayer, cf. the study by Kenneth L. Caneva, Robert Mayer and the conservation of energy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993).

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wonder, if we consider that the relationship between them was not the smoothest after Moleschott’s and, especially, Mulder’s, polemics on the nature of proteins.172 In his autobiography, Bischoff did not mention any episode related to Moleschott for the period from 1848 in Heidelberg to the beginnings of his time in Giessen in 1850, nor does Moleschott seem to play any significant role in his life in Heidelberg and in his career as a scientist.173 This also indicates that the issue of Moleschott’s position as Extraordinarius in Giessen never became a common topic and was known only to a very restricted number of persons (possibly only Liebig, Moleschott, and the Strecker family, which was their contact point). Moleschott, however, showed great admiration for Bischoff and his scientific work in his autobiography.174 Moleschott narrates that Liebig had a friendly attitude towards him until the controversy with Mulder, and that afterwards, suddenly, his behavior changed; he criticized Moleschott for siding with Mulder and did not provide him a position as Extraordinarius in Giessen even though he was committed to doing so.175 However, Liebig’s letters to Moleschott show a different account of the events. In fact, at the beginning of 1850 (Giessen, January 26, 1850), Liebig promptly answered Moleschott’s letter (sent from Heidelberg on January 24, 1850), in which Moleschott asked him about any vacant chair he could be a candidate for and demanded his support, and sent him a copy of his Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel. Ein Handbuch der Diätetik (in the letters mentioned as Dietätik). In his first letter, Moleschott sent Liebig the revised version of Tiedemann’s Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, which, as he expressed it, had grown to an independent

172 Moleschott and Liebig exchanged only two letters on the argument: Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850): Staatsbibliothek München, Liebigiana II.B, and Justus Liebig to Jacob Moleschott (Giessen, January 26, 1850): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Justus Liebig. No other documents have been found at the university archives in Heidelberg or Giessen. As far as Giessen is concerned, it must be noted that the Personalakten and other documents regarding the history of the university in the nineteenth century, especially in the period comprised between 1830 and 1880, were destroyed during World War II. Also Bischoff’s Personalakten, where the correspondence regarding the appointment of an Extraordinarius should be preserved, have been destroyed. Cf. Eva-Marie Felschow, “Ein Gast im Haus der Bücher: das Universitätsarchiv und seine Beständeˮ, in Aus mageren und aus ertragreichen Jahren: Streifzug durch die Universitätsbibliothek Gießen und ihre Bestände, ed. Irmgard Hort (Gießen, 2007), 338357, and personal communication between Eva-Marie Felschow (Giessen University Archive), and the author, April 17, 2015. 173 Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff, Selbstbiographie (Kiel: s.n., 1925). 174 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 91. 175 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 218-219.

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work, a handbook of dietetics; Moleschott’s “greatest wish” was, however, not humble, since, after Liebig’s criticism, he wished that the famous chemist would “recognize [the aim of the work] as being his own [aim]”: “Hochgeehrter Herr Professor, Anliegend enthalten Sie meine Bearbeitung von Tiedemannʼs Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, die zu einem selbständigen Handbuch der Dietätik [sic] herangewachsen ist. Ich empfehle dieses Buch ganz besonders Ihrer Nachsicht, nicht weil ich an manchen Stellen polemisch gegen Sie aufgetreten bin – auch in der Polemik werden Sie meine aufrichtigste Verehrung nicht entkennen –, sondern weil ich sehr gut weiß, wie schwer man Ihren Anforderungen genügt. Mein höchster Wunsch wäre erfüllt wenn Sie mein Streben billigten und das Ziel, das mir vorschwebte, als das Ihrige anerkennen möchten. – Auf Eins erlaube ich mir, Sie ausdrücklich aufmerksam zu machen, nämlich, daß mein M.S. in 1848 geschlossen war.”176

Then, Moleschott referred to their very first meeting, during which he had apparently already asked him about the possibility of getting the position of Prosector in Giessen; he goes on by saying that, the day before, he had heard that such a position was then available, and had already written to Bischoff with this regard. That Moleschott heard about the news in Mainz proves once more the central role of the Strecker family as a connection to the academic word of chemistry and the natural sciences: “Als ich das letzte Mal das Vergnügen hatte, Sie in Mainz zu sehen, haben Sie sich vielleicht darüber gewundert, daß ich die Nachricht von der besetzten Prosectorstelle in Giessen gleichgültig aufnahm. Ich hielt aber die Sache für verloren und wußte im anregenden Gespräch Trost zu finden für eine allerdings enttäuschte Hoffnung. Gestern erfuhr ich, die bewußte Stelle sei noch nicht definitiv besetzt. In Folge dessen schrieb ich sogleich an Bischoff. Daß ich Ihnen dies erzähle, hat, ganz ehrlich gestanden, daran seinen Grund, daß ich auf Ihre Fürsprache hoffe, daß / ich auf Ihre Fürsprache den allerhöchsten Werth lege.”177

As is evident from the last paragraph of the letter, Sophie’s family, especially her father, constituted the link between Moleschott and Liebig:178 “Mein Schwiegervater, der eben bei mir angekommen ist, schickt Ihnen seinen herzlichen Gruß. Meine Frau 176 Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850): Staatsbibliothek München, Liebigiana II.B., [1]. Moleschott and Liebig exchanged only two letters on the argument. 177 Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850): Staatsbibliothek München, Liebigiana II.B., [1]-[2]. 178 For the concept of “Familienuniversitätˮ cf. Peter Moraw, “Humboldt in Gießen: zur Professorenberufung an einer deutschen Universitätˮ. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 10 (1984), 1: 47-71.

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und mich empfehle ich mit aufrichtigster Hochachtung Ihrem Wohlwollen”, we can read at the end of this letter.179 With respect to his motivation to go to Giessen, as well as to the tasks he would fulfill there, Moleschott had clear ideas: “Was mich aber mit allen meinen Wünschen nach Gießen versetzt, ist außer der ideellen Anregung, die Sie keinem Strebenden vorenthalten, die Hoffnung auf bestimmte materielle Leitung und Hülfe auf dem experimentellen Wege, das ich hier, alle Hülfsmittel entbehrend, nicht betreten kann – und so unendlich gerne betreten möchte. Der Fleiß für das anatomische Studium sollte nicht darunter leiden; jeder Sommer müßte mir Schadenersatz bieten für die Zeit, die das Skalpell der Wage verübte. Aus den Giessener Verzeichnisse der Vorlesungen ersah ich, daß Sie weder physiologische Chemie noch Dietätik [sic] als solche lehren: diese beiden Vorlesungen, verbunden mit Osteologie und allgemeiner Anatomie wären alles was ich wünschen könnte, um meiner entschiedenen Liebe zum Lehramt Nahrung zu bieten. Für meine Hoffnungen auf unser Zusammenwicken will ich lieber schwärmen, als ich Ihnen davon schreiben mag: ich würde Ihnen erst beweisen, dass ich die Anwendung des stolzen Worthes verdiene.”180

Like many other natural scientists and chemists at that time, Moleschott was attracted by the material possibilities opened by Liebig’s modern laboratory, by its instruments, and by the guidance of such a renowned chemist and the collaboration with his students coming from all over Europe. Concerning his future possible tasks, he made clear that he did not want to concentrate on chemistry only, but had planned to dedicate the summer to anatomical research. He also offered to Liebig that he would teach physiological chemistry and dietetics, both subjects being absent from the curriculum in Giessen: he could teach these lectures in addition to osteology and general anatomy, he suggested. Liebig thanked Moleschott for the copy of the work he had just received, but added some remarks about Moleschott’s data and observations about proteins: these made clear that Moleschott stuck to Mulder’s theories and, in the Liebig-Mulder controversy, sided with him.181 As far as the position in Giessen was concerned, the first position Liebig refers to is the one of “Prosector” at the Institute of Anatomy (“Anatomisches Institut”), the second one of “second pathologist”.182 He stated that Bischoff 179 Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850): Staatsbibliothek München, Liebigiana II.B., [2]. The letter ends with the greeting formula “Ihr ganz ergebenster, D[r.] Jac. Moleschott”. 180 Ibidem. 181 On the controversy between Mulder and Liebig and their respective conceptions of protein, cf. Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century, 131-135. 182 E-Mail communication from Eva-Marie Felschow to the author, April 21, 2015.

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was happy with Dr. Eckhard183 from Marburg as an assistant, who had occupied the position starting from the previous autumn, and that for the vacant position in the Faculty of Medicine, that of “second pathologist”, proposals had already been made. “In dieser Lage der Dinge bietet Gießen nichts Bestimmtes dar”, does the paragraph end.184 Probably, Moleschott interrupted the correspondence with Liebig after his negative answer and his critique of the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. Moreover, I could not find any letter regarding Liebig’s support of Moleschott as a candidate for a position as Extraordinarius in Giessen (not in the correspondence and not in the university records) before 1850. Bischoff, from his side, wrote a letter to Moleschott expressing his regret, confirming that the position Moleschott aimed at was not vacant, and that, if anyone had told him it was, he was wrong.185 From this example, it is evident that Moleschott’s autobiography was meant to give a good image of himself – an image which would show his conciliating side that, as we will see, was typical for his later Italian period. In this sense, in his autobiography Moleschott was looking back to his pre-Italian career through the lens (i.e. with the ideas and concerns) that was typical for his late Italian career. What is sure is that, five years after that episode, the polemics with Liebig seemed to be an obvious thing; in 1855, Moleschott wrote to Ludwig Noack in Giessen: “Liebig hat neulich in einer kleinen Note in einer landwirtschaftlichen Zeitschrift einen hämischen Angriff gegen mich gerichtet, für den ich ihm anständig, aber mit schwerem Geschütz geantwortet habe.ˮ186 The very subtitle of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens, “Antwort auf Liebig’s Chemische Briefe”, is justified as a merited reply to Liebig’s polemics against Moleschott in his 1851 edition of his Chemische Briefe about the presence of phosphorus in lecithin, some fat contained in the brain, and its essentiality for the normal functioning of the brain. It is with regard to this issue that Moleschott wrote the sentence “ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke”, which became famous as the motto of his materialism. However, as we can read from the following passage of the Kreislauf, this affirmation was not as extreme as one might think and as it has often been interpreted, for phosphorus was not identified with thought itself, but was considered as its conditio sine qua non, in the same way as the brain is a condition of existence of thought: 183 Most probably meaning Conrad Eckhard (1822-1905), who became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Giessen. 184 Justus Liebig to Jacob Moleschott (Giessen, January 26, 1850): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Justus Liebig. I thank Eva-Marie Felschow (Giessen University Archive) for her advice on the content of this letter. 185 Theodor Bischoff to Jacob Moleschott (Giessen, January 10, 1849 and s.l., s.d.): BCABo, FSM, 6.44 (new). 186 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Noack (Heidelberg, March 9, 1855): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Hs NF 158-5(1).

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“Wie ich sagte: ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke, so hätte ich auch sagen können: ohne Eiweiß, ohne Gallenfett, ohne Kali, ja ohne Wasser kein Gedanke, und am erschöpfendsten hätte ich gesagt: ohne Hirn kein Gedanke. Ich wählte den Phosphor oder das phosphorhaltige Fett als den eigenthümlichsten Bestandtheil des Hirns, und nannte einen eigenthümlichen Bestandtheil des Hirns, um so bestimmt als möglich auszudrücken, dass das Gehirn nicht etwa das Mittel ist, dessen sich ein seelisches Wesen zum Denken bedient, sondern im strengsten Wortsinn das Werkzeug des Denkens, die Gedankenthätigkeit eine Kraftäußerung, welche unzertrennlich an einen stofflichen Träger gebunden ist.”187

As the following passage makes clear, the thinking activity itself was not directly identified with urine: what Moleschott affirmed, commenting on Carl Vogt, was nothing more and nothing less than the necessity of the brain and of certain elements (such as phosphorus) for human beings in order to be able to think (among other essential physiological functions), in the same way as the liver is necessary for the secretion of bile and the kidneys for the secretion of urine: “Das Hirn ist zur Erzeugung der Gedanken ebenso unerläßlich, wie die Leber zur Bereitung der Galle und die Niere zur Abscheidung des Harns. Der Gedanke ist aber so wenig eine Flüssigkeit, wie die Wärme oder der Schall. Der Gedanke ist eine Bewegung, eine Umsetzung des Hirnstoffs, die Gedankenthätigkeit ist eine ebenso nothwendige, ebenso unzertrennliche Eigenschaft des Gehirns, wie in allen Fällen die Kraft dem Stoff als inneres, unveräußerliches Merkmal innewohnt. Es ist so unmöglich, daß ein unversehrtes Hirn nicht denkt, wie es unmöglich ist, daß der Gedanke einem anderen Stoff als dem Gehirn als seinem Träger angehöre.”188

Moreover, Moleschott did not agree with Liebig that there be a clear separation between the function of carbohydrates and that of proteins. In fact, Liebig held proteins essential for the constitution of tissues, carbohydrates for keeping the body warm, thus as calories-producers, whereas Moleschott maintained that fats, carbohydrates, and proteins all equally contribute both to building tissues and to preserving the body’s warmth.189 The polemics continued when Liebig, in the fourth edition of his Chemische Briefe, added the twenty-third letter, a critique of “materialism”; most probably, it was Moleschott whom he had in mind when he held a speech condemning materialism before King Maximilian II in 1856.190 There are two more letters sent by Liebig to Moleschott, both written in 1848, which help clarify the relationship between the two scientists. In the first letter, Liebig indeed thanked Moleschott for having sent him his essay that had won the award of 187 Jacob Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 3rd ed. (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1857), 404-405. 188 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 3rd ed., 402. 189 Cf. Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 9.-10. Brief (letters 9 and 10). 190 Cf. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 93.

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Teyler’s society in Holland. Here, Liebig’s attitude was quite friendly, as Moleschott described it in his autobiography: besides thanking Moleschott for the copy he received, he said he would provide for an article written by Moleschott about the respiration of frogs to be translated and promised to greet Theodor Bischoff and other colleagues, who were now all holding a position in Giessen.191 In the second letter, Liebig refused Moleschott’s request to reproduce part of Mulder’s research in his Annalen der Chemie (“die Mulderschen Untersuchungen auszugsweise für die Annalen zu bearbeiten”, i.e. to review and summarize), because the polemic between him and Mulder had become, in his eyes because of Mulder, a purely personal conflict, on which he had no time to spend.192

Networks and Knowledge Transfer: Nutritional Theories and Laboratory Practice The time in Heidelberg meant for Moleschott hard work, not only as far as teaching and research were concerned, but also and above all because it is in this period that Moleschott published his most famous German scientific books, and he did it in a record time. The Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel (this was a revised version of a work by Friedrich Tiedemann, in fact, its first subtitle was “Ein Handbuch der Diätetik. Friedrich Tiedemanns Lehre ‘vom Nahrungsbedürfnis, dem Nahrungstrieb und den Nahrungsmitteln des Menschen’, nach dem heutigen Standpunkt der physiologischen Chemie völlig umgearbeitet”) as well as its popularizing version, the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel were both published in 1850. Moleschott’s Physiologie des Stoffwechsels was published in 1851, and its popularizing version, the Kreislauf des Lebens, in 1852. The subtitle of the Kreislauf, “Antworten auf Liebig’s Chemische Briefe”, is motivated by the fact that Moleschott disagreed with Liebig on the question whether lecithin (a fat of the brain, “Hirnfett”) contains phosphorus or not (Moleschott maintained that it did, whereas Liebig was convinced that it did not). Moreover, Moleschott did not accept Liebig’s distinction between nutritional substances serving respiration only (“Athemmittel”) and those serving the building of tissues (“Baustoffe”), and did not share the view that proteins alone are the building

191 Justus Liebig to Jacob Moleschott (Giessen, November 18, 1848): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Justus Liebig. 192 Justus Liebig to Jacob Moleschott (Giessen, December 18, 1848): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Justus Liebig.

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material of tissues.193 Last but not least, Moleschott opposed Liebig’s vitalist position, which postulated the existence of “Lebenskraft” in addition to matter, as well as his teleological belief in a superior Being beyond the reach of the senses.194 Already in the Kreislauf, Moleschott defended a monist view, since he affirmed that there is only one principle, namely matter, upon which all natural laws and organic beings depend. Since he understood matter as being ever-changing in its forms but always identical in its substance, he pled for cremation, so that organic matter would become the source of new life and make the fields more fertile.195 Moreover, Moleschott contributed to the popularizing journal Die Natur, which was edited by Adolf Roßmäßler and Otto Ule; he had personal contact with both of them and Otto Ule somehow belonged to his family, since, as we have seen, Ule had married Sophie’s sister. Already in the second issue of Die Natur, Moleschott published a review of Vogt’s Bilder aus dem Thierleben and wrote an article on Georg Forster.196 Indeed, Georg Forster would be the subject of a speech he gave and of a book he published one year later, Georg Forster. Der Naturforscher des Volkes, which help us understand Moleschott’s engagement in popularization. In fact, there we can find his conception of the role of the scientist in the society: for him, a scientist should not only do research, but also and above all engage in shaping a better society and support the ideas of national unity. This is precisely what Moleschott was trying to do, and what he would be doing with success later on, in Italy, when he would become a Senator and managed to join science with politics, or better, to apply his scientific worldview to society and to shape science as a powerful mean of nationalist ideology. Moleschott was himself a “Naturforscher des Volkes”, and his highest ethical and epistemic value was the value of “humanity”: “humanity was his God, and humanness his aim”, as he wrote with regard to Forster.197 In general, the years after 1848 in Heidelberg must not have been particularly easy: in fact, his request for a position at Giessen addressed to Justus Liebig was not his

193 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 3rd ed., 117-127, 235. Cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 12; Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 94. 194 Cf. Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 3rd ed., especially 15, 354, 404. 195 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 3rd ed., 255-257. 196 Cf. Die Natur. Zeitung zur Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntnis und Naturanschauung fü r Leser aller Stände, 2 (1853): 131-132, 140, 147-148, 196, 205-208, 215216, quoted in Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 236 (note 89). 197 Moleschott, Georg Forster. Der Naturforscher des Volks. Zur Feier des 26 November, 1854 (Frankfurt am Main: Meidinger, 1854), 2 (quoted after and trans. by Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 236, note 93).

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only attempt to move from Heidelberg to another university. Not only Hessen-Darmstadt, but also the Netherlands and Switzerland had been considered as possible destinations for pursuing a career within academia. As it becomes clear from his correspondence with Valentin, he wished to dedicate himself to scientific research only and had applied for a position in Zürich in 1848 (as Extraordinarius for compared and general Anatomy) and for one in Basel in 1850.198 At the same time, Moleschoot was aware of the fact that he was not the only one struggling for a career in academia: in his letters to van Deen, for instance, he regretted that his friend could not get a position at Leiden because he was Jewish.199 In his autobiography, too, he remembered van Deen in relation with his difficulties in getting a professorship at first, remarking that he would have never imagined that his being Jewish could constitute an obstacle for his career.200 Later on, van Deen became the first Jewish professor in the Netherlands;201 the fact that Moleschott collaborated and cultivated friendships with Jewish scientists already at this early stage of his career is particularly relevant if we consider his later position and public engagement against anti-Semitism. During his life, he would continue to work in close contact with Jewish scientists, like Cesare Lombroso and his assistant at the laboratory of physiology in Turin, Simone Fubini. However, the German political climate was too exciting for Moleschott to be willing to leave the country. In 1852, he wrote to van Deen that even though, on the one hand, “the political conditions in Baden” were “almost unbearable” (“bijna ondragelijk”) to him, on the other hand, he observed all aspects of public life and the political developments in Germany, regarding them as extremely interesting.202 In a letter to Franciscus Cornelis Donders, Moleschott explained that he was “extremely involved” (“oneindig verweven”) in all general political questions debated everyday 198 Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (on the position in Zürich: Heidelberg, February 10, February 12, and March 7, 1848; on the position in Bern: Heidelberg, July 10, 1850, and Mainz, October 11, 1850): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65. On the position in Zürich cf. also Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, May 5 and May 20, 1848): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 84 and E.f. 85. 199 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, May 5, 1848, and January 6, 1850): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 84 and E.f. 89. 200 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 145. 201 Stefan van de Poel, “‘Doch deze onderscheidt zich op eene eervolle wijs.’ Izaac van Deen (1804-1869): de eerste Joodse hoogleraar in Nederland”, in De menselijke maat in de wetenschap: De geleerden(auto)biografie als bron voor de wetenschaps- en universiteitsgeschiedenis, ed. by L.J. Dorsman and P.J. Knegtmans (Hilversum: Verloren 2013), 74-96. 202 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, July 27, 1851): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 94.

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in Germany, and that he hoped that he had done something for the cause of materialism every day during that winter.203 He probably knew that, in that precise historical moment, there were few other places where he could combine his scientific interests with his political passion to such extent. Together with Donders, Moleschott also collaborated in the Nieuw Archiev voor binnen- en buitenlandsche Geneeskunde in haren geheelen omvang, a medical journal that was edited by van Deen and was published once per year between 1846 and 1852.204 All of them were representatives of the anti-vitalist movement, which opposed the belief in the existence of a vital force (vis vitalis, or Lebenskraft): according to van Deen’s motto, which Moleschott made his own, there is no force without matter and no matter without force (“Geen stof zonder kracht, geen kracht zonder stof”). The principle of the inseparability and mutual dependence of matter and force is of fundamental importance in order to understand Moleschott’s position, especially his critique of Justus Liebig in the Kreislauf des Lebens. Donders himself congratulated Moleschott for the book, at the same time criticizing his pretension to write something completely new, because that would have made the expectations of the reviewers and readers higher.205 Instead, Donders held the work to be too ambitious, since it presupposed a much more educated public than one could actually expect: he did not agree, he explained, with preaching materialism to a broad audience as a result of research in the natural sciences, since the broad public ignores the facts underlying such a result. Finally, he held that “belief in authority is much better than the unbelief in authority”.206

203 Moleschott to Donders (Heidelberg, February 3, 1852): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 127: “Dezen winter hoop ik voor het materialisme iets dagelijks gedaan te hebben”. 204 Stefan van de Poel, Tussen zieken, boeken en kikkers. De fysiologie van een leven: Izaac van Deen (1804-1969) (Eelde: Barkhuis, 2012), 29. 205 From a letter sent by Donders to Moleschott in 1851, in van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 471. 206 Donders to Moleschott, in a letter written from Bonn in August 1852, in van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 472: “Toch zou ik niet gaarne ’t materialisme als resultaat prediken voor de menigte, die de feiten niet kent, waaruit het resultaat te trekken is. Veel beter is het geloof op autoriteit dan het ongeloof op autoriteit.”

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Another scientist who praised Molschott for his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel207 as well as for his Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel was Alexander von Humboldt:208 Moleschott proudly transcribed both letters in his autobiography.209 The French intellectual Ernest Renan, instead, complimented him in 1887, on the occasion of the fifth edition of the Kreislauf des Lebens, writing: “Nul mieux que vous n’a vu la réalité de la vie et n’a compris la poésie de cette réalité.” Moleschott commented that the aim of his efforts was indeed poetic reality, “dichterische Wirklichkeit”: joining literary form and empirical results was his explicit popularizing strategy.210 Praising the combination of beautiful representation and popularization of science was also the main message of Alexander von Humboldt’s abovementioned letter on the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel; about the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, instead, Humboldt wrote at length, recognizing in it the principles of “the whole terrestrial cosmos”. In other words, Humboldt recognized in Moleschott’s book the principles of his own ideas as he attempted to popularize them in his Kosmos.211 Humboldt’s Kosmos lectures (1827/28)212 and his planned all-encompassing popularizing work Kosmos (of which five volumes were published)213 were meant to encompass the whole of empirical knowledge and present the results of the natural sciences in an aestheticizing form. In the same way, Moleschott’s Anthropologie and, to a more restricted extent, his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, were an attempt to present the representation of the world of the natural sciences in a beautiful literary form and in a style accessible to a broad part of the population. Donders’s influence on Moleschott’s thought on nutrition was at least as important as Mulder’s was: above all with regard to the association of physiological 207 Alexander von Humboldt to Jacob Moleschott (Berlin, April 13, 1850): BCABo, FSM, 13.39 (new). Moleschott reported the fact also in a letter to van Deen (Heidelberg, April 27, 1850): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 90. 208 Alexander von Humboldt to Jacob Moleschott (Potsdam, November 30, 1851): BCABo, FSM, 13.39 (new). 209 The first letter, on the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, is reported in Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 201-202, whereas the second one, on the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, in Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 214-216. 210 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 229-230. Cf. also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschapˮ, 472. 211 On Humboldt’s Kosmos-lectures and on the conception of the Kosmos-journal, cf. Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert, 271-279. 212 Alexander von Humboldt, Alexander von Humboldt über das Universum. Die Kosmosvorträge 1827/28 in der Berliner Singakademie, ed. Jürgen Hamel, Klaus-Harro Tiemann, in collaboration with Martin Pape (Frankfurt a.M., Leipzig: Insel, 1993). 213 Alexander von Humboldt, Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung, vol. IV (Stuttgart, Tübingen: Cotta, 1845-1862).

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knowledge with the ideas of political economy (Nationalökonomie), Moleschott did admittedly learn a lot from him. Interestingly, Donders himself remarked that, precisely because the abolition of the tax on a certain kind of food would increase its consumption, the taxes on meat should never be abolished before the taxes on cereals, such as wheat and rye.214 This statement relativizes the importance given to proteins, in particular to animal proteins, as was typical for the nutritional theories commonly accepted in nineteenth-century academia, defended among others by Liebig, Mulder and Moleschott. In fact, Donders argued that the abolition of the taxes on food implies a lower price and that this would cause, as a result, the increase of their consumption. In a letter he sent to him in 1854, Moleschott explicitly praised the principles defended by Donders, stating also that he himself had thought about writing a similar publication, dealing with nutrition from the perspective of Nationalökonomie (“uit een nationaal oeconomisch oogpunt”).215 In fact, as we will see later on, Moleschott’s arguments at the Italian Senate thirty years later, when he explained his view in favor of the abolition of the grist tax (the so-called macinato), were based precisely on these principles. Instead, one of the most interesting sides of the correspondence between Moleschott and van Deen is that it served not only personal, scientific, and academic or professional aims, but also the transfer of knowledge with regard to technical issues: on October 15, 1853, van Deen described to him his laboratory in Groningen in every detail.216 This is probably due to the fact that, about one year before, Moleschott announced to van Deen that he was going to open his own lab. Already in the summer of that year, he had written very enthusiastically, saying that his lectures in experimental physiology were a great success, and that he held his lectures to be much more interesting and experimental than Henle’s (he had seventeen students, Henle only two or three more than him).217 The lab, however, caused him some problems with the 214 Van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 474. Only few letters from Donders to Moleschott, which van Herwerden summarized and partly transcribed in this article, are now preserved in BCABo, FSM. 215 Moleschott to Donders (s.l., February 7, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 129. 216 Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 53 (the letter, sent from Groningen and conserved in Moleschott’s Nachlass, is summarized on page 298). 217 Moleschott to van Deen (Mainz, June 4, 1852): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 96, where Moleschott explained that Henle did not experiment during his lectures; see also Moleschott to van Deen (“ʼs Bosch” [=’s-Hertogenbosch], September 4, 1852): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 97, where he underlines the experimental character of his own lectures, recognizing van Deen as his own teacher. Van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 53, erroneously reports that Henle only had two or three students altogether.

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neighbors, who complained about the animals he kept in the building for his physiological experiments (frogs, dogs, and rabbits). As he wrote to Feuerbach, at that time he was studying the influence of light on animal metabolism, which would become the main topic of his opening lecture in Zürich in 1856; he was also exercising in mathematics, a subject about which, at school, he was not so enthusiastic: “Ich habe die Ferien hier in gedeihlichem Fleiße verlebt, in der Mikroskopie viel Neues gelernt, über Menschenrassen studiert und mich in der Mathematik möglichst geübt. […] Viel Freude macht mir meine Untersuchung über den Einfluß des Lichts auf den tierischen Organismus, indem sich aus den jetzt vor mir liegenden Zahlen deutlich herausstellt, daß der Einfluß des Lichts die Menge der ausgeschiedenen Kohlensäure vermehrt.”218

In 1854, Moleschott and Sophie had to move to the house where they had been living at the very beginning of their stay in Heidelberg, in the Mannheimer Landstraße, which in the meanwhile had been expanded and had become the Mannheimer Chaussée. At that point, Moleschott described in his turn to his friend Izaac van Deen which instruments he had in his lab, telling him how big the new rooms and the laboratory were. In this way, knowledge about scientific practice was traveling from the Netherlands to Germany, and back. The new apartments he had rented to hold his lectures and as a laboratory were situated “between the university and the [university building of] anatomy”, along the river Neckar; they had three big rooms with eleven windows and could host sixty students in the lecture hall and thirty practitioners in the laboratory. With his students, Moleschott was currently doing some research on the relation between leucocytes and erythrocytes; moreover, he was interested in the influence of light on respiration and, in the coming summer, he was planning to deal with the influence of light on the nerves.219 His descriptions give us an idea of how everyday life looked like for a nineteenthcentury scientist and his family, especially how close to each other the different social and physical environments were. In the same way as, in his personal relations, we can hardly distinguish between purely professional and purely personal relations because his friends were mostly also scientists, colleagues, politicians, or public personalities, the rooms designated to his scientific activity were part of his private

218 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg, October 9, 1853), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 58. 219 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, January 3, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 102, and Moleschott to Donders (s.d., February 7, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 129. Cf. also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 474, and van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 54. Moleschott describes the instruments of his laboratory in Für meine Freunde, 195.

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house. This was not an exception in the nineteenth century, when seminars were usually held at the teacher’s house in the fields of both the natural sciences and the humanities.220 However, it makes it easier to understand how it happened that Sophie was helping him in his laboratory and that her husband’s research was not so foreign to her.

The Rupture with the University It is mostly because of his own laboratory that, in 1854, Moleschott stated that he had the feeling that he could make himself “independent from academia”, even though he did not have “anything to complain with, for the time being”. Anyway, since November 1854 he was aware of the fact that the government of Baden had asked the medical Faculty “whether it would not be convenient to subtract the venia docendi to a heretic” like him. However, the medical Faculty and even the academic Senate had spoken in his favor, and since nothing happened afterwards, Moleschott was just trying not to make much noise, hoping that the question would be resolved.221 As we will see in the following pages, this is confirmed by the documents concerning Moleschott’s venia docendi, contained in the folders with the communication between the Ministry of the Interior of Baden, the academic Senate and the Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg.222 However, Moleschott’s hopes were vain, and the government of Baden did take further steps against him. As we have remarked above, the problems started after Moleschott’s public lectures on anthropology and the publication of the Kreislauf des Lebens. Both of them were more than a popularization of the results of empirical research: rather, they represented the popularization of a worldview that understood itself as democratic and even “socialist”.223 Indeed, the Grand Duchy of Baden perceived them as somehow dangerous: it was precisely after the second semester of Moleschott’slectures on anthropology that the Ministerium des Innern of Baden inquired at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Heidelberg about Moleschott’s

220 Cf. for instance Jo Tollebeek, “A Domestic Culture: The Mis-en-scène of Modern Historiography”, in The Making of the Humanities, ed. Rens Bod, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn, vol. III: The Modern Humanities (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014), 129-143. 221 Moleschott to Donders (s.d., February 7, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 129. Cf. also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 474-475. 222 Cf. the documents in UAH, H-III-111/60 and UAH, PA 2010. 223 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 206.

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materialism.224 On August 22, 1853, the Interior Ministry of Baden sent to the University a letter regarding “[d]as Verhalten des Privatdozenten Dr. Moleschott in Heidelberg” with the following content: “Es sind uns schon von unterschiedlichen Seiten Mittheilungen über den Privatdozenten Dr. Moleschott zugekommen, wonach derselbe allgemein in wissenschaftlicher wie in politischer Hinsicht als ein Anhänger der extremsten radikalen Richtung gelten und in seinen Vorträgen, wovon jener über Anthropologie für Studierende jedes Faches bestimmt sind, den offensten Materialismus und Atheismus lehren, wie er denn auch diesen Standpunkt in seinen Schriften: Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, Lehrbuch der Diätetik 1850., Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren 1851. und Kreislauf des Lebens 1852. namentlich in der letzten einnehmen / und sich in gleicher Richtung bei öffentlichen Disputationen unverhüllt ausgesprochen haben soll. Wir veranlassen daher den engeren Senat, sich nach Einvernehmung der medicinischen Facultät hinüber alsbald zu äußern.”225

As we can see, the letter is quite direct and mentions in detail the works that were considered as being problematic for inner political questions. Besides his lectures on anthropology “for students of any discipline”, we find his most important publications, surprisingly excluding a popularizing book such as the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, but including, besides the Kreislauf, also his two handbooks, the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels and the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel; these addressed specialists such as physicians and therefore a rather limited audience. Moleschott was accused of adhering to materialism, of spreading atheism, and of being “from the scientific as well as from the political point of view an adept of the most extreme stream”. On October 3, 1853, the Faculty replied with a two-page report on Moleschott’s worldview with reference to the Kreislauf and the lectures on anthropology, concluding that the “materialistische Richtung an und für sich”, as it is present in the thought of many natural scientists, would not represent anything “dangerous”. What was not to be tolerated, on the contrary, were statements regarding religious issues.226

224 The “Engerer Senat” informed the Faculty of Medicine about the “Ministerialerlaß”, thus about a required “baldfällige gutachtliche Äußerung” from the Faculty on September 10, 1853: cf. UAH, H-III-111/60. 10. 225 Letter sent by the Ministerium des Innern to the University of Heidelberg (Karlsruhe, August 22, 1853) with the topic “Das Verhalten des Privatdozenten Dr. Moleschott in Heidelberg betr. (N. 11,991)”: UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 9-10]. 226 Medicinische Facultät pro 1853 (Decan: Geheimer Hofrath, Professor Dr. Arnold). UAH, H-III-111/60. 12 (recto): “Universität Heidelberg, Medizinische Fakultät, den 5ten October 1853. Den Privatdozenten Dr. Moleschott betreffendˮ.

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A specific report (the third within one-and-a-half years) was composed, dealing with the question whether such requests from the Ministry conflicted with the principle of the Lehrfreiheit, the freedom to teach. As it is written in the report itself, the other two faculty members whose lectures posed some problems to the government of Baden were Georg Gottfried Gervinus227 and the philosopher Kuno Fischer,228 who were obliged to stop teaching in 1853.229 According to this report, it was not with what Moleschott was teaching and researching as a natural scientist that the Ministry and the Senate disagreed, but just with his public lectures, which went beyond what he was meant to teach to students of medicine and touched on issues belonging to the domain of “general” and “philosophical” reflection, expressed in the “immoral” terms of “brutal materialism”. This seems to be partly contrasting with the abovementioned letter of the Ministry, which included his handbooks among the writings it condemned. The term “brutal materialism”, used in the abovementioned report, together with the accusations of “most extreme radical orientation” and “most overt materialism and atheism”, which are contained in the abovementioned letter, give an idea of how seriously the authorities perceived the problem with Moleschott’s ideas. Indeed, the problem of Moleschott’s public lectures had been known and discussed for a long time when, about one year later, on July 13, 1854, the Ministerium des Innern communicated to the Senate of the University of Heidelberg that Moleschott should be warned and that one should not allow him to give lectures open to the public. At least, not as long as he maintained such a “frivolous form and tone”.230 227 Georg Gottfried Gervinus (Darmstadt 1805 – Heidelberg 1871) studied philology and history in Giessen, was ordinary professor in Göttingen and honorary professor in Heidelberg, until he lost the venia legendi in 1853; in 1848, he participated in the Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt am Main. HGL, 83. 228 Ernst Kuno Berthold Fischer (Sandewalde, Schlesien 1824 – Heidelberg 1907) studied philology, theology and philosophy in Halle, was Privatdozent in Heidelberg until he lost the venia legendi for political reasons in 1853; he became professor in Jena and from 1872 in Heidelberg, as successor of the theologian Eduard Zeller. HGL, 69. 229 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 15-17] 230 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 19]: “Man giebt daher dem Senat anheim, vorerst nach seinem Antrag dem Dr. Moleschott die geeignete Wahrung und Warnung zukommen zu lassen, zugleich eben auch zu erwägen, ob die Ankündigung von Vorträgen des Dr. Moleschott, welche mehr allgemein philosophischen Inhaltes und für Studierende jeden Fachs berechnet und bestimmt sind, außer diesen Verhältnissen in so lange gar nicht mehr zuzulassen, beziehungsweise in den Katalog aufzunehmen seien, bis Dr. Moleschott genügende Hinweise gegeben hat, daß er von jener vom Senat geschilderten Anstoß und Ergerniß [sic] erregenden frivolen Form und Ton seiner Vorträgen und Darstellungen, welche in dieser Weise nicht geduldet werden können und bei deren Fortdauer man ernstlicher einschreiten müßte, abgekommen ist.ˮ

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As we can see from this letter, the Ministry was still worried about the possible consequences of Moleschott’s public lectures, since they were open for students of all disciplines and displayed a general philosophical content rather than providing their listeners with discipline-specific information; more exactly, it was, officially, their form and tone which were judged as being immoral and frivolous. Even though the letter ended with the threat of more serious consequences, should Moleschott continue using such “frivolous” tones, it did not (yet) convey the message that Moleschott had to leave the university.231 As it turned out, on July 26, 1854 the Senate of the university informed Moleschott that if he continued to hold any lectures and publish any writings which constituted an “attack to religious and moral fundamentals”, then his possibility of working at that university “would easily be put in danger”.232 In a letter to van Deen, Moleschott described the situation in a way that recalls the scene of Jesus’s betrayal: he reports that on July 25, 1854, while he was in his laboratory “surrounded by his students”, he was asked to appear in front of the En-

231 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 18-19]: “Nach dem, wie das Senat selbst die Art und Weise der Vorträge des Privatdocenten Dr. Moleschott beurtheilt und sich über dessen Gebahren ausspricht, wäre die Entfernung desselben aus dem Lehrkörper der Universität keineswegs ungerechtfertigt, sondern zugleich verdient und veranlaßt. Wenn wir gleichwohl vorerst davon Umgang nehmen wollen, so kann dieß doch nur in der Voraussetzung und Erwartung geschehen, daß Dr. Moleschott andere Wege einschlage, und daß es dem Senat und der Fakultät gelingen werde, denselben, wie der Senat selbst in Aussicht stellt, von dem bisherigen Unfuge abzubringen, wie wir es immmerhin für angemessener / und erwünschenswerther erachten müßen, daß Senat und Fakultät selbst, welchen derartige Abirrungen eines Privatdozenten nicht unbekannt bleiben können und dürfen, in passendem Wege einwirken und einschreiten, als daß mißliebige Maßregeln von hier aus ergriffen werden müßen.ˮ 232 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 22-23]: “[…] obgleich weit entfernt, die / Freiheit wissenschaftlicher Forschungen zu stören, der Senat die von Dr. Moleschott häufig gewählte frivole Form, das Hereinziehen von Angriffen an religiösen und sittlichen Grundlagen in naturhistorischen [!] Erörterungen, und den Dr. Moleschott vor der Fortsetzung einer Art des Auftretens in Lehre und Schrift warnen müsse, die mit der Würde und dem sittlichen Ernste der Wissenschaft in Widerspruch ist und seine Wirksamkeit an hiesiger Universität leicht gefährden könnteˮ. This communication is a report of what had been decided by the academic Senate: “Geschehen im Senatszimmer der Universität am 26. Juli 1854, vormittags 11 ½ Uhr” and is addressed to “S. Magnificenz der Prorektor”, with the topic “Das Verhalten des Privatdozenten Dr. Moleschott betr.f”.

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gerer Senat the day after, where he was informed about the abovementioned document.233 Not only in his autobiography, but also in his private correspondence, Moleschott described the event as an outrage that he could not accept from the university, and as a clear sign that, soon, he would not dispose of the venia docendi anymore. As he wrote to van Deen, he wanted to head off the university and, before such an event could happen, he voluntarily left. Moleschott underlined that his behavior found the support and the approval of his students, of “all freethinking men” and of several colleagues, including the liberal historian Friedrich Christoph Schlosser (1776-1861) and the Dutch professor and historian of jurisprudence Georg Willem Vreede (18091880) from Utrecht. His students in anthropology gave him a laurel crown, the ones in his physiology lab held a farewell speech, and “the most courageous” sent to the Ministry a letter of protest.234 As far as his wife Sophie is concerned, both Moleschott and herself, in some lines they sent to van Deen, explained that Sophie supported her husband’s decision to leave the university from the very beginning.235 Moleschott himself wrote that his wife had even advised him to do that,236 and that she comforted him by saying that, every three years, every academician should take a pause of one year in order to get to new ideas.237 The reference to “debates on natural history” in the warning Moleschott received from the Ministry of Baden could be a hint indicating that it was Moleschott’s defense of evolutionary theory which was perceived as a threat to morality and religion. At the same time, it is evident that the academic Senate was very cautious with the topic of the freedom of research and teaching. Already presupposing that the University could have been accused of violating the freedom of teaching and research (Lehrfreiheit and Forschungsfreiheit, the two basic principles of the German university),238 the Senate began its abovementioned writing by stating that it was far from being an obstacle to the “freedom of scientific research” (indeed, Moleschott would be allowed to carry on his research in physiology and to teach experimental physiology to 233 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, August 5, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 103: “[…] terwijl ik in mijn laboratorium van mijne studenten omringd was […].” 234 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 27-30]. Cf. Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, August 5, and August 8, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 103 and E.f. 106; see also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 476. 235 Sophie Moleschott to Izaac van Deen (Heidelberg, August 6, 1854) and Jacob Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, August 5, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 104 and E.f. 103; cf. also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 480. 236 Ibidem. Cf. also van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 71. 237 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 258. 238 Cf. Rainer A. Müller and Rainer Ch. Schwinges (eds.), Wissenschaftsfreiheit in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Basel: Schwabe, 2008).

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students of medicine), and ended by saying that Moleschott’s tone and the form of his public lecture would be “in contradiction with the dignity and moral seriousness of science”.239 What was central both to the academic Senate and to Moleschott, then, was the freedom of research and teaching, and we could say that the conflict between these two parties has been played on this ground: the university feared being accused of not respecting what was its basic principle, and that was precisely what Moleschott did. In fact, on the same day, Moleschott communicated to the academic Senate a copy of the letter he was sending to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Baden, stating that he would not continue working for an institution where the freedom of teaching was violated. As he would do later on in his autobiography, already in this official communication he presented his decision as being related with his “independent character”: “Die Mittheilung, welche mir der Herr Prorektor der hiesigen Universität über die beim Ministerium herrschende Beurtheilung meiner Lehrthätigkeit gemacht hat, veranlaßt mich zu der Erklärung, daß ich gegen die Bezeichnung meiner Richtung als ‘frivol’ und ‘unsittlich’, komme sie von welcher Stelle sie wolle, ernstlich Verwahrung einlege. Da ich es aber zugleich für die sittliche Pflicht des Lehrers halte, daß er seinen Schülern rückhaltlos die Wahrheit verkündige, so fordert von mir die Unabhängigkeit meines Charakters, die ich einer jeden äußeren Rücksicht gegenüber zu bewahren weiß, daß ich einem Lehramt, das man an der Universität zu Heidelberg nicht mehr frei ausüben darf, selbständig entsage.”240

Moleschott deliberately – as he explained to his friend Izaac van Deen241 – did not address the academic Senate first, but directly sent his letter to the Ministry of Baden in Karlsruhe, and then sent a copy to the academic Senate, enclosing the following writing and demanding to inform the Faculty of Medicine about the happenings: “Ich erlaube mir Ihnen die Absicht eines an das Ministerium des Innern gerichteten Schreibens mitzutheilen, mit welchem ich Abschied nehme von meiner Wirksamkeit an einer Anstalt, die ihre Lehrfreiheit hat vernichten lassen. Ich ersuche Sie, der medizinischen Facultät, jene Abschrift und dieses Begleitschrieben zur Kenntnisnahme zu übersenden.”242

239 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 22-23]. 240 Moleschott to “großherzoglich Badisches Ministerium des Innernˮ (Heidelberg, July 26, 1854); it is a copy of the letter (“Abschrift”)]. UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 25]. 241 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, August 5, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 103. 242 Jacob Moleschott, “An den engeren Senat der Universität zu Heidelbergˮ (Heidelberg, July 26, 1854): UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 24]

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The university was not ready to accept such an accusation, and the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Dr. Arnold, remitted Moleschott’s writing to him.243 At this point, the Ministry suggested to the academic Senate that perhaps it would have been better if Moleschott were kept far from Heidelberg, since he could possibly have some negative influence on his students.244 In fact, as mentioned above, his students had presented a request, expressing their disagreement with and disappointment about the decision made by the university against Moleschott.245 On September 11, 1854, Moleschott had to appear in front of the academic Senate and had to declare that the students had formulated the request on their own, that he was not informed about it, and did not know anything about its content. Finally, he must ensure that he had not instigated the students to do that.246 Apparently, this was the condition in order for him to be allowed to stay in Heidelberg. Interestingly, Moleschott did not describe this event in the autobiography, even though he proudly mentioned the letter of protest by his students, and even though he reported the other events that were the presupposition for his decision to leave the university (in particular, the official warning from the academic Senate). Probably, the most unexpected fact is that, thirty years later, he was present at the celebrations for the five-hundredth jubilee of the University of Heidelberg as official delegate of the universities of Turin and Rome, as well as of the Italian Ministry of Education. As we will see toward the end of this book, on that occasion Moleschott gave a speech in which no trace of resentment or condemnation vis-à-vis the University of Heidelberg as an institution was left. To the contrary, he praised the German university as a model for the Italian system of higher education, and at the same time he encouraged the cooperation of the (both relatively new) Italian and German nation-states. Moleschott, in Italy as well as in Germany, fought for national unity and, in 1884, he was aware of the fact that, with the changed political situation (Germany had become a nation in 1871), there was no reason left for conflict with the government and the academic institutions in Heidelberg. After the warning from the restricted Senate (engerer Senat) of the University of Heidelberg and his subsequent decision to leave the University, Moleschott seemed not so keen on moving very soon. To the contrary, he told his friend van Deen that he was earning enough money with his books, so that he could wait two or three more 243 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 27] (cf. also UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 28]). 244 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 30]. 245 UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 27-30]. 246 “Ich selber habe die Vorfertigung dieser Eingabe nicht veranlaßt u. mich in keinerlei Weise dabei betheiligt. Ich hatte von diesem Schritt gar keine officielle Kenntniß […]ˮ. UAH, PA 2010. [Blatt 31-32] (“Abschrift. Geschehen Heidelberg 11. September 1854 vor dem [...] Stadtdirektor Dr. Wilhelmi. Auf Einladung erscheint heute Dr. Moleschott.ˮ).

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years before taking up his profession of physician again, if he did not find a suitable position in the Netherlands, in Switzerland or in Germany. However, he considered the option of pursuing his career in Germany as realistic only if the political situation would change.247 Moleschott relied on his Dutch friends Donders and van Deen for spreading the news that he had to leave the university because of his materialist convictions, and at the same time for telling about the support he received from his twenty-seven students, who had protested against the Minister and the academic Senate. In fact, Donders and van Deen were Moleschott’s main contacts in the Netherlands: with them, he would exchange opinions not only about science, but also about politics, academic policies, and the situation in Europe in general. According to Donders, Het Handelsblad and the journal Kunst- en Letterbode were the best places for an article, whereas De Rotterdammer Courant had already published a short article that was translated from German (probably from the Weser or the Kölnische Zeitung). Instead, he held it to be inconvenient to publish an article in the Weekblad voor Geneeskunde, a medical journal: that could be a hint to alarm for those who feared Moleschott’s competition, he explained, because it would be evident that Moleschott would soon seek to apply for a position in the Netherlands.248 Indeed, Moleschott made out of the happenings in Heidelberg a real media event: as the abovementioned request shows, Moleschott asked his Dutch contacts to take some action in order to have the newspapers report about the event in a way which would put him in a good light. Moreover, as soon as he knew about the fact that De Tijd, in his native town ʼs-Hertogenbosch, had written an article in which he was put in a bad light, he asked his friend van Deen if he could not at least suggest to that newspaper that they publish a second article, which would represent the events from another, more advantageous perspective, or to translate the students’ letter of protest from a German newspaper.249 In fact, the protest of his students was published in the Frankfurter Journal on August 9, 1854.250 After leaving the University of Heidelberg, and before getting a professorship in Zürich, there was a period of about two years during which Moleschott lived from his publications. As we have seen, in a letter to Izaac van Deen he explained how proud he was to be independent from academia. However, he was at the same time eager to 247 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 258. 248 Van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 477-478. 249 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, August 8, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 106. 250 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 255-257. It was impossible to check this information, since I have not been able to find any copy of the Frankfurter Journal, issue of August 9, 1854, in German libraries.

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be part of it again, and was planning to move to a big city and, in case he could not get any academic position, to work as a medical doctor.251 To van Deen, he depicted this period of time in a very positive way, in which he was financially independent and was able to undertake every kind of scientific experiment which was interesting for him, and even as the “proof”, that his career could develop “independently from every government” (“onafhankelijk van alle regeeringen”).252 He could spend much time in the lab, and with the help of some students he could conduct some research on blood cells (with the neurologist Ferdinand Marfels), on the influence of light on nerves’ sensibility (with the pharmacologist Wilhelm Marmè) and on the emission of hydrogen carbonate in animals deprived of their liver (with the ophthalmologist Rudolf Schleske).253 It was in this period of time that he founded the Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, which appeared in 15 volumes until 1892, and which published the contributions of illustrious physiologists such as Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896), Gabriel Gustav Valentin (1810-1883), Albert von Bezold (1836-1868) and Rudolf Heidenhain (1834-1897). Moreover, in this time Moleschott had the chance to read literary works intensively. It was when reading the works of the historian Georg Gottfried Gervinus (1805-1871), whom he had personally met in Heidelberg,254 and of the physician Samuel Thomas Sömmerring (1775-1830), that he read about Georg Forster (17541794). Georg Forster was a natural scientist siding with the French Revolution who had traveled with Captain Cook in his second journey around the world and with Alexander von Humboldt in a research journey. Moleschott’s publication on Forster is rather a self-depiction than a historical work on Forster, who is represented as supporting the thesis according to which there is only one principle at the basis of natural phenomena, and is deprived of every romantic trait.255 In this way, Moleschott projected on Forster his ideal of the engaged scientist.

251 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, January 7, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 105. 252 Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, January 7, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 105. Cf. also van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 483. 253 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 259. Letter from Moleschott to van Deen (Heidelberg, January 3, 1854): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 102. Cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 12. 254 Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 30-32. 255 Cf. Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 13.

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G EORG F ORSTER : M OLESCHOTT ’ S R EPRESENTATION P OLITICALLY E NGAGED S CIENTIST

OF A

It was during his time in Heidelberg that Moleschott first engaged in scientific popularization. But what did popularization represent for Moleschott? We shall look at his engagement in popularizing Georg Forster’s image as a scientist and a politician as an example of memory culture and of politics of remembrance in order to understand this more closely. First, it is worth noticing that the publication is just the culmination of Moleschott’s engagement in spreading the image of Georg Forster256 as a model of a scientist bearing at the same time social responsibility: several steps preceded it. In 1854, he wrote to a Kunstverein (association for the promotion of arts) in Mainz in order to suggest the organization of a “secular feast” (“Säcularfeier”) in order to celebrate the figure of Georg Forster on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth.257 In his letter, he presented this as the occasion for making the arts and sciences a tangible good for the people, in particular through the celebration of the fatherland and its achievements.258 This shows that Moleschott, even during the period in between his Privatdozentur in Heidelberg and the professorship in Zürich, initiated projects regarding nationalist issues, or, more specifically, he spread the image of scientific personalities as national heroes. As we will see, this strategy would become particularly relevant during his Italian period, and it would be central to his political engagement as a whole. In his letter to a Kunstverein in the town of Mainz, Moleschott sketched Forster as the “founder of a new epoch of scientific journeys”, and he praised his achievements in the fields of “natural history” and “natural science” in its whole: in these

256 Johann Georg Adam Forster (Nassenhuben, near Danzig 1754 – Paris 1794) was a naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary (he was a founder of the Jacobin Club and a leader of the Mainz revolution in 1792). Cf. Gerhard Steiner, “Forster, Johann Georg Adamˮ, in NDB, 5 (1961), 301. 257 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. 258 The incipit of Moleschott’s letter reads as follows: “An einen hochlöblichen Kunstverein in Mainz. Die anerkannte Thatsache, daß der Kunstverein in Mainz sich keine Gelegenheit entgehen läßt, die Pflege von Kunst und Wissenschaft zu einem lebendigen Besitze des Volks besonders auch dadurch zu machen, daß er große Vaterländische Verdienste feiert, giebt mir den Muth, den Vorstand des genannten Vereines daran zu erinnern, daß Georg Forster am 26. November des Jahres 1754 in Nassenhuben bei Danzig geboren istˮ. Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [1].

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fields, he maintained, Forster’s contribution had been as significant as Lessing’s contribution to the arts. At the same time, however, he also presented Forster as having reached important results in the conception of historical epochs and in the understanding of art, thereby underlining that the arts and sciences are not separated, but that, on the contrary, great scientists know how to join them. As we will see, this is also one of the characteristics with which he presented the ideal scientist in his Italian Senate speeches and university lectures, namely as understanding science as including both the sciences and the arts and, at the same time, as embodying the value of “humanity”. Precisely these characteristics, Moleschott argued, made Forster so central “for public life” and, since he had spent “his most fertile years” in Mainz, this would be the perfect place to celebrate him.259 However, he argued, his most important monument is constituted by his own writings, which contributed to the history of culture (“Culturgeschichte”) no less than they contributed to the natural sciences (“Naturwissenschaft”). With his description of distant islands in the ocean, for instance, he went beyond “each single specific disciplinary interest”, that is, he popularized knowledge among the German Bildungsbürgertum (“die ganze gebildete Welt in Deutschland”). In this way, Forster is presented as being extremely modern and as anticipating later historical developments: according to Moleschott, it was only at that time, well after his death, that his work was starting to be truly understood and appreciated.260

259 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [1]-[2]: “Forsterʼs Bedeutsamkeit als Begründer einer neuen Epoche wissenschaftlicher Reisen, seine Leistungen in der Naturgeschichte und mehr noch seine fruchtbare Behandlung der Einen großen Naturwissenschaft, die er nicht weniger gefördert hat als Lessing die Kunst, die Reife seiner historischen Vertheile und die seiner Zeit entschieden überragende Kunstanschauung, / die ihn nicht minder auszeichnete als das damals in Deutschland so seltene Talent fürs öffentliche Leben, wären vielleicht der Ansprüche genug um diesem Manne eine Säcularfeier zu sichern und zwar in Mainz, wo er seine fruchtbarsten Jahre verlebte.ˮ 260 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [2]: “Das schönste Denkmal hat Forster selbst in seinen Schriften hinterlassen, denn die ganze gebildete Welt in Deutschland, mittelbar oder unmittelbar, ihre reichsten Anschauungen der schönen Inselgruppen im großen Ocean verdankt, in jenen Werken, aus deren für die Culturgeschichte nicht minder zu lernen ist, als für die höchste Auffassung und die reinste Behandlung der Naturwissenschaft, welche sie über jedes vereinzelte Fachinteresse so mächtig hinaushebt. Forster war in letzterer Beziehung seiner Zeit so weit vorangeeilt, daß erst jetzt das eigentliche Verständniß des großen Mannes allgemeiner zu erwachen beginnt.ˮ

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Moleschott added that such an initiative would surely be supported by “Andersdenkende” (literally, by all of the people who would think differently and independently, probably used a synonym for the more usual word “freethinkers”), who would admire his “most enlightened tolerance”, whereas others would appreciate “the purity and force of his character”.261 Forster is then presented as the embodiment of the classical ideals of education (the same that can be found in Moleschott’s Senate speech on physical education in the 1870s), joining beauty with strength and thus representing “the harmonious development of all human forces”: “Und wenn es kein Land der Erde giebt, in welchem die harmonische Entwicklung aller Kräfte des Menschen mehr in Ehre steht als Deutschland, so giebt es in Deutschland keinen Mann, der dieser Ehre so würdig wäre, als Forster, weil er das rein Menschliche nicht bloß gedacht und empfunden, sondern gelebt und gewirkt hat, weil er das höchste Kunstwerk darstellte in seinem eigenen Wesen. Es kann in Deutschland keine Partei und keine Regierung geben, welche die Huldigung dieser edelsten Menschlichkeit versagte.”262

Here, the reference to the ideal of humanity is clear, even though in this case Moleschott uses the word “Menschlichkeit” instead of “Humanität”. In a typically idealist way, Moleschott writes that Forster made out of his life “a work of art”, because he “did not only think, but also lived” the ideal of the harmonic development of humanity, and actively worked for its achievement. Again, with a Romantic tone, he presents him as a great man for his German fatherland, the country where this ideal of humanity and education “is most honored”. In this sense, Moleschott was evidently one of the intellectuals who shaped a cultural and ideological environment favorable to national unification, in the same way German theologians, economists and historians had been doing in the period between 1848 and 1880.263 According to Moleschott, Forster would deserve a place next to Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller; in other words, he should be celebrated as a national hero: “Darum wende ich mich mit Vertrauen an Sie, meine Herren, da / Sie die Macht in Händen haben, das Anrecht, das Mainz auf Forster hat, und sein heiliges Andenken in Erz zu verewigen. 261 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [3]: “Eine Anregung hierzu, vom Kunstverein in Mainz ausgesprochen, müßte Widerhall finden in allen Gemüthern, weil Andersdenkende an dem hohen Mann die verklärteste Duldsamkeit verehren, weil Laien im Weisen die Reinheit und Kraft des Charakters bewundern müßen […]ˮ. 262 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. 263 Cf. Gramley, Propheten des deutschen Nationalismus.

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Wenn es auch längere Zeit erfordern sollte, bis die Mittel gesammelt wären, um Forster äußerlich den Platz zu verschaffen, der ihm neben Lessing, Goethe, Schiller gebührt, einmal wird in Mainz seine Bildsäule prangen, der Stadt selbst eine Ehre, eine Krone. Und die hundertjährige Wiederkehr seines Geburtstags wäre vielleicht die passendste Veranlassung, eine solche Sammlung zu beginnen. Ein öffentliches Fest, mindestens ein Abend, der seiner Verehrer zum Anhören einer Gedächtnißrede versammelte, dürfte die Form sein, durch welche die Mainzer allgemeinere Aufmerksamkeit auf ihr Vorhaben lenken könnten.”264

Finally, Moleschott proposed himself as a speaker for the suggested celebration, at the same time identifying himself with Forster and with the ideal of science he had just invested Forster with: “Nach dieser Erörterung, in der für Sie, meine Herren, wohl schon zu viel gesagt ist, muß ich freilich zaudern, den Wunsch auszusprechen, daß Ihre Wahl mich nicht unwürdig finden möchte, zu jenem Abend als Festredner aufzutreten. Ich weiß, daß ich die Ehre, die aus dieser Wahl erwüchse, / nicht verdienen kann, und daß der Wunsch Entschuldigung nur findet in der Inbrunst, mit der ich ihn sage, in der Andacht, mit der ich mich täglich bekenne als Forster's begeisterten Schüler im Leben und Denken.”265

Moleschott’s proposal was accepted and, besides giving the speech, Moleschott also published his Georg Forster, der Naturforscher des Volkes. Zur Feier des 26. November 1854 (Frankfurt am Main,1854). In this speech, Moleschott further developed the basic ideas he presented in his letter: he depicted Forster as a scientist who engaged for his fatherland through his popularizing works, which represent a tangible sign of the ideals of the unity of science and of the harmonious development of man, joining epistemic and ethical virtues. In this way, Moleschott also indicated his ideal of the scientist, an ideal he himself wanted to follow. After the publication, some received Moleschott’s writing with enthusiasm, whereas others had a critical attitude towards it. In a letter to Berthold Auerbach, Moleschott confidedto him that he could not understand how one could define his book on Forster as a Gelegenheitsschrift (i.e. occasional writing, a text written for a special occasion, having no other or higher aim than the celebration of that occasion). It was not possible, Moleschott argued, to understand his speech in that way, since 264 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [2]-[3]. 265 Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854): DLA Marbach, A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [3]-[4]. The letter ends with the following phrase, which sounds like false modesty: “Sollte indeß Ihre Aufforderung mich über jedes Zögern hinausheben, so würde ich meine besten Kräfte anstrengen, um Ihre Erwartung von mir wenigstens nicht zu beschämen.ˮ

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he was convinced that he had come to “deeply know” Forster, and even to have reached the point at which, having read his writings, he could identify himself with him. In fact, in that letter to Auerbach, Moleschott even stated that it was as if he had “been living together” with Forster.266 Just six days before the celebrations in honor of Georg Forster, Moleschott had written to Feuerbach the following letter, in which he described his professional situation, his plans for the future, and the projects that were growing in his mind: “Mir geht es gut, sehr gut. Zwar kann ich nicht leugnen, daß der Abschied von meiner Lehrtätigkeit und von einigen guten Schülern anfangs mit großer Aufregung für mich verbunden war, da ich dem Lehren mit Leib und Seele anhing. Allein der Abschiedsschmerz wurde bald überwunden von der Freude über die Ablösung von einem so feigen, charakterlosen, geistesträgen Lehrkörper, wie sie jetzt an unseren Hochschulen ein im Zimmer eingesperrtes Pflanzenleben führen. Man kann aus einer solchen Scheidung nur geläutert hervorgehen. – Ich werde vorderhand hier bleiben, in meinem Laboratorium fortarbeiten, meine Untersuchungen [the journal Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, edited by Moleschott; L.M.] veröffentlichen, meine Anthropologie schreiben und vor allen Dingen viel zu lernen suchen.”267

In the same letter, Moleschott wrote to Feuerbach that if he managed to finish these tasks in about three years, then he would like to work as a physician: he gave up that profession, he said, just because of insufficient time, but was now hoping to carry it on in a big city. For a long time, he wrote, he had developed a great “Ekel” (disgust) towards universities, which for thetime being seemed to be insurmountable. Moreover, he asked Feuerbach his opinion about his book on Georg Forster, hoping, as it seems, that he would write a positive review, in the same way and perhaps with the same tone as he had done with the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. However, this did not happen. This was not the first time Moleschott asked Feuerbach for a review: in a letter written in 1858, he had asked him to read his new preface addressed to Liebig in the Kreislauf des Lebens and to write a review of that book.268 As far as we 266 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, January 16, 1855): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/7 (microfiche 015648). Georg Forster’s daughter appreciated the book, as it is clear from a letter her husband sent to Feuerbach: Emil Ernst Gottfried von Herder to Ludwig Feuerbach (Erlangen, January 10, 1855), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 89 (he reports that Moleschott sent Therese, his wife and the daughter of Georg Forster, his book on Forster together with a very “lieben, zartgefühlten Brief”, which she very much liked). 267 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg November 20, 1854), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 79-80. 268 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Zürich, May 27, 1858), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 189 (line 62-67): “Als Freund wage ich es sogar, Sie darum zu

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know, Feuerbach only wrote one review for Moleschott – but one which would become famous: it is Feuerbach’s review of Moleschott’s Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, entitled “Die Naturwissenschaft und die Revolution”, which contains the well-known motto “Der Mensch ist, was er ißt”. This review had been solicited by Moleschott himself at the end of March 1850269 and appeared in the Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung (Leipzig 1850).270

bitten, das neue Vorwort an Liebig im ‘Kreislauf’ zu lesen. Es ist gewiß nicht unnütz, wenn wir voneinander wissen, wie wir uns wehren gegen die Schmähungen derer, die die Welt für mächtig hält und die doch mit so stumpfen Waffen, wie Schimpf und Schmähung kämpfen.ˮ 269 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Mainz, March 30, 1850), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 230-231. 270 The single parts of the review appeared in a row in the following issues of the journal: n. 268, November 8, 1850, pages 1069-1071; n. 269, November 9, 1850, pages 1073-1074; n. 270, November 11, 1850, pages 1077-1079; n. 271, November 12, 1850, pages 10811083. Cf. Ludwig Feuerbach, “Die Naturwissenschaft und die Revolutionˮ (Leipzig 1850), in Ludwig Feuerbach, Kleinere Schriften III (1846-1850), vol. 10 of Gesammelte Werke, ed.Werner Schuffenhauer (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971), 347-368; there, cf. also the “Vorbemerkungˮ by Wolfgang Harich, V-IX (on this writing, IX). For an interpretation cf. Melvin Cherno, “Feuerbach’s ‘Man Is What He Eats’: A Rectification”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 24 (1963): 397-406. The famous sentence “Der Mensch ist, was er ißt”, had appeared for the first time in Feuerbach’s “Die Unsterblichkeitsfrage vom Standpunkt der Anthropologie” (Leipzig 1847), in Feuerbach, Kleinere Schriften III, 192-284; however, it only became famous after it had been repeated in “Die Naturwissenschaft und die Revolution”. Feuerbach came back to the meaning of the sentence in “Das Geheimnis des Opfers oder Der Mensch ist, was er ißtˮ (Leipzig 1866), in Ludwig Feuerbach, Kleinere Schriften IV (1851-1866), vol. 11 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. Werner Schuffenhauer (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972), 26-52; cf. also the “Vorbemerkungˮ by Wolfgang Harich, V-X (on this issue, VIII).

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M OLESCHOTT ’ S A NTHROPOLOGIE AS S YNTHESIS OF A LL D ISCIPLINES : A L IFE ’ S P ROJECT There is probably no issue related to Moleschott’s publications that recurs more often in the correspondence (both in the letters he wrote and in those he received) as his Anthropologie. Apparently, this was meant to be the work of his life: an opus magnum summarizing all of his scientific work and, above all, the embodiment of his very conception of science. Already at the beginning of his studies, Moleschott was not feeling comfortable with the separation of disciplines and started looking for coherence and for an allencompassing principle that would keep together the branches of what he would later on, in his Italian speeches on higher education, define as “the tree of knowledge”. He found the answer in anthropology, to which he dedicated much effort, influenced again by his father and by Feuerbach, and whose study he understood as the task of his life: “Ich gab mich ihr mit opferwilligem Eifer hin, denn die Anthropologie in diesem Sinne, deren Keim mein Vater in mir geweckt, der Ludwig Feuerbach das Ziel gesteckt, galt und gilt mir als die Aufgabe meines ganzen Lebens. Um ihretwillen studierte ich die Lehre vom Leben, um ihretwillen war ich der Weltweisheit ergeben, die ich nur in ihr erblickte. Also nicht ʽPhilosophie, Juristerei und Medizin, und leider auch Theologieʼ, sondern Menschenkunde, nur Menschenkunde nach allen Seiten, ohne Theologie und Teleologie, ohne Gotteswahn und Zweckmäßigkeitslehre, aber mit Religion, mit der Religion, die den Menschen als ein abhängiges, naturbedingtes Wesen betrachtet, das die Aufgabe als Pflicht erfasst hat, seine Naturbedingtheit immer mehr zu der Kulturbedingtheit zu erheben, die ihm mit der Bewunderung der Natur den Trieb und die Kunst, sie zu beherrschen, einflößt.”271

Moleschott used similar enthusiastic words about his project of writing an Anthroplogie in the preface to his Physiologisches Skizzenbuch in 1860, describing it as “the best fruit” of his “studies in physiology and medicine”: he was working on it “since years”, he explained, and the Skizzenbuch contained the first results of his attempts.272 The first times he mentioned that he was working on his Anthropologie, it was in some letters to Ludwig Feuerbach, as well as to other close friends and fellow-scientists, such as Édouard Desor and Berthold Auerbach. At the beginning of the 1850s, it seemed that the work would be published relatively soon: even though Moleschott was busy with his major popularizing books, in 1854 he hoped to finish all of the volumes of the Anthropologie within one year or a little bit longer. He could already 271 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 250-251 (quoted also in Moser, Der Physiologe Jakob Moleschott, 17). 272 Moleschott, Vorwort to Physiologisches Skizzenbuch (Zürich, October 16, 1860), VI.

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count on a publisher (most probably von Zabern in Mainz, who had already published his Kreislauf), and on a good reward. The last point was particularly relevant for him: in fact, after he left the University of Heidelberg, he had to rely on the incomes deriving from his publications only. At that time, he planned that he would dedicate time to his work in the laboratory, editing the Untersuchungen and writing the Anthropologie.273 Thus, it was during his time as a Privatdozent in Heidelberg that Moleschott started to work on the project of the Anthropologie: already the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel was defined by him as a first attempt to write “a general anthropology”.274 In fact, Moleschott himself, in a letter he wrote to Berthold Auerbach in order to ask him if he could write a review of his book, defined the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel as “the first contribution to my ‘Anthropologie’”: “Die äußere Veranlassung zu diesen Zeilen ist der erste Beitrag zu meiner Anthropologie, den ich habe von Stapel laufen lassen. Ich habe meinen Verleger (Enke in Erlangen) den Auftrag gegeben, Dir in meinem Namen meine ʽLehre der Nahrungsmittel, für das Volkʼ zu schicken. So würde mich unendlich glücklich machen, wenn ich den rechten Ton getroffen hätte, um meine Überzeugung von dem was Leben heißt in weiten Kreisen einzuführen. Das Vehikel wirst Du als praktisch anerkennen. Welche höhere Tendenz ich verfolgte, mag ich Dir nicht erzählen, denn ich rechne fast auf Dein Interesse für den Gegenstand, wie für den Verfasser. Deshalb wage ich auch getrost die Bitte, Du möchtest mir das Büchelchen […] besprechen. Dabei würdest Du mir einen besonderen Gefall zeigen, wenn Du hervorheben wolltest, daß ich nirgends frivol geschrieben habe. Ich denke, Du wirst mir dies, besonders im Gegensatz zu Vogtʼs Manier, gerne zugestehen.”275

As we can see, Moleschott put the accent on the fact that Auerbach’s review should juxtapose his work to that of the materialist Carl Vogt and, more specifically, it should show that it was not “frivol”, morally inconvenient. In other words, his judgement was meant to oppose the opinion expressed by the Minister of Baden and implicitly accepted by the University of Heidelberg, according to which Moleschott’s writings and public lectures were “unsittlich und frivol”.276 At the same time, this 273 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg, November 20, 1854), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 80: “Ich werde vorderhand hier bleiben, in meinem Laboratorium fortarbeiten, meine Untersuchungen veröffentlichen, meine Anthropologie schreiben und vor allen Dingen viel zu lernen suchen.” 274 Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 237. 275 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (s.l., March 28, 1850): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/6 (microfiche 015648). 276 It is likely that Auerbach’s review is the one that appeared in the periodical Didaskalia. Blätter für Geist, Gemüth und Publizität. Jahrgang 30 (Januar-Juni 1852), [101]-[102],

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letter is important because it contains the indication of Moleschott’s aim when writing the “Anthropologie”: as we can read in the quotation above, he identified it as the popularization of his own conception of life. This was not the only time Moleschott asked Auerbach to write a review of one of his books: after his book on Georg Forster appeared, Moleschott wrote to his friend how dissatisfied and disappointed he was with the comments of some reviewers, who took it for a “Gelegenheitsschrift”, an occasional writing: “Warum ich Dir das alles schreibe? Nur um Dir zu zeigen, daß ich jetzt die Beurtheilung gelesen habe, die meinen braven Verleger so außer sich gebracht, daß er mir über seine Erfahrungen an Prutz277 einen langen Brief schickte. [...] Für den Fall, daß es nöthig wäre, wollte ich Dich darauf auffordern, Deinen Plan einer Besprechung meines Buches nun um so schneller auszuführen. Also zur Sendung, die erfolgt sein wird oder bald erfolgen muß, wollte ich Dir erklären. Daß ich nichts thue, versteht sich ganz von selbst. Ob mein Verleger die Geschichte richtig aussieht, weiß ich nicht.”278

On this occasion, Moleschott underlined the “anthropological” character of Forster’s research, which the critics of his own book on Forster, in his opinion, did not understand: “Prutz meint, Forsterʼs naturwissenschaftliche Schriften berechtigten nicht / zu der Stellung, die ich für Forster in Anspruch nehme. Davon scheint P. keine Ahnung zu haben, daß diese Bedeutung gerade daraus erwächst, daß Forster die Natur nicht nur in einigen Merkmalen von

under the title “Dr. Moleschott’s Lehre der Nahrungsmittel”: it was signed by “Dr. X” and described the book very positively, even though it showed rather a continuity with Vogt’s work than an opposition. 277 The Hegelian literary critic Robert Prutz (1816-1872) had published a negative review of the book in the journal Deutsches Museum: cf. Jacob Moleschott to Hermann Hettner, included in a letter by Hermann Hettner to Berthold Auerbach (Jena, January 17, 1855): DLA Marbach, Z3250/8 (microfiche 015607). Indeed, Robert Prutz was the editor of the Deutsches Museum. Zeitschrift für Literatur, Kunst und öffentliches Leben (in the section “Literatur und Kunst”), which was published by Brockhaus in Leipzig from 1851 until 1867, and the review appeared in the issue of January-July 1855: Moleschott, “Georg Forster, der Naturforscher des Volks”. Deutsches Museum: Zeitschrift für Literatur, Kunst und öffentliches Leben, 5 (1855), 1: 72-73. 278 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, January 16, 1855): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/7 (microfiche 015648), [3].

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Pflanzen, Thieren und Menschenrassen, nicht nur in Sternkundigen Berechnungen oder Pendelgesetzen erforscht, sondern auch durch eine menschenkundige Betrachtung von Kunst und Geschichte, Verkehr und Staat.”279

We do not know how great the influence of Feuerbach’s conception of anthropology was on this project. Even though Moleschott was most probably inspired by Feuerbach’s statement that “Wahrheit ist weder der Materialismus, noch der Idealismus, weder die Physiologie, noch die Psychologie; Wahrheit ist die Anthropologie”, which he himself quoted in his autobiography,280 putting physiology and anatomy at the beginning of his book on anthropology was rather more typical for a natural scientist like Moleschott than for Feuerbach. In the same letter to Auerbach, Moleschott also thanked him for having encouraged him to write “a history of the natural sciences”, to which also the physiologist Karl von Vierordt (born in 1818, Vierordt had also studied medicine in Heidelberg, and died in 1884)281 and the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach had tried to motivate him: “Deine Aufforderung eine Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften zu schreiben, war mir doppelt merkwürdig, weil ähnliche Anregungen früher von dem Physiologen Vierordt und von Feuerbach kamen. Letzterer war dazu veranlaßt durch das von mir im Kreislauf bezeichnete Bedürfniß einer Entwicklungsgeschichte der Sinne. So steht mir ein Bild vor der Seele, das ich sehr lieb habe und durch alle Zeiten verfolgen möchte. Es wäre der vollgültigste Beweis gegen jede Erfahrungslosigkeit des Wissens wie gegen jede hereinbrechende Offenbarung. Allein meiner Neigung wäre dem Werke besser gemachtes als meine Kraft und meine Zeit. Meine Anthropologie wird mich noch drei Jahre in Athem halten […].”282

Whereas the Anthropologie seems to be in the first place among Moleschott’s work priorities, we can see that he had several contemporary projects and that his own circle of friends and colleagues was not only often ready to write some positive reviews of his books, but also motivated him to write certain works (especially as far as the popularizing ones are concerned) and influenced his activity as a scientist and 279 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, January 16, 1855): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/7 (microfiche 015648), [1]-[2]. 280 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 221. Moleschott must have cited from Feuerbach, “Philosophische Kritiken und Grundsätzeˮ, in Sämtliche Werke, II (Leipzig 1846), 362 (quoted in Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 11). 281 Cf. Julius Pagel, “Vierordt, Karl vonˮ, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 39 (1895), 678-679. 282 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, January 16, 1855): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/7 (microfiche 015648), [4].

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popularizer. Even though Moleschott expressed his appreciation for this idea in his letter, he never wrote either a history of the natural sciences or a history of the evolution of the senses. Interestingly, however, he explicitly understood these as possible future scientific enterprises and part of his engagement in the rejection of any metaphysical and religious position: as he expressed it, such works on the history of the natural sciences and the history of the senses would be the “most valid proof” against any affirmation of the independence of knowledge from the senses, as well as against any belief in the existence of divine revelation. In other words, they would support empiricism against metaphysics. From the letter Auerbach wrote to Moleschott, we know that already at that moment, that is, immediately after having received his Georg Forster, he wrote he would find the occasion to express his opinion on the book, and also suggested to Moleschott that he write a history of the natural sciences “in the last 3 centuries”, after he depicted the “Lessing of the natural sciences” (“Lessing der Naturwissenschaften”, meaning Georg Forster) in his book: “Du hast es glücklich erreicht, das Standbild Forsters zu errichten. [...] Ich werde Gelegenheit nehmen, mich über dein Buch öffentlich auszusprechen, u[nd] dir dann solches mittheilen. Ich werde dann dabei Ausführlicheres besonders über Teleologie zu sagen haben […]”.283 Auerbach explained that his idea originated from the observation that until that moment, treatises on cultural history (Culturgeschichte), such as a book by William Whewell,284 which had just been translated into German, had been limited to philosophy, poetry, and theology, whereas the natural sciences had always been excluded from such publications: “[…] in der Verhandlung der Culturgeschichte bis jetzt ausschließlich Philosophie, Poesie, Theologie, darin auftreten, aber nicht eigentlich die Naturwissenschaften, u[nd] es scheint mir deine Aufgabe das zur gerechten Ebenwichtigkeit zu bringen.”285 Moleschott was thus invested with a highly important task – that he did not write a history of the natural sciences in the last three centuries, that he did not write a history of the senses, and that he did not even finish writing his Anthropologie, does not mean that he gave up on this task. To the contrary: as we will see in the next chapters, precisely during his time in Italy he engaged on popularization as never before, even though his popularizing strategies deeply changed, and his project of scientific popularization was carried on through lectures and speeches rather than 283 Berthold Auerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Dresden, January 5, 1855): BCABo, FSM, 5.34 (new). The incipit of the letter reads: “Wie oft lieber Moleschott hätte ich dir beim lesen deines Forster gern die Hand gedrückt […].ˮ 284 William Whewell (1794-1866) was an English scientist, philosopher and historian of science. It is uncertain which book Auerbach refers to. 285 Berthold Auerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Dresden, January 5, 1855): BCABo, FSM, 5.34 (new).

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long books. Especially in the lectures he held in Turin starting from 1861, the history of the natural sciences did play a very important role: the natural sciences were completely integrated in and elevated to the level of the other elements of “Culturgeschichte”. In this sense, Moleschott did realize the project Auerbach had suggested to him. The question of the publication of the Anthropologie deserves some attention on its own: apparently, several publishers were interested in the book, even though it had not been published yet. In fact, Otto Wigand, the publisher of Feuerbach’s lectures on the Wesen des Christenthums, communicated to Feuerbach that he would have liked Moleschott to write something on nutrition for his Bildungshalle, a new popularizing journal, or at least to publish his Anthropologie for him.286 However, Moleschott replied to Feuerbach, who had written him about Wigand’s wish, that he did not have any time to write for the Bildungshalle.287 Feuerbach himself was skeptical about this idea and had written Wigand that this would not make much sense, since Moleschott had already published two books on nutrition and any other writing would be self-plagiarism; for that reason, he suggested that he address other scientists.288 As far as the Anthropologie was concerned, Moleschott reserved himself to favor his previous editor (von Zabern in Mainz), and moreover warned that his work would be quite expensive: for his Kreislauf, he had got paid “60 Gulden R[heinische] per Bogen”, and for the Anthropologie he would ask at least 100 guldens, having to rely on publications for his income.289 Even though Moleschott demanded such a high payment, and even though the book was not ready yet, Wigand kept hoping that he could be his publisher and insisted so to Feuerbach.290 A couple of months later, he wrote once again about this issue, asking Feuerbach to convince Moleschott and hoping that Moleschott would consent to publish the Anthropologie with him out of democratic spirit (Wigand’s publishing house aimed at popularizing science and democratic ideas).291 Later on, in 1859, Feuerbach reported about yet another publisher, 286 Ludwig Feuerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Bruckberg, November 15, 1852), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 416. 287 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg, November 20, 1852), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 418. 288 Ludwig Feuerbach to Otto Wigand (Bruckberg, November 26, 1852), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 419-420. 289 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg, November 20, 1852), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 418. 290 Otto Wigand to Ludwig Feuerbach (Leipzig, January 31, 1853), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 11 (line 42). 291 Otto Wigand to Ludwig Feuerbach (L[eipzig], April 5, 1853), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 24 (lines 19-23): “Klopfen Sie doch bei diesem Bösewicht mal an sein demokratisches Gewissen.ˮ

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Brockhaus: according to Feuerbach, Brockhaus would pay 15000 guldens for Moleschott’s Anthropologie, and for this reason he was preferred to Wigand.292 However, the Anthropologie was simply not published: Moleschott’s priorities changed with time, and eventually his popularizing strategy envisioned speeches and lectures rather than a huge book in many volumes, as the Anthropologie was meant to be. Even Moleschott’s friend, Hermann Hettner, asked him more than once how things were going with his Anthropologie: the first time in 1854, the second time three years later, in 1857.293 In 1855, Moleschott wrote to another close friend, Berthold Auerbach, that he was still busy with the Anthropologie and that he was planning to finish it within three years.294 Without any doubt, Moleschott had many projects in mind, precisely in that period of time when he was without a position at the university and he was planning to move to a big city, as he had already written to Auerbach: “Dann muß ich mir ein neues Leben bauen, ein Leben in der werkthätigen Alltäglichkeit, ohne deshalb ein Alltagsmensch werden zu dürfen. Gerade dann will ich mit [...] Eifer meine physiologischen Untersuchungen fortsetzen, in einer großen Stadt einzelnen jüngeren Ärzten Gelegenheit geben, sich daran zu betheiligen, u.s.w. Und die erste größere schriftstellerische Arbeit, die ich unternehmen darf, ist eine vollständige Umarbeitung meiner Dietätik [sic] für Naturforscher und Ärzte; es soll ein ganz neues Buch werden, zu dem die Baustoffe richtig anwachsen. Aber ich freue mich sehr darauf.”295

Besides independently doing research in his laboratory, Moleschott was also working on a new version of the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. In March of the same year, he wrote to the philosopher Ludwig Noack296 that he was intensively working on the

292 Heinrich Benecke to Ludwig Feuerbach (Leipzig, April 3, 1859), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 229 (lines 94-97): “Moleschott schreibt an einer Anthropologie, für die, beiläufig gesagt, Brockhaus, der sie verlegen wird, 15000 [fl.] gegeben haben soll. Wigand hatte auch geboten, ist aber von Brockhaus überstimmt.ˮ 293 Hermann Hettner to Jacob Moleschott (Jena, September 12, 1854, and Dresden, December 8, 1857): BCABo, FSM, 13.22 (new), letters 38 and 62. 294 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, January 16, 1855): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/7 (microfiche 015648). 295 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Heidelberg, January 16, 1855): DLA Marbach, A: Auerbach; Z3430/7 (microfiche 015648). 296 Ludwig Noack (1819, Bessungen, near Darmstadt – Heidelberg 1885) studied theology and philology in Giessen. He engaged in left-wing politics and in the criticism of the Bible. He published a Historisch-biographisches Handwörterbuch zur Geschichte der Philosophie. Just like Moleschott eight years earlier, he also received a “Verwarnungˮ

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Anthropologie, for which he had not had time in the past months, especially due to the sickness of his children; moreover, he was planning the second edition of his Kreislauf.297 Four years later, in 1859, his wife Sophie announced to Edouard Desor that the first volume of the Anthropologie would soon be ready: “Im Laufe des Winters 60/61 wird der erste Band der Anthropologie an der Moleschott jetzt fleißig wiederarbeitet, zum Danke fertig sein […].”298 The income from the publication would allow the Moleschotts to pay back their debt with Desor. At the beginning of the same year, the owner of the publishing house Brockhaus, who, as we know from the abovementioned correspondence between Moleschott and Feuerbach and between the latter and another publisher, Otto Wigand, wanted to publish the Anthropologie, asked him how long he would take to finish it: “Wie weit sind Sie selbst mal mit Ihrer Anthropologie ... ?”299 Even though declaring that he would still need more than one year to finish the Anthropologie, Moleschott was still convinced that he would eventually finish it and publish it: “Meine Feder verschafft mir meine Haupteinnahmen, und da ich sie für einige Zeit muß rasten lassen, so ist mir die höchste Sparsamkeit geboten. Auf der einen Seite nämlich muß ich mir ein sehr fleißiges Studium der Mathematik zur dringendsten Pflicht machen, auf der anderen fesseln mich die verschiedensten Vorarbeiten zu meiner Anthropologie, die wohl noch mehr als ein Jährchen auf sich wird warten lassen.”300

However, time passed and Moleschott’s forecasts for finishing and publishing that work became less optimistic. In fact, after his appointment in Turin, Moleschott suddenly had completely different priorities: first learning and then improving his knowledge of the Italian language, starting a completely new physiological laboratory at the University, and getting acquainted with the teaching and administrative from the Interior Ministry of Hessen-Darmstadt, after his publication of his “Die Auferstehung des Gekreuzigten im Lichte heutiger Wissenschaftˮ (Psyche, vol. IV, p. 133 f.); in a very similar way as had been the case with Moleschott, in a second stage he received an “ernste Verwarnung”, being accused of using a “frivole und spöttische Sprache […] unverträglich mit dem Ernst und der Würde der biblischen Wissenschaft”. Cf. Karl Grün, “Noack, Ludwigˮ, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 23 (1886), 745-748. 297 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Noack (Heidelberg, March 9, 1855): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Hs NF 158-5(1): “Ich hole nun eifrig nach. An der Anthropologie wird fleißig geschrieben, und in Februar habe ich meinen ʽKreislaufʼ zur zweiten Auflage vorbereitet, von welcher der vierte Theil bereits gedruckt istˮ. 298 Sophie Moleschott to Edouard Desor (s.l., December 5, 1859): AÉN, Carton 13, D 56. 299 Brockhaus to Moleschott (Leipzig, February 21, 1859): BCABo, FSM 7.9 (new). 300 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg, November 20, 1852), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 416 (lines 23-29).

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tasks of a professor. The following lines he addressed to Feuerbach, sending him his Skizzenbuch (1861) make clear that, due to his new tasks, he did not have much time for completing his Anthropologie: “Abgesehen von meinen Berufsarbeiten und der Anthropologie die viel langsamer fortschreitet, als ich wünschte, stecke ich nämlich bis über die Ohren in Untersuchungen über den Einfluß der Herznerven auf die Frequenz des Herzschlags, Untersuchungen, die einen so gedeihlichen Fortgang nehmen, daß ich mir einen kleinen informatorischen Einfluß auf mancherlei seit Jahren sich einnistende Vorstellungen in Physiologie und Medizin davon verspreche.”301

Nevertheless, finishing and publishing the Anthropologie continued to be one of his goals, even though its priority became less and less high. But why did Moleschott care so much about that work? What was the Anthropologie meant to be? What did it represent in the framework of his conception of science and of popularization? The material about the Anthropologie which is available to us consists of a good deal of drafts and notes, divided into chapters and subchapters, according to the table of contents of the book; however, with the exception of the introduction and the beginning of the first chapter, we do not possess any complete text.302 It is very likely that Moleschott decided to write a work on anthropology when he was giving some lectures on anthropology at the University of Heidelberg. As we have seen, such lectures were conceived as popularizing and did not exclusively address an audience of medicine students: instead, they were open to the students from all faculties,303 and it was primarily for this reason that Moleschott received the warning from the Senate of the University intimating that he stop spreading materialist doctrines among his young audience. As far its structure is concerned, the Anthropologie reflects the idealist model of abstraction, from the particular to the general, from the very small to the very big, in a similar way as Friedrich Hegel had structured his Enzyklopädie der philosophischen 301 Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Zürich, October 8, 1861), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 330 (lines 10-17). 302 In Matteo V. D’Alfonso, “L’antropologia chimica di Jakob Moleschott (con l’inedita ‘Einleitung’ alla ‘Antropologia’)”. Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 599-660, Moleschott’s conception of anthropology has been defined as “antropologia chimica”; however, there is no reason to believe chemistry to be particularly important for the concept of the Anthropologie: the presence of chemical formulae in the first chapter is simply due to the fact that Moleschott started his work with chapters on anatomy and physiological chemistry, correspondingly with its structure, going from the particular to the general. 303 Cf. “Acten der medicinischen Facultät von dem Jahre 1852 (unter dem Decanate des Geheime Hofrath Prof. Dr. Puchelt)ˮ: UAH, H-III-111/59.

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Wissenschaften (1817) and Auguste Comte his Cours de philosophie positive (18301842). The planned volumes were articulated as follows: the first volume on the “Geschichte des Einzelwesen an sich”, thus regarding the human being in isolation (in its subjectivity, using a Hegelian term that Moleschott surely had in mind), the second volume on the “Geschichte des Einzelwesen in seinen Beziehungen zur Außenwelt”, i.e. considering the individual in its relationship with its environment (in its objectivity); the third volume “Geschichte der Gattung”, was meant to deal with the natural history of the species, that is, with the sublimation of the individual in the community. Rather than a refusal of idealism, Moleschott’s conception of the system of knowledge was a broadening of idealistic philosophy that would include the natural sciences and assign them a primary role in the system of science. Starting with the smallest, the human body and within it the cells and their metabolism, Moleschott ended with moral habits and physical characteristics of communities of people. In the last part of the planned Anthropologie, that is, in the last part of its drafts, which were meant to form the basis for the third volume, “Geschichte der Gattung”, i.e. “History of the Species”, where “species” is the human species, Moleschott used the concept of race in a way which implied the awareness of cultural differences, a fact whose implications on his conception of science have hardly been noticed so far.304 Indeed, Moleschott displayed a profound awareness of the relativity of knowledge – including scientific knowledge – and of culture-related variations in the perception and interpretation of the world and its phenomena.305 But what was the main task of the Anthropologie? And what place did it have in Moleschott’s conception of science? The task of the Anthropologie was the chief task of science, the one of synthesis. From the project of the Anthropologie, encompassing the whole of empirical knowledge about human beings as living organisms and as members of societies, we can infer that, for Moleschott, anthropology was the synthesis of all empirical knowledge, including all scientific disciplines and connecting them with each other. Anthropology, the study (or the science) of man, was science tout court, and the Anthropologie was meant to provide a coherent order for the system of science, in which general conclusions follow inductively from empirical observation. In this system, ethics and religion are comprehended as cultural phenomena and as productions of social groups.

304 Jacob Moleschott, manuscripts of the “Anthropologie”: BCABo, FSM, B II 14, B V 5, B V 6, B V 7, B V 8. 305 Some of his notes explicitly deal with that: Jacob Moleschott, “Vorbereitung 1883 Ende November. Fisica dell’organismo”, [31]-[32]: BCABo, FSM, A II 3 a (an earlier sketch is present also in B I 8).

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Publishing his book on anthropology meant, for Moleschott, publishing an allencompassing work on the empirical study of man, where all disciplines are connected with each other in a coherent system which is not only logical, but also based on empirical observation and on the inductive method (from the particular to the general, from anatomy and physiology to ethnology). In the next chapter, we will explore Moleschott’s conception of science and of nature, whereas the relation between single disciplines will become clear from the analysis of the opening lectures he gave in Turin.

C ONCLUSION Summing up the main characters of the first part of Moleschott’s life, we can conclude that his career started as a transnational one, and that in moving from city to city and from country to country (and back), he showed a great level of adaptability. In fact, already at the time of high school, he moved from ’s-Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands, to Cleves, in Prussia; a few years later, he moved to Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, where he studied in an international and politically engaged environment. During his time as a student in Heidelberg, he started to understand the meaning of popularization as a powerful means to influence public opinion and change society. Moreover, he started his activity as a translator of Dutch books into German and of German books into Dutch, which included handbooks, scientific and philosophical books (in particular, on the critique of religion). After finishing his studies, he went back to the Netherlands, practicing the profession of physician and working in the laboratory of Johannes Mulder; there, he met Franciscus Donders and Izaac van Deen, who would become not only his colleagues and main contacts with the Dutch academic world, but also two dear friends. When, after having tried in vain to get a position in the Netherlands, he went back to Heidelberg to teach as a Privatdozent, he never lost contact with van Deen and Donders, and the relationship he had with them is an example of the entanglement of the private and professional spheres in his life. Another example is his wife, Sophie Strecker from Mainz, whose family constituted a contact with the German academic world of the natural sciences: not only did she allow the financing of his first laboratory of his own, but she also helped him doing physiological research in the lab, and provided some of his popularizing writings with illustrations. The literary and the scientific fields never constituted an opposition for Moleschott: to the contrary, they were powerful allies for spreading scientific knowledge and a secular worldview among a broader audience. Even though there were other scientists who engaged in scientific popularization and combined it with the ideals of nationalism and liberalism in the nineteenth century, the particularity of Moleschott’s

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life-path is that, already at an early stage, it adapted to different national and cultural contexts. At the same time, through his work as a translator, he played the role of a transnational mediator in the fields of the natural sciences, of philosophical ideas and of the critique of religion.306 Finally, the terminology and ideology of national unity and of liberalism that he absorbed in Heidelberg must have been fundamental not only for his political, but also for his scientific understanding; in particular, we will find them again in his Italian speeches on the “unity of science”.

306 In the latter fields, only one of his translated works found a publisher, namely the book by Karl Christian Philipp, Philosophische beschouwingen der natuur; uit het Hoogduitsch van Karl Snell vert. door Jac. Moleschott (ʼs-Hertogenbosch: Palier, 1842).

Moleschott’s Popularization of Physiology and Dietetics in Germany

In the following chapter, I will analyze Moleschott’s most important and lengthiest popularizing books in more detail. On the one hand, I will attempt to diachronically compare their content with the ideas Moleschott expressed in his later works; on the other hand, I will compare it synchronically with the ideas on nutrition expressed in other scientific or intellectual milieus in the same period of time. I will thereby focus on his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel and his Kreislauf des Lebens, which are significant sources in order to understand his popularization of the natural sciences in the 1850s. Whereas the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel is Moleschott’s most important popularizing work on dietetics (and one of the books on dietetics with the most translations in the nineteenth century), the Kreislauf des Lebens is a compendium of his conceptions of nature, religion, and morality. These are presented as direct results of empirical research in the field of physiology: for instance, we will see that the idea that matter is in a continuous exchange, that it always transforms but never perishes, lays at the root of an anti-racist and egalitarian view. The Lehre der Nahrungsmittel was conceived as the popularization of the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel (which, as we have seen in the previous chapter, was in its turn a broadened and revised version of Friedrich Tiedemann’s Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel). The Kreislauf, in its turn, was a popularization of the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren, a handbook for physicians and farmers.1 The Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, published in 1850 (the second edition followed in 1859), was Moleschott’s first longer work: it was at once a scientific and a popularizing work, since it was conceived as a handbook of dietetics. It consisted of about eight-hundred pages and described the qualities and the physical and chemical properties of every possible kind of food and beverage, including two-hundred-and-

1

Cf. Moleschott, Vorwort to Der Kreislauf des Lebens (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1852), III.

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fifty pages of tables (three-hundred-and-fifty-five tables altogether).2 It was in the preface to the second edition of this work, written when he was already in Zürich and dated August 1859, that Moleschott declared the new version to be completely independent from Tiedemann’s work, which he had completed and revised to such an extent that little was left of the original version. However, Moleschott would not regret, he wrote, if one could still find the traces of Tiedemann’s book, in whose footsteps he had followed.3 The book is structured in ten parts: the first part (“Abschnitt”) lists and shortly describes different types of nutritional principles (“Nahrungsstoffe”). The second part is on the transformation processes of food in the human body (“Geschichte der Nahrungsstoffe im menschlichen Körper”). The third part is about the specific bodily needs of food, hunger, thirst, etc. (“Das Nahrungsbedürfniss”), and the fourth about the types and quantity of food required for satisfying the abovementioned needs. The fifth part describes foods of animal origins; the sixth foods deriving from vegetables, cereals, legumes and seeds, fruits, roots, leaves, and cryptogams (mushrooms and algae); the seventh spices; the eighth all kinds of beverages. The ninth concentrates on the physiological properties of the different kinds of food, spices, and beverages; finally, the tenth part gives advice on the right type of nutrition in a state of health and in case of illness, as well as in each climatic and seasonal situation. The book addresses students of medicine and physicians, so that its termini technici would not be understandable to an audience lacking knowledge in chemistry or physiology. Nevertheless, its opening quote is a verse from Dante’s Divine Comedy – even in a period during which he could not have imagined his later involvement in Italian politics, Moleschott knew the verses of him who was considered the Italian national poet.4 In the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel (1850), Moleschott popularized the knowledge on dietetics he had exposed in the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel (published in the same year), leaving out the details on the chemical and physiological composition of food and beverages and their nutritional elements. He exposed in an easy-to-read way 2

An interesting feature about Moleschott’s way of working is that many of his handwritten tables are written on the pre-printed forms of the Strecker’s insurance for ships: at least to an extent, his way of thinking and working as a scientist was influenced by the usage of tables in commercial activities, that is, e.g. for bookkeeping purposes: cf. BCABo, FSM, “Anthropologie I”, B V 3, and “Quaderni”, B I 6 C.

3

Moleschott, Vorwort to the 2nd edition of the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel. Ein Handbuch der Diätetik (Giessen: Roth, 1859), III-V.

4

Moleschott, Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, [no page number]: “Dà oggi a noi la cotidiana manna / Senza la qual per questo aspro diserto / A retro va, chi più di gir s’affanna” (Dante, Purgatorio, XI, 13-15). Paraphrased and translated, the verses mean “Give us today the daily food, without which the harder one tries to go forth in this dry desert, the more he goes backwards”.

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what their qualities were, the quantities in which they should be consumed and by whom (for instance, coffee and chocolate were recommended to intellectuals, whereas statesmen were considered able to eat and digest heavy and fatty meals).5 The book is, therefore, a simplified and shortened version of the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel: instead of more than six-hundred pages, it has about two-hundredand-fifty. A new edition of the book was published in 1853, and a third one in 1858. The work is divided into three so-called books (included in the same volume): the first explaining metabolic functions, “Stoffwechsel”; the second on the different kinds of food, “Nahrungsmittel”. The third book, on “Diät”, advises about the most adequate diet in different physical and climatic conditions, according to age, gender, and occupation: there is a diet for women,6 for children,7 for men, the young and the elderly,8 for artisans (“Handwerker”),9 for artists, and for scholars,10 a diet for the summer, and one for the winter.11 However, the tables about nutritional values that were present in the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel are missing in the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. In the conclusion, Moleschott states that the book is limited to the diet of healthy people, and explicitly does not deal with the diet of the sick: in that case, only a medical doctor, according to Moleschott, has the right and sufficient knowledge to indicate what diet to follow.12 In other words, the limits of Moleschott’s popularization of dietetics lie there, where the field of knowledge and praxis of a professional physician begins. As we have already mentioned in the last chapter, Moleschott dedicated the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel to his father, Franciscus Gabriel Moleschott, physician in ’s-Hertogenbosch. Instead of a preface to the book, he wrote a letter to his father as kind of introduction, in which he explained the form, the content, and the purpose of the book, and underlined his father’s role in promoting Jacob Moleschott’s own interest in nutrition. It seems that, to Moleschott, it was very important to explicate how he would combine a scientific approach with a popularizing style: “Klarheit der Schilderung verbunden mit der Lebendigkeit, die allein einigen Ersatz gewähren kann für den Mangel an einer Anschauung, hielt ich für das wesentlichste Erforderniß der Form. Im Inhalt aber erstrebte ich ein plastisches Bild des Ganzen, keine gelehrte Vollständigkeit.ˮ13 5

Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 243-244.

6

Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 230-237.

7

Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 208-220.

8

Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 220-230.

9

Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 237-241.

10 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 241-246. 11 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 246-253. 12 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 254-256. 13 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, [without page number, page 3 of the letter].

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Instead, Moleschott had attempted to reach completeness (“Vollständigkeit”), he explained, in the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel. Moreover, “completeness” was also an aim of the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, insofar as he wanted to include the practical use of theoretical knowledge in his publication: “Nur insofern war Vollständigkeit mein Ziel, als ich den praktischen Nutzen nicht entbehren wollte, den es dem Volke gewähren kann, wenn es in diesem Werkchen nach ihren wesentlichsten Eigenschaften die Nahrungsmittel alle besprochen findet, welche zu seinen täglichen Bedürfnissen gehören.ˮ14 A particularity of Moleschott’s popularization of physiological and chemical concepts is their translation into a German understandable also for non-scientists. Moleschott, himself not a native speaker of German (even though, as we have seen, he had learned German at a very early age), “translated” entire termini technici, or parts of them, often substituting a Latin or Greek term with a current German word. This process of translation of single termini, a simplification of scientific language, should be understood as one of the many processes of translation in which Moleschott was involved. However, at the same time, Moleschott was feeling somehow not completely at ease vis-à-vis professional natural scientists, especially chemists, with whom he felt the need to apologize for the inelegant terms he had just invented: “Sofern mein Werkchen Chemiker interessiren sollte, hoffe ich in den Kunstausdrücken, für die ich neue deutsche Wörter zusammensetzen mußte, wo nicht glücklich, doch mindestens deutlich gewesen zu sein. Wenn ich das Legumin Erbsenstoff, das Kreatin Fleischstoff, das Kreatinin Fleischbasis, die Inosinsäure Fleischsäure, das Dextrin immer nur Gummi nannte, so wird mich kein Chemiker mißverstehen.”15

As it is evident from this passage, the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel anticipates many issues that Moleschott would explore in his second big popularizing book, the Kreislauf des Lebens. The Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, published only one year after the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel and one year before the Kreislauf des Lebens, in 1851, addressed an audience of natural scientists, physicians and farmers. As Moleschott explained in his preface, his work was based on the conviction that physiology was an independent science, not an applied one, and that its principles must be disseminated among the medical doctors and all professionals who could profit from it. Giving physiology such a priority, Moleschott was aware that he was contributing to the formation of a new scientific discipline, assigning it a precise role and a place in the ensemble of the natural sciences and medicine. For this reason, Moleschott decided to call his book “Physiologie des Stoffwechsels”, renouncing the original project of writing a physiological chemistry: 14 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, [without page number, pages 4-5 of the letter]. 15 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, [without page number, page 7 of the letter].

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“Anfangs war es meine Absicht mich an einer physiologischen Chemie zu versuchen. Man hat indeß diesen Namen immer mehr und mehr für eine zum Nutzen der Physiologen geschriebene organische Chemie in Anspruch genommen. Was ich darunter verstand, ist keine angewandte, es ist eine selbständige Wissenschaft. Daher der kühnere Name einer ʽPhysiologie des Stoffwechsels.ʼ Ich bin mir klar und deutlich bewußt, daß ich in dieser Gestalt ein neues wissenschaftliches Gebäude aufgeführt habe.”16

The volume is divided into six so-called books: the first book deals with the nutritional sources of the plants (“Die Ernährungsquellen der Pflanzen”), namely water, soil, air, and specific minerals.17 The second book is about the components of plants (protein, starch, fat, wax, inorganic elements),18 and the third one describes the elements forming animal beings (their nutritional elements, digestion, chyle and blood).19 The fourth book examines the inner elements of the plants (such as essential oils, alkali and acids),20 the fifth book the internal elements of the animal body, such as tissues and the products and byproducts of digestion, but also animal warmth.21 Finally, the sixth and last book deals with the decomposition of organic matter after the death of a living being, distinguishing between the process which proteins undergo and the process which fats undergo.22 Precisely the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, a book that, apparently, does nothing more than describing the elements composing plants and animals and the processes of transformation they undergo, was at the origin of the Kreislauf des Lebens. The latter book, as we have seen, was co-responsible for a reaction from the government of Baden and, consequently, Moleschott’s leaving the University of Heidelberg in 1854. As Moleschott explained in the preface to the Kreislauf, that work was meant to make available to the “German folk” (one should notice the national, and thus political character of Moleschott’s work) the principles exposed in the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels. However, if we have a closer look at the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, we will notice that, in the introduction, Moleschott expressed many ideas which would be further popularized in the Kreislauf des Lebens, the latter being a programmatic and concise explanation of his worldview. Indeed, Moleschott illuminated the principle of the inseparability of matter and force, countering the idea of force as an anthropomorphic or divine principle: 16 Moleschott, Vorrede to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, III-IV. 17 Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, 3-68. 18 Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, 69-184. 19 Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, 185-272. 20 Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, 273-358. 21 Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, 359-344. 22 Moleschott, Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, 545-568.

118 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “Jeder Eindruck, den die Materie auf unsre [sic] Sinne macht, giebt uns Kunde von einem Verhältniß der stofflichen Außenwelt zu unsrem Körper. Jede Veränderung in Raum und Zeit, die wir beide nur durch einander kennen, zeigt sich unsren Sinnen als Bewegung. Die Eigenschaft der Materie, die diese Bewegung ermöglicht, nennen wir Kraft. Die Kraft ist kein stoßender Gott, kein von der stofflichen Grundlage getrenntes Wesen der Dinge. Sie ist des Stoffes unzertrennliche, ihm von Ewigkeit innewohnende Eigenschaft.”23

According to Moleschott, the conception of force as an inseparable and eternal attribute of matter had already been defended by the French naturalist George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) and by Georg Forster, and demonstrated by the chemist François Lavoisier.24 For Moleschott (as well as for Ludwig Büchner and Ernst Haeckel),25 force was a necessary, inseparable and eternal attribute of matter – interestingly, it is thus described with divine attributes, although it is immanent and not transcendent with respect to the material world. Therefore, Moleschott argued that “absolute knowledge” for human beings consists of the study of the qualities of matter: to achieve this kind of absolute knowledge, one needs nothing more and nothing less than human senses.26 According to him, this was the difference between his and Kant’s view, who postulated the Ding an sich, beyond sense perception, or the idealist view of Schelling and Hegel.27 At the same time, however, Moleschott recognized that Hegel had the merit of having affirmed and diffused the idea of the necessity of phenomena, which Spinoza had already theorized.28 Thus, Moleschott’s introduction was a statement against teleology and vitalism, the former presupposing the existence of a transcendental design governing nature, the latter presupposing the existence of a vital force independent from matter.29 In his introduction, Moleschott also explained that the “Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren” aimed at a description of the “Kreislauf” of the elements (namely water, earth, and air) constituting animals and plants.30 Interestingly, Moleschott also took care to explain that the conditions of experiments in the laboratories are essentially different from natural conditions, and that therefore it might happen, and it often happens, that the processes 23 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, X. 24 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, IX. 25 Ludwig Büchner, Kraft und Stoff. Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien. In allgemeinverständlicher Darstellung (Frankfurt am Main: Meidinger, 1855). 26 Cf. also Moleschott’s Italian notes: BCABo, FSM, “Quaderni”, B I 6 a, 31 (manuscript). 27 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, XII. 28 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, XIII. 29 On vitalist and anti-vitalist, teleological and anti-teleological conceptions of nature in nineteenth-century biology, cf. Timothy Lenoir, The Strategy of Life. Teleology and Mechanics in nineteenth century German biology (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1982). 30 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, XV.

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taking place in nature take a different course than the ones in the lab.31 Criticizing also Jacob Henle’s concept of “typische Kraft”, Moleschott pled for turning away from anthropomorphism, both in science as well as in religious faith: in fact, in a line with Feuerbach, Moleschott argued that it was time for both of them to turn to anthropology; the “physiology of metabolism” (“Physiologie des Stoffwechsels”), studying matter and its transformation, was conceived as a necessary and essential step in this direction.32 Whereas the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel was, basically, a simplification of the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, if we compare the Kreislauf des Lebens to the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, we will observe great differences not only in the style and structure of these works, but also in the topics of their chapters. Indeed, the Kreislauf is written in epistolary form, being composed of twenty letters (about four-hundred pages altogether), whose titles are not a simplified version of the single “books” of the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, but rather a generalization and translation of scientific theories on plants’ and animals’ metabolism to the level of ethical, religious and philosophical issues. It is mainly due to the Kreislauf, that Moleschott started to be called a philosopher (an epithet that would be used above all in Italy). In the first letter, “Offenbarung und Naturgesetz”, Moleschott clearly set the framework of his research: opposing Christian revelation to the laws of nature, and thus traditional religion to the natural sciences, he claimed that these stand in a relation of mutual exclusion with each other, and that only the laws of nature are necessary and eternal.33 Therefore, from the very first letter of the book, Moleschott made clear the framework in which his work was settled and, above all, that the statements which would follow were the product of scientific research, not of belief or speculation. In the second letter, “Erkenntnißquellen des Menschen”, Moleschott explained that the only sources of human knowledge are the senses, thereby sticking to an empiricist position and excluding both revelation and speculation from the domain of true knowledge.34 In the third letter, “Unsterblichkeit des Stoffs”, Moleschott explained one of the main principles of the Kreislauf and of his conception of nature, namely that there is only one principle in the universe, imperishable but ever-changing: matter.35 Thus, already at that moment, Moleschott was not only a materialist, but also a monist. In the next pages, we will deal with this issue in more detail. The fourth letter deals with the process of growth of plants and animals;36 the fifth with

31 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, XX. 32 Moleschott, Einleitung (Introduction) to Physiologie des Stoffwechsels, XXII. 33 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 11-19. 34 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 20-35. 35 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 36-44. 36 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 45-54.

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the earth as the source of animals’ and plants’ life.37 The sixth letter, “Kreislauf des Stoffs”, explains how the same organic elements constituting animals and plants undergo processes of oxidization, so that they return to the earth, and from there become, again, the essential elements of new animal and plant life.38 The next letters (seventh and eighth) explain how the plants absorb their nutriments from the soil, and the animals from the plants.39 The ninth letter illuminates the function of nutrition and respiration for organic life,40 and the next letters (tenth through fourteenth) further explain the transformation processes of food in animal organisms, the fertilizing function of ashes (for this reason, Moleschott was in favor of cremation), the constitution of animals and plants, and the production of warmth.41 In the fifteenth and sixteenth letters, Moleschott comes back to the ever-changing forms of matter and defines this as the central element of human and organic life in general (without any need for a vital principle, or “Lebenskraft”).42 The last four letters concentrate on the relation between matter and force (“Kraft und Stoff”) as two inseparable principles; in the eighteenth letter, Moleschott explains that thought also is a product of the activity of the organism, thus dependent on nutrition and on other physical conditions (in other words, on matter).43 For Moleschott, thus, conscience is nothing other than a function of the nervous system: “Stoffliche Bewegungen, die in den Nerven mit elektrischen Strömen verbunden sind, werden in dem Gehirn als Empfindung wahrgenommen. Und diese Empfindung ist Selbstgefühl, Bewußtsein.ˮ44 In the nineteenth letter, he explains that the will also depends on the influences of the environment and of nutrition, in other words, on what Comte called milieu intérieur and milieu extérieur:45 “So ist der Mensch die Summe von Aeltern und Amme, von Ort und Zeit, von Luft und Wetter, von Schall und Licht, von Kost und Kleidung.ˮ46 In Moleschott’s Quaderni, his handwritten notes in Italian, we can find the same conception of interconnectedness between man and his environment, and the idea that conscience and the will are dependent on the functions of the nervous 37 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 55-65. 38 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 66-84. 39 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 85-111. 40 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 112-126. 41 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 127-254 42 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 255-312. 43 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 313-461. 44 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 405. 45 On this issue, cf. Emmanuel d’Hombres, “La régulation du ʽmilieu intérieurʼ. Étude sur le devenir physiologique de la terminologie de la régulation (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles)ˮ. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 56 (2006), 156-157: 43-79. I thank Emmanuel d’Hombre for the interesting discussion on this topic. 46 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 419.

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system. In fact, in some of his notes on “physiology” and “physics of the organism”, dated 1883-1884, he wrote that, from the beginning to the end, life is the result of a series of impressions and stimuli.47 Already in the Kreislauf, Moleschott popularized the ideas on nutrition that we will find in his Senate speeches on the abolition of the grist tax in Italy in the 1880s. For him, as well as for Johannes Mulder and Justus Liebig, animals represent an intermediate level in the nutritional chain and, processing plant foods, they can and should be utilized by humans as “protein-providers”: “Wenn wir die Kleie als Abfall den Thieren reichen, dann wird kein Gran des Stoffs vergeudet, im Gegentheil, wir überweisen nur den Thieren eine Thätigkeit, die den schwerer verdaulichen Kleber in Eiweiß und Faserstoff des Bluts, den für Menschen beinahe ganz unverdaulichen Zellstoff in Fett verwandelt. Wir erhalten den Stoff als Fleisch und Milch mit Zinsen zurück, indem wir uns eine Arbeit ersparen, die viel nützlicher nach einer anderen Seite hin gerichtet wird.”48

As we can see, the economic metaphor is central in this conception of nutrition and of the interconnection between all living beings. In the very last letter, entitled “Für’s Leben”, Moleschott gave practical advice for how to behave in everyday life according to the principles deriving from what he had exposed in the rest of the book. For instance, he suggested transforming cemeteries into fields after ten years of usage, since the remains would fertilize the soil, the minerals and organic substances having come back to the earth. This, he argued, would make much more sense than erecting monuments and instituting foundations to commemorate the dead people: the poor would take much more benefit from the cereals growing in such a field than from the help of a foundation. However, the best option would be, according to Moleschott, to follow the habits of the ancients and burn the corpses, since their ashes would fertilize the earth even faster.49 Moleschott would be in favor of cremation during his whole life: as we will see, he maintained this position even in Italy, and he determined that he would not be buried, but cremated after his own death. If in the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel Moleschott had attempted to make available to a larger public the principles of nutritional science that he had exposed at length in the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, in the Kreislauf des Lebens he joined together the popularization of 47 Cf. Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni”: BCABo, FSM, B I 8 (“Sensi 1883-84”, I, “Fisica dell’org[ani]smo”, “Fisiologia”, [9]: La vita suppone uno stato di eccit[ament]o, il risultato di eccit[ament]i patiti, che si succedono in serie continua, sovente accesi, non mai spenti, a cominciare dalla 1° impressione colla q[uale] gli sperm[atozo]i destano l’ovicino, ed a non finire quando l’ultimo respiro “lascia eredità d’affetti.”). 48 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 448-449. 49 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 444.

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knowledge about nutrition and the result of research in the natural sciences with the dissemination of general theoretical principles (such as sense perception as the only source of knowledge and the necessity of natural laws as opposed to revelation and intuition or speculation).

W OMEN AS F URTHER P OPULARIZERS OF M OLESCHOTT ’ S W ORK However, Moleschott’s works were just one step in the popularization process: in fact, both Moleschott’s popularization of nutritional theory and the popularization of his conception of nature and religious worldview were further promoted by two women – an important aspect of the reception of Moleschott’s work, which has never yet been considered in the secondary literature. In fact, in 1856, just two years after Moleschott had to leave the University of Heidelberg due to his materialist theories, a woman in Frankfurt, Wilhelmine Rührig, published a cookbook with more than seven-hundred recipes based on the newest nutritional theories of Justus Liebig and Jacob Moleschott, the Frankfurter Kochbuch.50 The cookbook must have been a success, since in 1887 the same author published an expanded version, this time including more than a thousand recipes; even its title was more ambitious: Kochbuch fürʼs Deutsche Haus, “cookbook for the German house”.51 Both versions were explicitly directed to bourgeois families and had a “scientific introduction on the correct nutrition of humans and the preparation of food according to the principles of J[ustus] Liebig and Jac[ob] Moleschott”, thus underling already in their subtitles both the social ranks of the public they addressed, and the “scientificity” of the publication – the latter being more and more essential in the self-concept of the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century.52

50 Wilhelmine Rührig, Frankfurter Kochbuch. Enthaltend 765 auserlesene Kochrezepte, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Bedürfnis bürgerlicher Küchen. Nebst einer wissenschaftlichen Einleitung über die richtige Ernährung des Menschen und Zubereitung der Speisen nach Grundsätzen von J. Liebig und Jac. Moleschott. Bevorwortet von Heinrich Walter (Frankfurt am Main: Küchler, 1856). 51 Wilhelmine Rührig, Kochbuch fürʼs Deutsche Haus, enthaltend 1093 auserlesene Kochrecepte für vornehme und bürgerliche Küchen. Nebst einer wissenschaftlichen Einleitung über die Ernährung des Menschen und die Zubereitung der Speisen nach den Grundsätzen von J. Liebig u. Jac. Moleschott, und Bemerkungen über Fleisch- u. Malzextrakt von Heinr. Walter (Frankfurt am Main: Jägerʼsche Buch- und Landkarten-Handlung, 1887). 52 Cf. Jürgen Voss, “Akademien, gelehrte Gesellschaften und wissenschaftliche Vereine in Deutschland, 1750-1850ˮ, in Sociabilité et société bourgeoise en France, en Allemagne et

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In the same year in which Wilhelmine Rührig published her Frankfurter Kochbuch, Mathilde Reichardt-Stromberg published an almost two-hundred page book in which she interpreted Moleschott’s work, above all his Kreislauf des Lebens, as the basis for a new morality, a rational and not a religious one, deriving from the results of research in the natural sciences and not from revelation.53 The book was written in epistolary form, thus reproducing the style of the work it praised and commented upon (the chapters of Moleschott’s Kreislauf were called “Briefe”, “letters”, and the subtitle was “Physiologische Antworten auf Liebig’s chemische Briefe”) and, more generally, of many popularizing books in the nineteenth century, such as Carl Vogt’s Physiologische Briefe für Gebildete aller Stände (1846). In a way, this was a popularization of Moleschott’s Kreislauf: it was written by a woman and addressed mainly women, conveying the message that scientific popularization not only regarded the natural sciences and technology, but also ethics and aesthetics, that it not only addressed gentlemen, but also ladies.

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From the above-mentioned German works, it is evident that Jacob Moleschott conceived nature as an organism in which all elements are interconnected, forming a system in which every part plays a particular function within a whole, and where the proper functioning and interacting of all parts with each other constitute the equilibrium of the system. The same organicist model was also the basis of Moleschott’s idea of a collaboration between disciplines: as we will see, as a member of the Italian Senate and university, Moleschott did not plead for a substitution of the humanities with the natural sciences, but rather for a combination of methods and approaches from the natural sciences and the humanities. The “unity of life”, a core concept in Moleschott’s conception of nature, is strictly connected with the “unity of science”.54 These imageries were surely influenced by the terminology of the revolution and its idea of national unity, as was usual in the discourse on the “unity of science” in nineteenth-century Germany.55 en Suisse, 1750-1850, ed. Etienne François (Paris: éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1986), 149-167. 53 Mathilde Reichardt-Stromberg, Wissenschaft und Sittenlehre: Briefe an Jacob Moleschott (Gotha: Scheube, 1856). 54 On the represenation of organic nature in poetry and the sciences in the late eighteent and early twentieth century, cf. Michael Bies, Im Grunde ein Bild. Die Darstellung der Naturforschung bei Kant, Goethe und Alexander von Humboldt (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2012). 55 On the construction of a “unity of science” in relation with the pursuit of political unity, cf. Peter Galison, “Meanings of Scientific Unity: The Law, the Orchestra, the Pyramid, Quilt,

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From the opening lecture Moleschott gave at the University of Turin at the beginning of his course in experimental physiology (Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, delivered in 1861 and published in 1862), it is clear that, for him, refusing teleology did not mean accepting a mechanistic paradigm. To the contrary, his opposition to teleology derives exactly from his fundamentally organicist position: “Accepting the teleological method in order to investigate the meaning of each organ, the accent has been put, unfortunately, on the analogy between an organ and an instrument. But the use of instruments made by human hands is, most of the times, simple, and directly leads to its aim; at the same time, the parts of an instrument are more or less independent the ones from the others. On the contrary, all the organs of an organism influence all the other organs, and every organ has been given a multiple function, in the same way as often several organs cooperate in the perfect accomplishment of one single function.”56

This statement sheds new light on the relation between organicism and teleology: while rejecting teleology, Moleschott maintained an organicist view of nature. For him, human beings are also part of nature, where they have a precise function in the chain of beings: for instance, the organic elements composing their bodies, which have been taken from the earth through the plants and animals, should return to the earth and fertilize it. However, such an organic view of the universe was not limited to nature (inclusive of humans), but, as we will see in the next chapters about Moleschott’s Italian career, it was extended to the organization of scientific research as collective, collaborative enterprise between scientists and scholars with diverse backgrounds working in different scientific or academic fields. For him, the governance of public life did not only depend on State-power but, above all, on the leading role of “scientists” such as criminal anthropologists, sociologists and physiologists, all joining their efforts for and Ring”, in Pursuing the Unity of Science: Ideology and Scientific Practice from the Great War to the Cold War, ed. Harmke Kamminga and Geert Somsen (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2016), 12-29. 56 Jacob Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita. Prima prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino letta dal Professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 16 dicembre 1861 (Torino: Loescher, 1862), 17-18: “Accettandosi il metodo teleologico per investigare il significato degli organi, si è insistito pur troppo sullʼanalogia che interviene fra un organo ed uno stromento. Or lʼuso degli stromenti fabbricati dalla mano dellʼuomo il più delle volte è semplice ed in via diretta conduce al suo scopo, mentre le parti dʼuno stromento sono più o meno indipendenti le une dalle altre. Allʼincontro nellʼorganismo tutti gli organi influiscono su tutti, e ad ogni organo è conferita una funzione molteplice, come spesso più organi cooperano al perfetto svolgimento di una sola funzione.”

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“rationally” and “scientifically” directed legislation and politics. At the same time, through their popularizing activities and their advising role for the government, these scientists legitimized and consolidated the Italian State-power and its regulations (e.g. hygienic norms).57 On an even broader level, Moleschott applied this concept to the scientific cooperation between nation-states, depicting it through the metaphor of the tree: “You know that peoples are like trees. Both of them do not carry fruits in the same time. What applies to the general development of humanity, is not less important for the development of the single branches of science, so that nations, sometimes as teachers, sometimes as disciples, alternate their work, and after some time the disciples have to appropriate the honor of research and discoveries.”58

The parallelism between peoples and trees is a variation of the one between trees and knowledge; as we will see further on, in one of his Senate speeches about higher education given in Italy in the 1880s, Moleschott argued that disciplines cannot be pigeonholed (literally, “closed in a box”), since the branches of knowledge are connected and interwoven with each other, and all disciplines, all branches, have a common trunk: “Knowledge becomes fertile through all disciplines, it develops branches through them, it is interwoven with all of them; every discipline needs the other disciplines in order to refer to them, to develop, to be applied to and through them; in conclusion all disciplines, all branches of the knowable have a common trunk.”59 The image of the tree here stands for the unity in the complexity which characterizes the “unity of science”. In the abovementioned analogy between peoples and 57 The reports on the hygienic conditions of the lower classes in the Italian peninsula are an example of the interrelation between science and nation-state. Cf. for instance Mario Panizza (ed.), Risultati dellʼinchiesta istituita da Agostino Bertani sulle condizioni sanitarie dei lavoratori della terra in Italia. Riassunto e considerazioni (Roma: Stabilimento Tip. Italiano, 1890). 58 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 1-2: “Sapete che i popoli possono paragonarsi agli alberi. E gli uni e gli altri non portano frutti nel medesimo tempo. Ciò che vale per lo svolgimento generale dell'umanità, non vale meno per quello dei singoli rami della scienza, sicché le diverse nazioni, ora maestre, ora allieve, alternano lʼopera loro, e dopo qualche tempo tocca alle allieve ad impadronirsi dell'onore delle indagini e delle scoperte.” 59 Jacob Moleschott, Sulla scelta dei professori. Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato in Senato nella tornata del 21 giugno 1884 (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1884), 6: “Il sapere si feconda, si dirama, sʼintreccia da una disciplina allʼaltra; lʼuna disciplina nellʼaltra si appoggia, si svolge, si applica; insomma le discipline tutte, i rami dello scibile hanno un tronco comune.”

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trees, there is, again, a transfer of meaning between organic growth and scientific development. This constitutes an exemplary case of metaphor-transfer from the biological field (botany) to the political domain (grades of development of different peoples) and then to the level of scientific policy.60 Indeed, Moleschott pled for cooperation in scientific research in order to obtain better results, so that the nation being the most productive in a certain historical period would contribute to the scientific improvement of the other nations as well. This conception of the international scientific community as based on mutual help is coherent with Moleschott’s idea of scientific progress, which he expressed for instance through a quotation (in French) from the famous English positivist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) in his notes on anthropology: “Si nous regardons la science comme une sphère qui s’agrandit sans cesse, nous pouvons dire que son agrandissement ne fait qu’accroitre ses points de contact avec l’inconnu qui l’environne.”61 On the one hand, the image of science as an ever-growing sphere recalls the positivistic ideal of an infinite progression; on the other hand, the remark that the augmentation of the superficies of the sphere necessarily multiplies its points of contact with the unknown that surrounds it also indicates that science is conscious of its limits. Already in the Kreislauf, Moleschott stated that “science can only be conceived as ever-becoming” (“[…] die Wissenschaft nur immer im Werden begriffen ist”),62 thus not as a static set of notions, but as an ever-changing corpus. As the metaphor of the sphere shows, for Moleschott the positivistic idea of progress goes together with the consciousness of the limits of science.63 Moreover, the image of the sphere very closely reproduces the cyclical conception of nature that lies at the basis of Moleschott’s thought: both nature and science are represented as organized systems, where all elements can be put in relation with each other. In the same way as single disciplinary fields do not exclude each other but rather mutually cooperate with each other, all parts of the universe are necessary to their reciprocal subsistence and to the subsistence of the universe itself, and therefore essentially bound to each other. Human beings also belong to the “system of nature”, constituting in this way a kind of hybrid element between the “unity of nature” and the “unity of science”. Especially in his university lectures, Moleschott reflected quite explicitly on the role of knowing subjects in the construction of scientific knowledge, as well as on the subsequent implications for objectivity and the 60 Regarding practices of “Wissenschaftspolitikˮ, cf. for instance Rudolf Stichweh, Zur Entstehung des modernen Systems wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen. Physik in Deutschland, 1740-1890 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984). 61 BCABo, FSM, B I 6 b, Quaderni, 16 Dicembre 1882 (manuscript). 62 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 7. 63 Cf. also Vidoni, Ignorabimus! Emil du Bois-Reymond und die Debatte über die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis im 19. Jahrhundert.

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possibility of impartial scientific research. As the drafts of his lectures show, these reflections are a curious intertwinement of epistemological theory and meta-reflection on science on the one hand, and autobiographical remembrance in an academic scientific setting on the other hand: in fact, Moleschott mentioned his personal experiences as examples of subjective influence of the object of study in the practice of scientific experiment and research.64 Emotions and contingent subjective situations were thus taken into account in the theoretical considerations he proposed to his students in experimental physiology. From the physiological point of view, Moleschott considered human beings as one element of the circle of life, the “Kreislauf des Lebens”, since, just like all organisms, they undergo processes of oxidization, contributing to the “eternal cycle” of life and death, birth and destruction, composition and decomposition of organic matter: “Derselbe Kohlenstoff und Stickstoff, welche die Pflanzen der Kohlensäure, der Dammsäure und dem Ammoniak entnehmen, sind nach einander Gras, Klee und Weizen, Thier und Mensch, um zuletzt wieder zu zerfallen in Kohlensäure und Wasser, in Dammsäure und Ammoniak. Hierin liegt das natürliche Wunder des Kreislaufs, mir scheint es platt, um nicht zu sagen fade, wenn man es wunderbar findet, daß der Kohlenstoff unsres Herzens, der Stickstoff unsres Hirns früher vielleicht einem Aegypter oder Neger angehörte.”65

As we can see from this passage, the step from a physiological description to religious terminology is made very quickly: in a few lines, the changing form of matter and its infinite transformations, “ultimate ground of terrestrial life”, become “transmigration of souls”, metempsychosis. Spiritual aspects are banned from materialism just to be reintroduced as the “most stringent consequence of the circle of life”. This is why translating the word “Kreislauf” as “metabolism” would be excessively reductive; in fact, this term subsumes Moleschott’s conception of nature, of the universe, of human nature, of society and of the divine: “Diese Seelenwanderung wäre die engste Folgerung aus dem Kreislauf des Stoffs. Das Wunder liegt in der Ewigkeit des Stoffs durch den Wechsel der Form, in dem Wechsel des Stoffs von Form zu Form, in dem Stoffwechsel als Urgrund des irdischen Lebens. Alle Mühe des Menschen bewegt sich auf Bahnen, die in jenen Kreislauf einmünden wie Strahlen. Das Ringen ist näher und ferner des Mittelpunkts, je nach den Graden des Bewußtseins […].”66 64 Cf. for instance Jacob Moleschott, Jacob Moleschott, “Vorbereitung 1883 Ende November” (manuscript): BCABo, FSM, A II 3 a. 65 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 83. 66 Ibidem.

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Moleschott interpreted the ever-becoming process of transformation that nature (including, as specified, human beings) undergoes as necessary sacrifice of the individual for the species, and is defined as “the sublime creation, that we witness every day”. Death itself is identified with the “immortality of the Kreislauf”, allowing for a pantheistic view that is typical for Moleschott’s materialism: “Denn das ist die erhabene Schöpfung, von der wir täglich Zeugen sind, die nichts veralten und nichts vermodern läßt, […] daß jedes Einzelwesen nur der Gattung zum Opfer fällt, daß der Tod selbst nichts ist als die Unsterblichkeit des Kreislaufs.”67 In fact, the quotations collected in Moleschott’s unpublished and unfinished Anthropologie confirm the conception of matter as continuously undergoing processes of transformation, of separation and aggregation; in this context, life and death are just two aspects of these processes, the one necessary to the other. The following quotes from the work of the French physiologist and philosopher of nature Pierre Jean George Cabanis68 confirm this view: “Les anciens disaient que si la vie est le même de la mort, la mort, à son tour, enfante et éternise la vie; c’est à dire, en en écartant les métaphores, que la matière est sans cesse en mouvement, qu’elle subit des changements continuels. Il n’y a point de mort pour la nature: sa jeunesse est éternelle, comme son activité et sa fécondité. La mort est une idée relative aux être périssable, à ces formes fugitives sur lesquelles luit successivement le rayon de la vie, et ces sont ces transmutations non interrompues, qui constitue [sic] l’ordre et les marches de l’univers.”69

The concept of order, which appears at the end of the quote, is a central point both in Moleschott’s organization of scientific knowledge and in his conception of nature; quoting Cabanis again, Moleschott identifies the divine order with the properties of matter, i.e. the laws governing the universe: “Tous les phénomènes de l’univers ont été, sont, et seront toujours la conséquence des propriétés de leur matière ou des lois

67 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 84. 68 Pierre Jean George Cabanis (1757-1808) was a French physiologist who was close both to the ideas of the French Revolution and to materialist theories of the soul. In fact, similarly to Moleschott, he held thought to be a faculty of the brain. In 1795, he became Professor of Hygiene at the medical school of Paris; in 1799, he obtained the Chair of Legal Medicine and History of Medicine. It is significant that Moleschott quoted Cabanis, an important figure in the debates on philosophy of nature during the whole nineteenth century. Cf. Martin S. Staum, Cabanis: Enlightenment and medical philosophy in the French revolution (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton U.P., 1980). 69 Jacob Moleschott, “Anthropologie”: BCABo, FSM, B V 3.

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qui régissent tous les êtres: c’est par ces propriétés et par ces lois que la cause première se manifeste à nous […] Van Helmont les appelait-il, dans son style poétique, l’ordre de Dieu.ˮ70 The transformation of chemical compounds and of the elements forming organic matter applies to the whole “circle of life”, including, of course, the brain. It is on the brain of human beings that Moleschott concentrates in his notes (he dedicated a notebook where he collected data from scientific studies, entitled “L’organo del pensare”,71 to the activity of the brain,), which he, as a physiologist, considered to be the basis for intellectual activity and the precondition of consciousness. As far as the definition of consciousness is concerned, we can notice that, here too, the cyclical and relational quality of nature characterizes and determines the intellectual activities of human beings and their state of consciousness. In the same way as matter never perishes but only transforms, so “nothing gets lost” among the numerous impressions influencing human life: “[…] all excitements, emotions, hopes and fears, pleasures and displeasures, thoughts and ambitions merge together and, just as the last wave of a wave-like movement is influenced by the first one, or just as in the ether the most different wave-sets can join together and exist simultaneously, so the personality of each individual person depends on the experiences of her life,” which “can be weakened but cannot disappear”.72 It is these “multiple and inerasable effects” which build up the “individuality”, “personality” and “style” of human beings: human consciousness, memory, and mental faculties are the “result” of their environment and of external stimuli, in the same way as flora and fauna depend on their milieu. A similar thought is expressed in the drafts for another lecture: here, it is even stated (through a remarkable use of mathematical terms and theories) that “our consciousness becomes itself a function – in the

70 Ibidem. Emphasis in the original. 71 See also Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni”: BCABo, FSM, B I 6 C (“Hersenen”). 72 Jacob Moleschott, “Vorbereitung 1883 Ende November”: BCABo, FSM, A II 3 a, Fisica dell’organismo, § 33 (manuscript): “Dal fatto che nulla si perde nella fiumana delle influenze che invadono la vita, che ogni impressione lascia una traccia che può indebolirsi ma non si cancella mai, che tutti gli eccitam[ent]i, tutte le sensaz[ion]i, speranze e timori, piaceri e dolori, pensieri ed aspiraz[ion]i si fondono insieme e come in un movimento ondulatorio per l’etere l’ultima onda si risente della prima, o come nell’aria i più diversi sistemi di onde possono incontrarsi ed esistere simultaneamente – dal fatto di questi effetti multipli ed incancellabili risulta l’individualità dell’uomo, la sua persona, il suo stile.” Moleschott’s own emphasis. A shorter sketch of the same lecture is reported also in BCABo, FSM, B I 8.

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mathematical meaning of the word – of all the variations [better: “variables”, to carry on the mathematical analogy] to which the organism is subject.”73 Indeed, Moleschott explains that this is the “reason why one can have merely a superficial opinion about someone, if taking into account just one isolated part of his life”. The interesting point is that these theoretical remarks were expressed as part of the introduction to a course in experimental physiology, and that, in the following paragraphs, they are immediately applied to the work of scientists, politicians and philosophers: “Biologists, as well as statesmen and philosophers, aim at a pragmatic history of man, at the study of the evolution of the phenomena of the ontogenic and phylogenic development of life. Investigating the organism, they never forget that every new excitement is added to the effects of uncountable excitements, so that it is not wrong to say that every event, somehow, happens to a new person.”74

While focusing on the importance of the relation between man and environment, Moleschott quotes Jacob Henle’s studies on nervous terminations (as we have seen, Henle had been Moleschott’s supervisor at Heidelberg), whose function is to connect nerve cells with each other; he even states that if one could perfectly know “all relations between man and universe, he would have achieved knowledge of the absolute”.75

73 Jacob Moleschott, “Vorbereitung 1883 Ende November”: BCABo, FSM, A II 3 a, Fisica dell’organismo, § 22 (manuscript): “Ora riflettendo a simili differenze nella sensazione, nel moto, nell’apprezzamento del nostro giudizio, si comprende come la stessa nostra coscienza diventi nel senso matematico una funzione di tutte le variazioni cui l’organismo va di continuo soggetto.” Moleschott’s own emphasis. 74 Jacob Moleschott, “Vorbereitung 1883 Ende November”: BCABo, FSM, A II 3 a, Fisica dell’organismo, § 34 (manuscript): “Ecco perché si giudica così superficialm[ent]e di un uomo, se si prende in disamina un brano isolato della sua vita. Tanto il biologo, quanto lo statista ed il filosofo aspirano oggi ad una storia prammatica dell’uomo, allo studio dell’evoluzione dei fenomeni dello sviluppo ontogenico e filogenico della vita. Ed indagando l’organismo non mai dimenticano che ogni nuovo eccitam[ent]o si sovrappone agli effetti d’innumerevoli altri, al punto che non si dica male asseverando che ogni nuovo avvenimento in certa guisa incontra un nuovo individuo.” 75 Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni”: BCABo, FSM, B I 6 a, [31] (manuscript): “[...] Imperocché chi conoscesse perfettamente tutti i rapporti dell’uomo coll’universo, conoscerebbe quello che per l’uomo costituisce l’assoluto.” It should be noted that, according to Moleschott’s introduction to his Anthropologie, expressing proportions between the diverse elements

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The concepts that are expressed in the abovementioned notes and lectures in Italian, however, are already present in his Kreislauf des Lebens: there, Moleschott already tried to develop a unifying system of science, society and the arts, as can be clearly inferred from his admiration for Aristotle. In fact, he mentions Aristotle as a perfect example, finding no equivalent in the history of philosophy and in the history of science, of the all-encompassing natural scientist and systematic philosopher, who was able to investigate “animals, works of art and human beings” starting from his own experience and giving nature, the arts and the State (politics) respectively a system, laws and practical wisdom: “Denn Philosophieren heißt Denken und Wissen heißt Thatsachen kennen auf den Gebieten der Natur, der Kunst und des Staats. Es ist nur einmal da gewesen, das Beispiel des Aristoteles, der dem Naturforscher ein System, der Kunst Gesetze, dem Staate Weisheit gab. Aristoteles vermochte es, weil er zugleich Thiere, Kunstwerke und Menschen aus eigener Anschauung kannte und seine Anschauung zu Gedanken verarbeitet hat.”76

Thus, continuous exchange between political and scientific thought, between the ideal structure of science and the ideal structure of the state, is not only typical for Moleschott’s Italian period, where his political activity is most important, but was already present during his German years. In the foreword to the Kreislauf des Lebens, addressing Justus Liebig, Moleschott explains that they have examined the same phenomena in their research and popularizing books (meaning Liebig’s Chemische Briefe, which Moleschott criticizes in his book, reprinting long passages and correcting them). However, they have done this from two different perspectives: Liebig as a chemist, Moleschott as a physiologist. And yet, even in this case, where he was overtly seeking polemic confrontation rather than collaboration, Moleschott explains that, in his view, science cannot be separated as happens with different classes within certain political constellations (implicitly referring to communism): “Sie sind kein Physiologe und ich kein Chemiker. Aber ich habe denselben Stoff, den Sie so anregend zu ordnen wußten, mit gleicher Liebe aufgefaßt und mit der Kraft des Gedankens gehegt. Mein Verhältnis zum Stoff ist ein anderes, und daraus erwuchsen andere Ansichten. Auf eine vorurtheilsfreie Prüfung muß auch meine Darstellung ein Anrecht haben, weil die

composing the universe is also the aim of numbers (Moleschott, Einleitung to the Anthropologie, 2-3, in BCABo, FSM, “Anthropologie I”, B V 3; now also ed. in D’Alfonso, “L’antropologia chimica di Jakob Moleschott”, 610). 76 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 21-22.

132 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY Wissenschaft als solche stets frei sein wird von den Staatsformen, welche gewissen Menschenklassen den freien, unbefangenen Verkehr mit anderen versagen.”77

In this quote, Moleschott makes clear that, according to him, a debate and confrontation among disciplines and points of view should always be possible. However, he also held that the main feature and task of science, including medicine, is establishing laws and giving structure to natural phenomena: precisely the ability to discover the general laws governing physiological processes is seen as the great conquest of modern medicine, which makes it at the same time worthy of the name of science. For Moleschott, the decadence of medicine after Aristotle consists exactly of not having discovered any law, limiting itself to the production of “signs and remedies”: “So entstanden Alchemie und Astrologie und eine Arzneikunst, die in Jahrtausende wohl allerlei Zeichen und Heilmittel, aber kaum ein einziges Gesetz zu Tage gefördert hat.”78 Nevertheless, it is unclear whether Moleschott held natural laws as being given by human intellect or being discovered as immanent to nature: on the one hand, he speaks of natural laws as if they were already present in nature; on the other hand, he admits the existence of the object only in relation to the subject (especially when explicitly reflecting on the process of knowledge as such): “Alles Sein ist ein Sein durch Eigenschaften. Aber es giebt keine Eigenschaft, die nicht bloß durch ein Verhältniß besteht”, he wrote in his Kreislauf des Lebens.79 Moleschott maintains that every form of knowledge and, what is more, every form of being, exists only in its relation to the knowing subject. However, he mainly avoids these terms in order to use more simple words (for example, he speaks of the relation between a “tree” and a human “eye”, or an “observer”), which do not imply the knowledge of philosophical concepts.80 Interestingly, Moleschott himself explicitly declared that he did not deny (or ignore) the spiritual (in the sense of Geist) part of human life (as Liebig had accused him of doing). Although that might be surprising for a materialist, in the preface to the third edition of his Kreislauf des Lebens, Moleschott addressed Liebig, admitting without any problem that he denied vital force (Lebenskraft), but not spirit (Geist):

77 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 5. Interestingly, here Moleschott speaks about classes, a word that is practically absent in his later works. 78 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 23. 79 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 27; cf. also his handwritten notes in BCABo, FSM, A II 3 and B I 6. 80 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 27.

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“Sie haben mich ferner einen Läugner der Lebenskraft genannt, und darin hatten Sie Recht. Die Leser dieses Buches finden im siebenzehnten Brief die Gründe wiederholt, warum ich in diesem Namen keinen Tadel erblicke. Allein Sie gaben mir auch die Bezeichnung eines Läugners des Geistes, und darin hatten Sie Unrecht. Denn die geistige Thätigkeit des Menschen wird nicht nur nicht verneint, sie wird auch nicht herabgesetzt von denen, die den Geist, als Inbegriff des immer werdenden Gedankenlebens, für eine Verrichtung des mit allen anderen Körpertheilen in Wechselwirkung stehenden Gehirns erklären.”81

Thus, Moleschott defined Geist as a function of the brain, but immediately after he also stated that this did not amount either to rejecting the concept of spirit, nor to reducing it to the level of a minor activity. In the Kreislauf, the spirit is identified with the activity of the mind: the mind is not conceived as an abstract entity, but as a set of physiological activities in continuous exchange with their internal and external environment, i.e. with the rest of human organs and with the natural – and even cultural – environments surrounding human life. This is a very broad concept of mind, related to the positivist concept of milieu, where materialism emerges as not denying nor ignoring the concept of Geist (as opposed to matter), not identifying the mind with phosphorus or any other element in itself, but with the electro-physiological activity of the brain. Also in the sketches of the Anthropologie, the word Geist means primarily intellectual activity (in certain cases, more generally, culture).

D IETETICS Moleschott is best known for his contributions in the theory of nutrition, thus as one of the founding fathers of nutritional science (together with Justus Liebig).82 As we have already anticipated, at the beginning of the Kreislauf des Lebens, Moleschott himself declared that he had written the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel as a popularizing form of the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, and that in the same way, the Kreislauf would constitute the popularizing version of his Physiologie des Stoffwechsels: “Nachstehende Blätter übergeben dem deutschen Volke einen Versuch, der sich zu meiner Physiologie des Stoffwechsels für Naturforscher, Landwirthe und Aerzte 81 Jacob Moleschott, Vorwort to Kreislauf des Lebens. Physiologische Antworten auf Liebig’s Chemische Briefe. Dritte, vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage (Mainz: von Zabern, 1857), VI. All other quotes refer to the first edition of this book, unless otherwise indicated. 82 Cf. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany; Harmke Kamminga and Andrew Cunningham, The Science and Culture of Nutrition, 1840-1940 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995); Harmke Kamminga, “Nutrition for the People, or the Fate of Jacob Moleschott's Contest for a Humanist Science”. Clio medica, 32 (1995): 15-47.

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nicht unähnlich verhält, wie die Lehre der Nahrungsmittel für das Volk zur Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, welche den Fachmännern einen Leitfaden zu einer vernünftigen Diätetik in die Hand zu geben strebteˮ. Moleschott’s “rational” (“vernünftig”), i.e. scientific, dietetics should not be considered as the purely empirical part of his work, as the work of a scientist as opposed to the work of a popularizing writer (the author of the Kreislauf des Lebens). In fact, Moleschott thought that nutrition was highly important in determining states of health or disease and in healing disease. This is shown e.g. in his publication Consigli e conforti nei tempi di colera diretti alle singole persone ed in specie ai padri di famiglia (1866), in which he was giving advice to prevent and heal cholera (the book was mainly directed to fathers and was soon translated into German, later into Czech as well).83 As we have already mentioned, in his Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel Moleschott edited tables with nutritional values of the most common foods and beverages. In his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, he argued that both intellectual and political progress directly depend on the quality and quantity of the food people eat. Indeed, according to him, elements and substances such as phosphorus and proteins are the primary agents for the proper functioning of the brain, which, in his Italian Quaderni, he would call the “organ of thought”.84 Moleschott never set a direct equivalence between phosphorus and thought (for which Liebig made fun of him, saying that, if phosphorus were the substance of thought, then bones would be the greatest philosophers):85 he just pointed out the indispensability of phosphorus (and other elements) for the existence of any intellectual activity and inferred that more phosphorus would equal an increased quality and intensity of intellectual activity. At the same time, Moleschott knew that too much phosphorus would be dangerous, and therefore relativized his statements about the connection between phosphorus and thought, writing: “Das Gehirn aber kann ohne phosphorhaltiges Fett nicht bestehen, das den Phosphor dem Eiweiß und Faserstoff des Bluts verdankt. Aus anderen Grundstoffen kann kein Phosphor werden. Darum ist es ein nothwendiger Schluß, daß Fleisch, Brod [sic], Erbsen erforderlich sind, um die Ernährung des Gehirns zu erhalten, und daß Speisen, die, wie Fisch und Eier, fertig gebildetes phosphorhaltiges Fett enthalten, die Zufuhr dieses eigenthümlichen Bestandtheils in das Gehirn erleichtern müssen. An das phosphorhaltiges Fett ist die Entstehung, folglich auch die 83 Jacob Moleschott, Rath und Trost für Cholerazeiten (Giessen: Roth, 1866) and Id., Dobrá rada a útěcha v dobách cholery. Od Jak. Moleschotta; do češtiny přeložil A.K. (V Praze: Tiskem a nákladem knihtiskárny dr. Ed. Grégra, 1884). Original: Jacob Moleschott, Consigli e conforti nei tempi di colera diretti alle singole persone ed in specie ai padri di famiglia (Torino: Loescher, 1866). 84 Cf. Jacob Moleschott, “L’organo del pensare”: BCABo, FSM, B V 25. 85 Cf. Moleschott’s Preface (Vorwort) to the Kreislauf des Lebens, III-IV.

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Thätigkeit des Hirns geknüpft. Daher sagt man im Spaß, daß ein kluger Mann viel Phosphor im Gehirn habe. Denn im Ernste wird es kein Naturforscher meinen [!]. Die Mischung eines Werkzeugs leidet unter dem Zuviel so gut, wie unter dem Zuwenig. […] Deshalb läßt sich bei großen Denkern kein Ueberfluß an Phosphor annehme[n]. Und dennoch bleibt es wahr: ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke.”86

Moleschott’s dietary advice was basically the following: if the economic conditions allow it, meat should be eaten every day,87 and other sources of proteins such as eggs, cheese (considered to be a sort of spice) and milk were also highly desirable. Soups with beans, lentils and peas were indicated as sources of proteins more cheaply available, which could thus be the redemption of poor nations and of the working class, if only the agrarian policy of most countries would be clever enough and decide to cultivate beans and peas instead of potatoes.88 Vegetables and fruits are not taken much into consideration; this idea is still present in the booklet on hygienic precautions against cholera, where they are seen as dangerous rather than valuable.89 Whether this was just for hygienic, or also for nutritional reasons, is not mentioned, nor is it clear from the general ideas expressed in the booklet: in fact, it seems that Moleschott did not clearly distinguish between these two aspects. As we have already seen, this view on nutrition was largely shared by Johannes Mulder (in whose laboratory Moleschott had been working during the year right after he finished his studies in Heidelberg), but was not the only possible view on nutrition in nineteenth-century Europe. In fact, possibly the terms “scientific” and “rational” were consciously opposed to that of “natural” (naturgemäß), which exactly in that

86 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 119-120. 87 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 201: “Wo es möglich ist, sollte Fleisch bei keiner Mahlzeit fehlen und wenn der schwerer verdauliche und minder nahrhafte Fisch gegessen wird, dann sollte eine leicht verdauliche und kräftige Fleischbrühe oder doch irgend eine nahrhafte Suppe von Erbsen oder Linsen das Mangelnde ersetzen”. 88 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 200, § 92: “Darum ist es eine unglückselige Sitte, oder eine noch unglückseligere Nothwendigkeit, wenn in so vielen armen Haushaltungen ausschließlich Kartoffeln zu Mittag gegessen werden. Wenn es geradezu unmöglich ist, Fleisch zum Gemüse zu genießen, so sollte die Mahlzeit, so oft es nur irgend angeht, aus Hülsenfrüchten, am liebsten aus Suppen von Erbsen, Bohnen oder Linsen bestehen. Daraus folgt wiederum, daß es die Noth der Armen wesentlich lindern könnte, wenn man viele Morgen Lands, in denen jetzt Kartoffeln wuchern oder auch ganze Erndten dieser Wurzelknollen durch eine verheerende Krankheit zu Grunde gehen, zu dem Anbau von Hülsengewächsen benützte.” 89 Moleschott, Consigli e conforti nei tempi di colera, 13-16.

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period had begun to be used and popularized in Germany.90 “Natural” dietetics roughly corresponded to a vegetarian diet and way of life and, although we do not have any evidence that Moleschott or Liebig knew about this worldview, it is nevertheless noteworthy that what they called vernünftige Diätetik goes in the opposite direction with respect to the naturgemäße Diätetik. Not only were meat and animal proteins highly recommended by Moleschott, but vegetables and fruits were in certain cases not recommended; in other cases, they were accepted only if cooked, while coffee, wine, tea, and chocolate were, in moderate amounts, considered to foster intellectual activity and concentration and, therefore, recommended to the “thinking” part of the upperclass.91 Even alcohol consumption was justified in certain cases: for the working class and poor people who could not afford to buy sufficient food, Moleschott argued that alcohol had the positive function of lessening hunger.92 Thus, what Moleschott argued was just the complete opposite of what vegetarian associations, popularizing articles, and booklets recommended, that is: no meat, in some cases no animal products at all, but rather cereals, vegetables and fruits, raw whenever possible. With this kind of diet, it would have been practically impossible to attain the amount of proteins recommended by Moleschott; since animal proteins were considered more valuable, Moleschott and Liebig also recommended meat extract and meat soups.93 The first book popularizing a vegetarian nutrition and lifestyle was Gustav von Struve’s (1805-1870) Mandaras’ Wanderungen, which had already been published in 1833;94 there were, thus, other views, which were in many respects juxtaposed to those of Jacob Moleschott, Justus Liebig, Franciscus Donders, and the physiologist and nutritionist Carl von Voit (1831-1908), that became relatively popular among certain cultural milieus, especially within the middle and upperclasses (including a discrete number of physicians), and that, like materialism, did not just propose a type of diet, but a whole worldview which they tried to concretely apply to society. Representatives of vegetarianism such as Gustav von Struve and Eduard

90 Cf. Judith Baumgartner, “Vegetarismus im Kaiserreich: 1871-1914. Gesellschaftsveränderung durch Lebensreform?” (M.A. Thesis, Institut für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München, 1989). 91 Cf. Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 243-244. 92 Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 67. 93 Cf. Baumgartner, “Vegetarismus im Kaiserreich”, 44. In his Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel, Moleschott recommanded 110-150 g of proteins per day, an amount which would nowadays be considered far too high, considering that the recommended daily allowance is between 0.6 and 0.8 g per 1 kg weight for adults Moleschott: cf. Claus Leitzmann, Alternative Ernährungsformen (Stuttgart: Hippokrates, 2005), 203-204. 94 Cf. Baumgartner, “Vegetarismus im Kaiserreich”, 23.

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Baltzer (1814-1887) also took part in the 1848 revolution, but did not eventually become politicians like Moleschott: instead, they founded communities of people who lived according to their “natural” worldview and dietetics.95 An interesting anecdote concerning the attitude towards food of Moleschott’s Dutch friend Izaac van Deen is reported in a letter he sent to Moleschott. There, he reported that he had stopped at Giessen on his way back from Heidelberg to Holland and was invited to a scholars’ dinner on the occasion of the birthday of the GrandDuke of Hessen-Darmstadt; he wrote that it was an interesting evening, albeit it was not the best thing for him to meet new people while they were eating – especially in the case of scholars, whom one usually imagines in a “spiritual” attitude, and not being occupied “in such a prosaic material activity”.96 From this example, it is evident that even a physiologist such as van Deen was sticking to traditional categories of materiality and spirituality, as well as to a traditional image of the intellectual, and presupposed that Moleschott, with whom he was communicating, shared these views.

C ONCLUSION The co-existence, in nineteenth-century Europe, of both a so-called natural, vegetarian dietetics and a so-called rational dietetics sheds another light not only on Moleschott’s nutritional theory, but also on his ideas on society and his conception of equality. In fact, as we have noticed, Moleschott did not justify the necessity of an improvement in the nutrition of the working class as contributing to the wellbeing and health of the people; instead, he pointed to the increased production which would derive from their work. Moleschott’s ideas about the circulation of matter as a sort of transmigration of souls hint at a very democratic conception of society, against any discrimination among human beings. If the principle that matter is everywhere and ever-becoming were to be applied coherently, then every form of living being and nature in its entirety would deserve this kind of respect. In fact, vegetarianism as a religious Indus tradition, for instance, is related to the belief in a transmigration of the soul. Nevertheless, Moleschott considered it to be more than suitable to eat other animals (in a period in which there were alternatives in theory and in practice, such as vegetarian movements).

95 Cf. Baumgartner, “Vegetarismus im Kaiserreich”, 23-26. 96 Quoted in van Herwerden, “Eene vriendschap”, 470: “Dit was nogal aardig, ofschoon het minder interessant is met etende menschen – vooral als het geleerden zijn – voor het eerst kennis te maken. Men denkt zich zulke menschen altijd op een spiritueel standpunt en niet in eene zoo prozaische materieele werkzaamheid.”

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On the level of political practice, the principle of fighting discrimination and supporting democracy was not always put into practice. In fact, Moleschott demonstrated himself to be quite open to supporting colonial military action, both with his scientific research and work (for instance, with his publication on nutrition for troops “ready for war”),97 and through the character of his public speeches. Although not overtly supporting it, he also approved of the Italian colonial enterprise in Africa, as is clear from his commemoration of the Senator Francesco Magni, pronounced at the Senate in 1887. Here, Moleschott implicitly mentions the battle of Dogali, which took place in Eritrea on January 26, 1887, ending with the defeat of a column of Italian soldiers who had been attacked by Eritrean troops.98 In his speech, Moleschott suspects that the death of Francesco Magni had been accelerated by the “very sad news coming from Africa”; since Magni died on February 2, 1887, it is highly probable that by “very sad news” he meant the defeat at Dogali.99 The whole speech has a very patriotic connotation, showing support and admiration vis-à-vis the colonial enterprise, rather than contempt or neutrality. But what was the origin of the idea of the circle of life and of the chain of beings? Where did Moleschott get this idea from? This was one of the central ideas of ancient natural philosophy, going hand-in-hand with the conception that the structure of the universe is displayed in both a macrocosm and a microcosm, in natural phenomena and in human beings. Interestingly, these principles are typical for Platonism and Neo-Platonism (which was indeed responsible for their revival in the Renaissance),100 rather than for Aristotelian philosophy of nature; this constitutes a remarkable point, because Moleschott had a great opinion of Aristotle, but did not hesitate to discredit

97

Jacob Moleschott, Sulla razione giornaliera di viveri ordinata per le truppe italiane sul piede di guerra: considerazioni (Torino: G. Favale, 1866).

98

Jacob Moleschott, Discorsi del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziati in Senato nelle tornate del 29 novembre, 14, 15, 16 e 17 dicembre 1886, 20 e 21 gennaio e 5 febbraio 1887. Modificazioni della legge sullʼistruzione superiore e Commemorazione del Senatore Francesco Magni (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1887), 65-66.

99

Francesco Magni (1828-1887) was Professor of Ophthalmology from 1863, Rector of the University of Bologna (1877-1885) and Senator of the Kingdom from 1876. Cf. Stefano Arieti, “Magni, Francesco”, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani Treccani, vol. 67 (2007), online version (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-magni_%28Dizion ario-Biografico%29/, last consulted March 5, 2013).

100 Cf. Martin Kintzinger, Norma elementorum. Studien zum naturphilosophischen und politischen Ordnungsdenken des ausgehenden Mittelalters (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994), 22-23 (regarding ancient times) and 94 (regarding Renaissance, with particular reference to Giordano Bruno). Cf. also the classical study by Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936).

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Platonism.101 It is possible that Moleschott was in contact with ideas similar to neoplatonic ones in the cultural circles to which he belonged: for instance, during his time in Rome, he was a member of the circle of “Via Belsiana” (Belsiana Street), as is testified by the poet and novelist Gabriele D’Annunzio in his novel Il trionfo della morte, where we can find an account of the meetings of this society in an ancient deconsecrated church in Rome.102 However, we have no evidence that similar ideas also circulated in Moleschott’s intellectual milieu in Heidelberg in the 1850s. In the next chapters, we will focus on Moleschott’s time in Switzerland and in Italy, exploring his interpersonal relations, the entanglement of science and politics, and the networks of scientists, politicians and intellectuals of which he was part.

101 Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 21-22. 102 Manuela Gardenghi, “Lʼoratorio di via Belsiana: arte e scienza nella Roma musicale e letteraria di fine Ottocento”. Intersezioni, XVII, n. 3 (1997): 419-445, convincingly argues that this was more than a literary fiction.

Zürich: Meeting Point of European Liberal Elites

The time Moleschott spent in Switzerland was relatively short, compared to the thirty-two years he would spend in Italy: in fact, Moleschott lived in Zürich for five years, from the spring of 1856 to the summer of 1861. However, as we will see in this chapter, that period was particularly significant for the future development of his career: in particular, Moleschott’s social networks became broader and more international in Zürich, the place where revolutionaries and democrats from all over Europe met while being exiled and continued working on their political projects. In his autobiography, Moleschott defined Switzerland as the land of political “freedom” and of “the beauty of nature”.1 First, let us see the framework in which Jacob Moleschott was appointed Professor of Physiology at the University of Zürich; we will deal with the details of his appointment later on in this chapter. After Karl Ludwig (1816-1895) had left to pursue an appointment as Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Vienna, the University of Zürich had tried to acquire Albert von Kölliker (1817-1905) and Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902) for the Chair of Physiology; since neither Virchow or Kölliker accepted the appointment, the University opted for either Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896) or Jacob Moleschott. Both Kölliker and Virchow supported Moleschott as a candidate; Virchow wrote: “Es ist sicher, daß man in Moleschott hauptsächlich einen Vorposten der freien Richtung bekämpft. In dieser Beziehung habe ich die größte Sympathie für ihn, obwohl ich die Ausdehnung seiner Schlüsse nicht anerkenne und gewisse transzendentale Ausschweifungen seiner Theorie geradezu bekämpfe.”2

1

Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 287, as well as 278: “Wer von Deutschland nach der Schweiz übersiedelt, vollends wer dahin berufen wird, dem leuchten zwei Sterne, deren Glanz nie verblaßt: die gemessene Freiheit und die unermeßliche Schönheit der Natur.”

2

Ernst Gagliardi, Hans Nabholz, and Jean Strohl, Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer. Festschrift zur Jahrhundertfeier, vol. III of Die Zürcherischen Schulen seit

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The choice fell on Moleschott, who was considered to be less a specialist than Du Bois-Reymond: in fact, Moleschott’s research focus was very broad and, if we add his popularizing publications to that, it is hard to think of a physiologist who had a broader research focus than he at that time.3 However, Moleschott’s appointment at the University of Zürich did not happen entirely smoothly: part of the academic Senate, including the Rector and the Faculty of Medicine, were against it.4 As a result, in 1856, the director of the Erziehungsrath, Jacob Dubs (1822-1879), a doctor in jurisprudence and radical democrat, imposed his decision and appointed Moleschott, in a similar way to what Francesco De Sanctis would do in 1861, when he appointed Moleschott in Turin. Moleschott was not enjoying any political rights in Switzerland, because he was lacking Swiss citizenship: as he would explain in his autobiography and in the speech he gave at La Sapienza in Rome in 1892, he was missing the opportunity to actively participate in political life.5 Albeit not being directly involved in politics in Zürich, it was there that he met the Italian nationalist, literary scholar, and revolutionary Francesco De Sanctis, who was exiled in Zürich and was Professor of Italian Literature.6 As we will see, De Sanctis held Moleschott in high consideration and was responsible for his appointment at the University of Turin. However, the Swiss did not always appreciate his way of lecturing: one of his colleagues, Friedrich Horner, described him as a “Propheten und Wortvirtuosen”,7 and the medical doctor and surgeon Theodor Billroth (1829-1894) expressed a similar judgement about him.8 Interestingly, the Italian Decadent poet Gabriele D’Annunzio would also describe him as a prophet

der Regeneration der 1830er Jahren, ed. Erziehungsrat des Kantons Zürich (Zürich: Verlag der Erziehungsdirektion, 1938), 548-553 (on Moleschott at the University of Zürich). Quoted also in Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 14. 3

Cf. Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 14, and Gregory, Scientific Materialism in 19th-century Germany, 236, note 91.

4

Gagliardi et al., Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer, 551.

5

Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 308, and “Discorso del Prof. Jacopo Moleschott”, in Feste Giubilari in onore del prof. Jacopo Moleschott in Roma il giorno 16 dicembre 1892 (Roma: Tipografia delle Mantellate, 1894), 7-8.

6

Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 302-304.

7

Gagliardi et al., Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer, 551.

8

Gagliardi et al., Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer, 550: “Moleschott war eine mehr auf Rhetorik und Decoration angelegte und durch diese wirkende Natur; er hat durch die Popularisierung der Wissenschaft sehr segensreich gewirkt. Sein lebhafter Geist ging nicht in die Tiefe.”

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in his article in La Tribuna, but, for him, this definition had a positive connotation.9 In fact, precisely his qualities as orator and popularizer would be much appreciated in Italy: one of his students in Rome, Arnoldo Cantani, praised him for his ability in joining the natural sciences with the arts: “Kunst und Wissenschaft sind zwei Zierden des menschlichen Geistes. Wer beide pflegt, nähert sich der Vollkommenheit. Moleschott ist der Mann der Wissenschaft und Jünger der Künste, ja er ist Künstler auch als Gelehrter.”10 In a similar way, Giuseppe Colasanti, who was Professor of Anatomy in Rome and who took over the editing of the Untersuchungen after Moleschott’s death, described him as a true “University-man” (in English in the original), because he could join the sciences with the humanities.11 In his autobiography, Moleschott described the Swiss as being inclined rather to trading activities than to conceptual reflection.12 Nevertheless, Zürich was the perfect place for exchanging ideas in the fields of both science and politics, as well as for meeting European democrats and liberals: in those five years, Moleschott got together with the most important personalities of European liberal and cultural élites. In the same way as, in Heidelberg, he was regularly attending the meetings at the house of Friedrich Kapp, in Zürich he was constantly meeting with political revolutionaries who had been exiled, such as Francesco De Sanctis, as well as with personalities from the artistic and cultural milieu such as the architect Gottfried Semper (1803-1879). With Semper, Moleschott met in the evenings on a regular basis;13 Moleschott held an oration at Semper’s funeral, when he was buried in Rome in 1879 (apparently, there had been an argument between Moleschott and the pastor).14 Finally, Moleschott maintained that he was the one who provided Semper with the

9

Gabriele D’Annunzio, “Su Iacopo Moleschott”, La Tribuna, n. 301, November 4, 1887 (typed copy in BCABo, FSM, B III 8); reported also in Jacob Moleschott, Per gli amici miei, 291-302.

10 Giuseppe Colasanti, “Jacob Moleschott, der Begründer der ʽUntersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere.ʼˮ Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, 15 (1892): 8. Quoted after Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 16. 11 Giuseppe Colasanti, “Jacob Moleschottˮ, 7. Quoted after Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 16. 12 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 279: “Dazu kommt die aufs Handeln angelegte Natur des Volkes, das mehr aufs Nützliche als aufs Begriffliche gerichtet ist und sich leicht in hochfliegenden Gedanken oder in Schwärmereien verliertˮ. Quoted also in Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 14. 13 Harry Francis Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper: Architect of the Nineteenth Century (Yale: Yale University Press, 1996), 230. 14 Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, 1.

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commission for designing the building of the Polytechnikum in Zürich.15 In Moleschott’s recommendation of Semper for the new building of the Polytechnikum, the director of the Erziehungsrath Jacob Dubs played, once more, an important role. As he narrates it in his autobiography, during the twenty-fifth anniversary of the university, knowing that Semper was one of the candidates but that the government was afraid that his project would cost too much, Moleschott intervened during an official dinner, defining Semper as “the Michelangelo of the nineteenth century”, and recommending him for the project of the new building. This improvised action resulted in Dubs promising to follow Moleschott’s advice, and Semper became the architect for the building of the Polytechnikum (now Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule).16 Apparently, Moleschott felt as if he as a scholar would also belong to the Polytechnikum rather than to the University, since he himself explained that his sympathies went to the scientists working there, rather than to his colleagues at the University.17 In Zürich, Moleschott met the Swiss art historian Jakob Burckhardt (18181897),18 and he became friends with the poet Georg Herwegh (1817-1875), also a revolutionary who took part in the revolution in Baden in 1848, and who studied German and Italian literature together with Moleschott.19 The revolution of 1848 had failed, but its supporters were not defeated: in the subsequent years, they organized themselves, and Zürich was one of the central points where they could meet and plan their next moves (among the political exiles in Switzerland at this time, there were Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini, Gottfried Semper, Theodor Mommsen and Richard Wagner).20 Their strategy was successful: in 1860, Italy was unified and, as we will see, Francesco De Sanctis, who became the first Minister of Public Education of unified Italy, appointed Moleschott to teach physiology in Turin.

15 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 292; cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 15, and van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 67-68. Since Moleschott’s advice, or recommendation, was given in oral form during a public speech, this would explain why it has not been possible to find written sources (like a letter of recommendation) about it so far. 16 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 283-285. 17 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 281. 18 Concerning Moleschott and Burckhardt, cf. van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 65-66 and 338: letter from Burckhard to Moleschott preserved in BCABo, FSM (Rome, s.d.): Burckhardt communicated to Moleschott that he would not be able to attend the celebrations in honor of Giordano Bruno. 19 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 285-286. 20 On Switzerland as a country of exiled revolutionaries such as the abovementioned personalities (some of them having personal contacts with Moleschott, such as the architect Gottfried Semper), cf. Thomas Maissen, Geschichte der Schweiz (Baden: hier+jetzt, 2010), 208-209.

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As far as his profession as a scientist and a member of academia is concerned, he remained in contact with many German scientists, but he also got in touch with many scientists working in Zürich and in other parts of Switzerland, such as Carl Vogt and Édouard Desor.21 Desor, a natural scientist who, as Moleschott describes it, used to organize a kind of symposium of scientists and scholars in his country house in the mountainous region of the Jura, was of particular importance in Moleschott’s life: not only during his time in Switzerland, but also for many years later, Moleschott could converse with him and write to him about the latest developments in the natural sciences, familial and financial problems, and, above all, the political situation, especially with respect to Italian politics.22 In this “Art von wissenschaftlichem Decamerone” in Combe-Varin, near Neuchâtel, Moleschott met the American theologian Theodor Parker (1810-1870), the German (naturalized Swiss) natural scientist and revolutionary Carl Vogt, but also Justus Liebig and the German-Swiss chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein (1799-1868).23 As we will see, Moleschott held Parker in high esteem, and described him as a scholar joining science and humanity in the most harmonious way.24 However, Moleschott did not really remain in touch with the Swiss citizens of Zürich, with the exception of the historian Jakob Burckhardt (Basel, 1818-1897, teaching in Zürich from 1855 until 1858) and the poet Gottfried Keller;25 that was, anyway, quite common among foreigners, who tended to meet with other exiles or to form national clubs.26 Even though he held the Swiss population to be not particularly friendly with foreigners,27 Moleschott did not want to join German clubs, as most of 21 Pierre Jean Édouard Desor (Friedrichsdorf, Grand Duchy of Hessen, 1811 – Nice, 1882) was a geologist and naturalist. He studied law at Giessen and Heidelberg and, being involved in the Hambacher Fest and the Frankfurter Wachensturm in 1832-1833, he fled to Paris, where he turned to geology. He participated in many geological and alpine expeditions and was assistant to Louis Agassiz, with whom he studied glaciers and fossils. He became Professor of Geology at the Academy of Neuchâtel, and lived in Combe-Varin (Val de Travers), where he organized meetings of natural scientists which Moleschott also attended. Cf. Heinz Balmer, Édouard Desor und sein Landhaus Combe-Varinˮ. Gesnerus, 32 (1975): 61-86. 22 BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Édouard Desor. 23 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 312. 24 Jacob Moleschott to Edouard Desor (Zürich, September 21, 1859, and May 21, 1860). AÉN, Fonds Edouard Desor, Carton 13, D55. 25 Regarding the friendship between Moleschott and the poet and novelist Gottfried Keller (Zürich, 1819-1890), who was involved in the political democratic movement around 1848, cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 287-288. 26 Gagliardi et al., Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer, 469. 27 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 280.

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the German academics did: he thought doing so to be unfriendly with regard to the Swiss, as he would explain in his autobiography.28 Moreover, Moleschott became friends with the physicist Rudolph Clausius (1822-1888, mostly known for his second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy), who was a professor at the Polythechnikum in Zürich from 1855 until 1867, and used to live in the same building as Moleschott: Moleschott always considered him a good friend, from whom he had learned a great deal.29 In addition, there were soirées with the famous composers Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt: Moleschott, who heard Liszt playing the piano both in Zürich and, later on, in Rome, was highly enthusiastic about Liszt’s artistic abilities.30 Thus, Moleschott apparently never missed out on social contact and cultural exchange. He and Sophie started to learn Italian during private lessons given by the wife of Georg Herwegh, Emma Herwegh, born Sigmund, who came from Berlin but could speak perfect French, English and Italian; above all, she was in love with the Italian “Volk”, the Italian language and the arts, and supported the attempts to achieve national independence.31 Lisbeth Semper, the daughter of the architect Gottfried Semper, studied Italian with the Moleschotts, and enjoyed a very good relationship with Sophie.32 In this framework of passionate interest for the Italian language, arts and nationalism, Moleschott read all the classics of Italian literature, including Dante’s Divina Commedia, the baroque poetry by Torquato Tasso, and also Renaissance poets such as Francesco Petrarca, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Boiardo, and contemporary poets such as Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni and Ugo Foscolo.33 As we will see, quotations from their works would become essential parts of his Italian opening lectures and Senate speeches. At that point, Moleschott apparently could not yet imagine that one of the Italian exiles, Filippo de Boni, would ask him whether he would like to teach physiology in Italy.34 Filippo De Boni was born in a village in the pre-Alps north of Venice, close to the towns of Feltre and Belluno, in 1816, and died in Florence in 1870. He played an important role in the democratic nationalist movement and, for this reason, he had to flee to Switzerland (to Geneva and Lausanne in 28 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 280-281. 29 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 282. 30 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 286-287. 31 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 299. 32 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 299. Cf. the rich correspondence between Sophie Moleschott and Lisbeth Semper in FSM, Corrispondenza Lisbeth Semper. 33 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 298-300, 301. 34 Regarding the friendship with Filippo De Boni, whom Moleschott admired and described as being a source of inspiration for him, cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 298; on De Boni asking Moleschott, in Cavour’s name, if he wanted to become professor in Zürich, cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 301.

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1846, then to Bern and Zürich, after having participated in the 1848 revolution in Italy). He stayed in Switzerland until 1859, representing the Roman Republic (this State born from the Revolution existed only during five months, in 1849) in Bern. He was also “commissary of Italian emigration” in Zürich, and attended meetings in the home of Georg and Emma Herwegh, which was frequented also by Richard Wagner and Jakob Burckhardt. Before and after his exile, he was mainly engaged in spreading nationalist and independentist ideas through pamphlets and articles he published in newspapers, being convinced that the printed media were a powerful weapon for achieving national unity. More exactly, he was a republican, close to the ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini. After the Italian unification, he became a politician from the VIII to the X legislature, i.e. from 1861 until 1870. Moreover, he was a freethinker, freethinkers’ societies being at the forefront in the fight for the Italian national unification.35 Even though it is unknown where exactly Moleschott and De Boni met in Zürich, it is likely that this happened during the meetings at the house of Georg Herwegh. In his autobiography, Moleschott explains that he considered De Boni’s question as only a vague proposal, which with all probability would never become reality: in fact, he had received a similar offer from France, which had never been made concrete.36 Nevertheless, he started to practice his Italian more frequently, becoming an assiduous and enthusiastic listener of Francesco De Sanctis, who was reading the epic poems by Ariosto at the Polythechnikum, where he was Professor of Italian Literature.37

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With his colleagues, Moleschott had a distant but overall friendly relationship; this was probably due to the disparate opinions about him at the Faculty. In fact, as had been the case in Heidelberg, the opinion of the Faculty of Medicine with regard to Moleschott was not always positive: in fact, precisely as it would later happen in Turin, the Faculty of Medicine was against his appointment. According to what the Rector, Heinrich Frey, reported, the Faculty members and the Senate, given Moleschott’s “well-known materialism” and the “notorious way how he spread it”, voted against his appointment, doubting that he would be appropriate for occupying the Chair of Physiology in Zürich.38 In fact, a few days earlier, the Dean of the Faculty 35 Ernesto Sestan, “De Boni, Filippo”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 33 (1987), online version: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/filippo-de-boni_%28Dizionario-Bio grafico%29/ (last viewed June 3, 2015). 36 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 301-302. 37 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 302-303. 38 Heinrich Frey to the Erziehungsrath (Zürich, November 25, 1855). StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21.

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of Medicine, Hermann Lebert, had written to the Director of the Erziehungsrath that the report (“Gutachten”) of the Faculty about Moleschott differed from that of the Education Board, and that, even after a second examination, the Faculty did not consider Moleschott to be fit for holding the Chair of Physiology in Zürich.39 From the documents relating to the activity of the Erziehungsrath we also know that the Chair, which had belonged to Ludwig, was split into a professorship in Physiology, which Moleschott obtained, and a professorship in Anatomy, which was assigned to Hermann Meyer in 1856; Meyer became director of the Institute of Anatomy in the same year.40 However, the first option envisaged by the Erziehungsrath was to appoint Rudolf Virchow both for the Chair of Anatomy and of Physiology, and only as a second choice to split the Chairs between Emil Du Bois-Reymond (mentioned as “DuBois aus Berlin”) and Moleschott; the University had at its disposal a sum of no more than 4000 Francs for both Chairs altogether.41 A little more than two months after this decision, the Erziehungsrath decreed that the director of the Erziehungswesen had to start the negotiations with the faculty of Medicine regarding Moleschott’s appointment.42

39 H[ermann] Lebert, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, to the Erziehungsrath (Zürich, November 20, 1855). StAZH, U 106c 1a 21: “Die Medizinische Fakultät trat in heutiger Sitzung in Berathung über das von dem h. Erziehungsrathe gewünschte Gutachten in Betracht der Befähigung des Herrn Dr. Moleschott zu Heidelberg für Bekleidung einer Professur der Physiologie von hiesiger Hochschule. Nach […] genauer Erwägung des Gegenstandes war die Fakultät genöthigt, sich dahin auszusprechen: es seien die wissenschaftlichen Leistungen des Herrn Dr. Moleschott nicht von der Art, daß sie die Fakultät in den Stand setzen könnten, zu dessen Gunsten von dem Inhalte ihres unter dem 9 Juli d. J. eingereichten Gutachtens abzuweichen und denselben für die Bekleidung der fraglichen Lehrstelle zu empfehlen. Wir benutzen diesen Anlaß, Sie unserer vollkommenen Hochachtung und Ergebenheit zu versichernˮ. 40 Cf. StAZH, U 106 c, 1a [Einzelne Professoren. Wahlen, Urlaub, Entlassung, Besoldung, Personelles] 17 [Herm. (v) Meyer (1852-1889)]. Cfr. Unknown to the “Erziehungsrath des Cant. Zürich” (s.l., 1855), letter suggesting Prof. extraord. Hermann Meyer as substituting Ludwig; in fact, starting from 1856 Mayer became “ordentlicher Professor der Anatomie und Direktor des anatomischen Institutesˮ (cf. “Aus dem Protokoll des Erziehungsrathes 1889, Zürich den 11. Januar 1889, Protokoll N 25, Fasz. D. 10. b.ˮ StAZH, U 106 c, 1a 17). 41 Actum, den 24. August 1855. StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21. 42 StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21. Actum, den 7. Nov. 1855 (“beschlossen: Es sei der Direktor des Erziehungswesens eingeladen, mit Herrn Dr. Moleschott in Heidelberg betreffend dessen Berufung an die Professur der Physiologie an der medizinischen Fakultät der Hochschule Unterhandlungen anzuknüpfenˮ).

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Thus, in the same way as De Sanctis as a Minister of Public Education would impose his decision and appoint Moleschott a professor in Turin in 1861, in Zürich it was the director of the Erziehungsrath, Jacob Dubs, who imposed his decision upon the members of the Faculty and the academic Senate, especially on Alfred Escher (who had been Dubs’ forerunner in the direction of the Erziehungsrath from 1845 until 1855).43 It was Dubs himself who wrote to Moleschott in order to announce to him that Ludwig’s Chair would become vacant and asked him whether he would be interested in holding the Chair of Physiology.44 Moleschott himself thanked Dubs for being appointed ordinary Professor of Physiology and formally accepted the appointment on January 13, 1856.45 Ludwig Feuerbach commented on these circumstances as follows: “Es hat mich sehr gefreut, daß ich endlich einmal wieder ein Lebenszeichen von Ihnen erhielt, und zwar so erfreulichen Inhalts. Ich hatte wohl aus den Zeitungen erfahren, daß Sie nach Zürich berufen seien, aber doch, da ich gelichzeitig von dem Widerstand gehört, der sich diesem Ruf selbst von ganz unerwarteten Seiten entgegengesetzt, an der Verwirklichung desselben gezweifelt, bis plötzlich Ihre Antrittsrede über das Licht das Düster meiner Zweifel auf ebenso sinnige als überraschende Weise in das Licht froher Gewißheit auflöste.”46

Then, he congratulated Moleschott for his new audience (“Wirkungskreis”) at the University of Zürich, expressing admiration for the president of the Erziehungsrath, Jacob Dubs, and despising Moleschott’s colleagues at the Faculty of Medicine. From these lines, where Feuerbach expressed happiness for Moleschott’s new position using the metaphor of the light, hinting in this way at the topic of Moleschott’s own

43 Alfred Escher vom Glas (Zürich, 1819-1882) was a Swiss politician, the owner of railway companies and the founder of the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, now Credit Suisse. Among his numerous posts in politics, economics and administration, he was the director of the Erziehungsrath, the Board of Education, from 1845 till 1855. Cf. Markus Bürgi, “Escher, Alfred (vom Glas)ˮ, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 4 (2004), 294-295. 44 Jacob Dubs to Jacob Moleschott (Zürich, November 8, 1855). StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21. 45 Jacob Moleschott to the “Regierungsrath des eidgenössischen Standes Zürichˮ (Heidelberg, January 13, 1856). StAZH, U 106c 1a 21: “Dem Regierungsrath des eidgenössischen Standes Zürich bringt der Unterzeichnete aufrichtigen Dank dar für seine Ernennung zum ordentlichen Professor der Physiologie bei der medicinischen Fakultät der Züricher Hochschule, und er beehrt sich die förmliche Erklärung beizufügen, daß er zum Beginn des Sommer-Semesters in Zürich eintreffen wird, um die Obliegenheiten seines Amtes zu übernehmenˮ. 46 Ludwig Feuerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Bruckberg, July 11, 1856), Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 112.

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opening lecture, Licht und Leben, we apprehend that the printed media had reported the news about Moleschott’s appointment.47 Similarly to the conflict with the University of Heidelberg, Moleschott’s appointment at the University of Zürich also found resonance in the media: in fact, the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung reported some of the news about his call and the disagreements between the Faculty and the Erziehungsrath. On November 22, 1855, the Allgemeine Zeitung (n. 326), reported that the Erziehungsrath in Zürich had decided, at the insistence of its president Jacob Dubs, to appoint Moleschott for the vacant Chair of Physiology. On December 12, 1855, the same newspaper (n. 346) reported that the Faculty and the Senate opposed Moleschott’s appointment, but the Erziehungsrath persisted in his decision. The issue that appeared on January 4, 1856 (n. 4) confirmed Moleschott’s appointment, and at the same time defined his doctrines as being atheist.48 Once Moleschott came to Zürich, there were no major problems with the Faculty: Moleschott renounced his overt political engagement during those years, and was more involved in scientific research than in popularization. Zürich had two new institutions of higher education, which were in need of a number of scholars to work for them: the University of Zürich was a newly established university (1833), and the Polytechnikum had also been founded very recently (in 1855). Both institutions were working in close cooperation, at least until 1864, when the Polytechnikum moved to 47 Ludwig Feuerbach to Jacob Moleschott (Bruckberg, July 11, 1856), Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 113. 48 It was not the first time the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung published polemical articles on Moleschott and other materialists in the framework of the so-called “Materialismusstreit”, which was initiated during the thirty-first “Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte” in Göttingen, 1854. The polemics were accentuated in the following year, especially between Rudolf Wagner, defending the thesis of religious creationism, and Carl Vogt, who defended a deterministic view and, in his Köhlerglaube und Wissenschaft (1855), broadened the polemics to the role of the natural sciences and their relation to philosophy. Another important actor of these polemics was Ludwig Büchner, the brother of the revolutionary and poet Georg Büchner, with his Kraft und Stoff. Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien (1855), as a consequence of which he was obliged to leave the University of Tübingen. In an anonymous article, the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung accused Ludwig Büchner of being uncritical towards authority and, reporting quotes from Moleschott and Ludwig Feuerbach, defined their theories as “neue Dogmen des Unglaubens” (Anonymous, “Philosophie und Materialismus. Eine kurze Antwort auf L. Büchner ‘Stoff und Kraft’ˮ, Beilage to n. 233 (August 21, 1855), Allgemeine Zeitung [Augsburg, 1810-1882], 3721-3722, here 3721). Cf. Werner Schuffenhauer, commentary to Ludwig Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 439-441.

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the new building by the architect Gottfried Semper (many lectures were shared by students of the University and of the Polytechnikum).49 Both the University and the Polytechnikum had to acquire its professors from other European countries, especially from Germany. Francesco De Sanctis, who was teaching Italian literature, is an example of the presence of international scholars in Zürich. International scholars were not only needed because there were not enough on offer in the Swiss Confederation, but also because they allowed knowledge transfer from countries and universities with a longer academic tradition. At the same time, however, Zürich was considered by most of the scientists working there as a temporary solution before being appointed by more prestigious universities.50 This was the case for Moleschott as well. As we can read in his correspondence with the Erziehungsrath, he gladly accepted the proposal to teach in Zürich, but immediately asked if he could have an assistant and a generous yearly budget for the laboratory.51 In this letter, Moleschott underlined that he was glad to be in charge of some lectures:52 as he had already stated in the letter he had sent to Justus Liebig when he was looking for a position in Giessen,53 he liked teaching and was ready to dedicate his “best forces” to teaching – even though he considered the suggested salary to be inadequate for such a position and, therefore, he was hoping that it would increase. In fact, in this first letter Moleschott also stated that he would expect an increase of his salary54 – trying, in this way, to

49 Cf. also Günther Frei and Urs Stammbach, Die Mathematiker an den Zürcher Hochschulen (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1994), 12. 50 Gagliardi et al., Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer, 552 (the definition of the University of Zürich as a first-class waiting-room is attributed to the surgeon Theodor Billroth). 51 Jacob Moleschott to unknown [probably the “Erziehungsrath” in Zürich] (Heidelberg, November 9, 1855): StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21. 52 Ibidem, [1]: “Das Lehramt hat mir von jeher eine so große Freude gemacht, und der Gedanke, ihm auch in der Zukunft wieder meine besten Kräfte widmen zu können, ist für mich so verlockend, daß ich bereitwillig erkläre, einen Ruf als ordentlicher Professor der Physiologie an die Züricher Hochschule, mit einer festen Belohnung von mindestens 1600 Fr jährlich, gerne folgen zu wollen.ˮ 53 Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850): Staatsbibliothek München, Liebigiana II.B. 54 Jacob Moleschott to unknown [probably the “Erziehungsrath” in Zürich] (Heidelberg, November 9, 1855): StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21, [1]. On the hope for an increase of his salary: “Freilich darf ich nicht versehen, daß die Pflichte, die ich gegen eine kräftige Ausübung meines Berufs und gegen meine Familie erfüllen muß, mir eine nicht allzu fern gerückte Verwirklichung der für später in Aussicht gestellten Gehaltserhöhung als sehr wünschenswerth erscheinen laßen.”

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transform his intellectual “capital” (in the sense of Bourdieu) into an economic “capital”. At the beginning of his career as a professor at the University, Moleschott had a salary of 1600 Swiss Francs per year, in addition to the fee paid by the students for attending the seminars (“Kollegiengelder”).55 The “Kollegiengelder” amounted to 5 Francs per hour in the case of his courses in experimental physiology.56 As we will see, Moleschott was in favor of students paying fees for attending courses at the medical faculty: when he was in Italy, he suggested reintroducing such fees in order to finance the laboratories (in this sense, he attempted to transfer some knowledge related to higher education from Germany and Switzerland to Italy – a failed attempt, for fees had been abolished in the Kingdom of Italy and no one dared to reintroduce them, fearing protests).57 Indeed, the importance of the labs is another central point of the letter reported above, in which Moleschott mentioned that he was assuming that he would also be in charge of independently directing a “physiological institute”, i.e. the laboratory of physiology where the students could apprehend and practice physiological experimental research.58 Moleschott was convinced that, in his present day, a teacher in the natural sciences should motivate and introduce his students to independent research practice: “Bei der heutigen Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaft ist der Lehrer mehr als zu berufen, seine Schüler zu eigener Forschung anzuregen.”59 As a professor occupying the Chair of Physiology in Zürich, Moleschott had to teach for twelve hours per week, starting from the summer term of 1856.60 However, 55 Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich an den hohen Regierungsrath (Zürich, December 5, 1855) (recto; Moleschott’s Berufungsurkunde is on the verso of the same sheet), and Jacob Moleschott to unknown [probably the “Erziehungsrat” in Zürich] (Heidelberg, November 9, 1855), both in StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21. 56 Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich (April 15, 1856): Kollegien N. 54 “Experimentalphysiologieˮ und N. 55 “physiologische Uebungen und Untersuchungenˮ. StAZH, U 106c 1a 21. 57 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore. 58 Jacob Moleschott to unknown [probably the “Erziehungsrath” in Zürich] (Heidelberg, November 9, 1855): StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21, [2]: “Ich glaube voraussetzen zu dürfen, daß mit der ordentlichen Professur der Physiologie die ganz selbständige Direction der physiologischen Lehrmittel, welche man jetzt häufig mit dem Namen eines physiologischen Instituts bezeichnet, verbunden ist.” 59 Ibidem. 60 Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich an den hohen Regierungsrath (Zürich, December 5, 1855) (recto; Moleschott’s Berufungsurkunde is on the verso of the same sheet). StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21: “Der Erziehungsrath hat nach Einsicht eines Antrages der Direktion des Erziehungswesens beschlossen: I. Der Herr Dr. Jakob Moleschott, gegenwärtig in Heidelberg, an die medizinische Fakultät der zürcherischen Hochschule unter Verleihung des Ranges, des Titels und der Befugnisse eines ordentlichen Professors für das

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from the schedule of the lectures, we can see that he taught more than double that number of weekly hours: in the summer term of 1856, his course on experimental physiology took him ten hours per week (it was scheduled Monday to Saturday, 8-9 a.m., and Monday to Thursday, 1-2 p.m.), and the practical exercises in the laboratory twelve hours (Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.).61 Moreover, he tried to continue writing his Anthropologie and had just started to edit his new journal, the Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere. With regard to teaching activity, the first months in Zürich were not completely smooth: in fact, Moleschott had not taught for two years before this appointment, and he felt that he needed to prepare his lectures very well in order to satisfy the expectations of his students and the exigencies of the university. Also, with regard to his family life, moving to Zürich must not have been very easy: after the birth of their third child, Sophie was sick for quite a long time, and so were the two older children, Hermann and Marie.62 Concerning their financial situation, we can imagine that it needed improvement: in fact, in 1860 Moleschott borrowed some money both from Édouard Desor and from his Dutch friend Izaac van Deen in Holland.63 In a letter to Jacob Dubs, Moleschott expressed his dissatisfaction with his salary, which corresponded only to a minimal part of the income of an ordinary professor, and therefore asked if he could get reimbursement for the expenses of his moving from Heidelberg to Zürich.64 As we can retrieve from the documents of the Education Board of the Canton Zürich, his wish was largely fulfilled, and he was reimbursed for 700 Francs out of 876.20 Francs.65 His request to have a higher salary was also accepted. In fact, the salary of an ordinary professor was 1800 Francs “alte Währung” Lehrfach der Physiologie mit der besonderen Verpflichtung zu Vorlesungen während mindestens 12 wöchentlichen Stunden und mit Zusicherung eines außer den gesetzlichen Kollegiengeldern Schweizerfranken 1600 betragenden Jahresgeldes berufen. II. Habe der Amtsantritt des Berufenen auf Anfang des Sommersemesters 1856 zu erfolgen. III. Mitteilung an die Direktion des Erziehungswesens für sich und zu weiter nöthigen Kenntnisgabe und durch nachstehende Berufungsurkunde an den Berufenen”. 61 Christian Moser (ed.), Repertorium der Vorlesungen an der Universität Zürich 1833-1900, vol. 2 (Zug: Achius Verlag, 2011), 1099-1100. 62 Cf. Moleschott to van Deen (Zürich, January 6, 1857): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 109); cf. also van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 60-61. 63 Édouard Desor to Jacob Moleschott (Neuchâtel, January 23, 1860), and “J[an]” [most probably: Izaac, L.M.] van Deen to Jacob Moleschott (Groningen, January 2, 1860). BCABo, FSM, 9.15 (new). 64 Jacob Moleschott to Präsident [des Erziehungsrathes] (Zürich, June 10, 1856): the letter regards travel expenses (“Reisekostenˮ). StAZH, U 106c 1a 21. 65 Cf. Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich (June 11, 1856): 1856 N.448, 11. Juni 1856, Reisekosten. StAZH, U 106c 1a 21.

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(old course, valid until 1851),66 which was inadequate; for this reason, Moleschott was granted that, starting from January 1858, his salary would be 2625 Francs. As we can read in a letter, which Moleschott addressed to the direction of the Erziehungsrath of the Canton Zürich, there were several reasons why he requested his salary to be incremented to the salary of an ordinary professor, and also several reasons why he believed his request to be legitimate. On the one hand, Moleschott explained that he needed a higher salary in order to sustain himself and his family adequately, and to dedicate enough time and efforts to teaching and research, especially given the fact that the number of students was too low to gain enough from their “Kollegiengelder”. On the other hand, he legitimized his request through references to a law on the organization of education in Zürich dating to 1832, but also by pointing out that his salary of 1600 Francs was defined as “provisory” when he was appointed.67 The fact that Moleschott was indeed able to make his salary increase by 1025 Francs per year shows that he was able to turn his intellectual and social “capital” (his skills as researcher and teacher on the one hand, and his good relationship with the direction of the Erziehungsrath on the other hand) into economic “capital”. Moleschott’s particularly strong relationship with Jacob Dubs is also evident if we observe that Moleschott asked Dubs whether he would be able to attend his opening

66 Cf. Willy Meyer, Die Finanzgeschichte der Universität Zürich von 1833 bis 1933. Dissertation der Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Zürich zur Erlangung der Würde eines Doktors der Volkswirtschaft (Zürich: Diss.-Druckerei A.G. Gebr. Leemann & Co., 1940), 168: “Nach dem Unterrichtsgesetz von 1832 § 167 hatte der Studierende für ein einfaches Kollegium a. W. [alte Währung] Fr. 12.-, für ein doppeltes Fr. 24.- und für ein Kollegium unter vier Stunden Fr. 8.- bis 10.- Honorar zu entrichten. Im Unterrichtsgesetz von 1859 wurden die Ansätze praktisch bestätigt. Das Honorar betrug für Vorlesungen unter vier Stunden Fr. 5.- pro Stundeˮ. Cf. also the “Anhangˮ at page 235: “Von 1833-1851 alte Währung, von 1852-1933 neue Währung; 1 Fr. a. W. ist gleich n. W. Fr. 1,4583”. 67 Jacob Moleschott to unknown [probably Erziehungsrath] (Zürich, March 14, 1857): 1858 N. 53 (Gehalt). StAZH, U 106c 1a 21. The law he referred to was “über die Organisation des gesamten Unterrichtswesens im Kanton Zürich am 28 Herbstmonat 1832”, § 148. Cf. also Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich an den Hohen Regierungsrath (Zürich, January 6, 1858): 1858 N. 53, granting him a salary of 2625 Francs per year, and Moleschott’s letter where he expressed gratitude for the acceptance of his request (Zürich, January 17, 1858), both in StAZH, U 106c 1a 21.

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lecture Licht und Leben, before setting its official date.68 The lecture took place on Saturday, June 21, 1856, at 11 a.m., in the Aula Academica.69 During his first three semesters of teaching, Moleschott concentrated on experimental physiology and related practical exercises, as well as on the physiology of metabolism (“Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren”, just like the title of his book). Only in his fourth semester, that is, in the winter term of 1857/58, did he introduce a lecture on anthropology, “Anthropologie (Naturlehre und Naturgeschichte des Menschen)”, which was open to students of all faculties and which he repeated in the winter term of 1858/59, and then, under the title of “Anthropologische Vorträge”, in the winter term of 1860/61.70 Apparently, Moleschott had planned one of these courses also in 1861/62; however, since at that time he had to leave Zürich for Turin, the lectures did not take place.71 We can observe that the weekly hours of his courses on anthropology were increasingly reduced – for what reason cannot be determined with certainty: from five weekly hours in 1857/58 (Monday to Friday, 11-12 am), they were turned into four hours in 1858/59 (Monday to Thursday, 10-11 am), and into one hour in 1860/61 (Friday, 6-7 pm).72 In general, 68 Moleschott, Jacob (Zürich, June 10, 1856): 1856 N. 448. (Reisekosten.) StAZH, U 106c 1a 21 [Blatt 2]: “Die Ausarbeitung meiner Antrittsrede ist um so weit vorngeschritten, daß es mir möglich sein wird, dieselbe Samstag in acht Tagen, also am 21. d. M., Vormittags 11 Uhr zu halten. Da ich nun den innigen Wunsch nicht verbergen kann, es möchte mir vergönnt sein, in Ihrer Gegenwart die Rede auszusprechen, so hoffe ich Sie werden keine Unbescheidenheit darin erblicken, wenn ich Sie vorher frage, ob die von mir vorgeschlagene Zeit bei Ihnen keinen Hinderniß begegnet. Für diesen Fall würde ich den Herrn Rector ersuchen, die üblichen Einladungen zu dem genannten Tage vorzunehmen”. 69 Rector [Hermann Köchly] to the “Erziehungsrath des Kantons Zürich” (Zürich, June 16, 1856): 1856 N. 447. StAZH, U106c 1a 21: “Einladung zur Antrittsrede ‘über Licht und Leben’, auf nächsten Samstag den 21. Juni, Vormittags 11 Uhr, in der Aula Academicaˮ. Cf. also Amtsblatt des Kantons Zürich (Dienstag den 17. Brachmonat 1856 = June 17, 1856). Jahrgang 23, N. 49. StAZH, U 106c 1a 21: “Samstags den 21. [Juni]. Vormittags 11 Uhr wird Herr Prof. Dr. Moleschott seine Antrittsrede als ordentlicher Professor der Physiologie an hiesiger Hochschule über Licht und Lebenʼ in der Aula Academica halten, wozu alle Freunde der Wissenschäft [sic] einladet [sic]. Zürich, den 16. Brachmonat 1856. Prof. Dr. Köchly, d. Z. Rektor der Hochschule”. 70 Moser, Repertorium der Vorlesungen an der Universität Zürich, vol. 2, 1099-1100. 71 Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich an den hohen Regierungsrath (Zürich, October 8, 1861). StAZH, U 106c 1a 21. (1861 N. 666: Moleschotts Entlassung). As well as: Direction des Erziehungswesens des Kantons Zürich (Zürich, October 16, 1861): StAZH, U 106c 1a 21. (1861, N. 82. Entlassung Moleschott, Ende des Sommersemesters 1861). 72 Ibidem.

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we can observe that Moleschott, as was foreseeable, presented in Zürich the research he had done in the previous years in Germany: in the summer term of 1858, besides his ordinary courses on experimental physiology, he taught also “Die Lehre vom Kreislaufe des Blutes”, in the winter term of 1858/59 “Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel (Diätetik)”, in the summer term of 1859 he taught also “Experimentalphysiologie und Entwicklungsgeschichte” (experimental physiology and evolutionary history), microscopic anatomy (“Mikroskopische Anatomie der Drüsen”) and microscopic exercises, in the winter term of 1859/60 he taught physiology of the nerves (and, for the winter term of 1861/62, he had planned a course on “physiology of breathing and of the voice” (“Physiologie des Athmens und der Stimme”).73 In Zürich, his scientific activity focused on the nervus sympathicus (with his student Robert Nauwerk), on the nervus vagus (with his student Eugen Hufschmidt), and on the influence of heat on respiration;74 moreover, he did histological studies on the kidneys, the hair and the muscles.75 In particular, Moleschott dedicated much effort to the study of the nerves,76 and considered the nervus vagus as a nerve of capital importance.77 In his lectures on the history of evolution (“Entwicklungsgeschichte”), he approached embryological research for the first time in his career.78

73 Ibidem. 74 Jacob Moleschott, “Untersuchungen über den Einfluss der Sympathicus-Reizung auf die Häufigkeit des Herzschlagsˮ. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 36-51 (with Roberto Nauwerck); Jacob Moleschott, “Experimenteller Beweis der Theorie, nach welcher der Vagus ein Bewegungsnerv des Herzens ist”. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 52-120 (with Hufschmid); Jacob Moleschott, “Ein histochemischer und ein histologischer Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Nierenˮ. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 213-224; Jacob Moleschott, “Die Reizung des verlängerten Marks und des Rückenmarks in ihrem Einflusse auf die Pulsfrequenz”. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 572-600 (with Hufschmid). 75 Jacob Moleschott, “Zur Untersuchung der verhornte Theile des menschlichen Körpers”. Untersuchungen, 4 (1858): 97-123; Jacob Moleschott, “Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der glatten Muskelnˮ. Untersuchungen, 6 (1860): 381-401; Jacob Moleschott, “Über einige Punkten betreffend den Bau des Haarbalgs und der Haare der menschlichen Kopfhaut”. Untersuchungen, 7 (1869): 325-352 (with P. Chapuis). 76 Jacob Moleschott, “Untersuchungen über den Einfluss der Vagus-Reizung auf Häufigkeit des Herzschlagsˮ. Untersuchungen, 7 (1860): 401-468; Jacob Moleschott, “Der bewegungsvermittelnde Vorgang im Nerven kann auch von einer positiven Schwankung des Nervensstroms begleitet sein”. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 1-35. 77 Jacob Moleschott, “Der Vagus als Bewegungsnerv des Herzens gegenüber den neuesten Angriffen vertheidigt”. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 601-618. 78 Cf. also Hagelgans, Jacob Moleschott als Physiologe, 15, and Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 291.

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The documents preserved at the University archive in Zürich79 show us that Moleschott did not have any conflict with the University and that he was not directly involved in political issues (contrarily to what had been the case in Heidelberg). In this time, his personal, political and professional maturation took place by virtue of his contacts with personalities such as Francesco De Sanctis, Georg Herwegh, Gottfried Keller, Édouard Desor, and not through being involved in the political life of the country. In the letters he addressed to the University and to the Erziehungsrath, he limited his requests to pay raises and vacations; topics such as the infrastructure of the laboratories or questions of higher education policy (which he would instead address to the University of Turin) are practically absent. Also compared to the popularizing books which are typical for his German period, Moleschott’s publications in Zürich80 are definitely not as political as his Kreislauf des Lebens, his Physiologie des Stoffwechsels or his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. However, this was not a particularity of Moleschott’s attitude, but is coherent with the social environment in which he was working: Zürich played a role in the European nationalization movements by giving refuge to revolutionaries and providing a platform for their meetings, but laid itself outside of the hot spots of European changes in the second half of the nineteenth century.

L ICHT

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Moleschott’s opening lecture at the University of Zürich, Licht und Leben, was given on June 21, 1856, printed shortly after, and reprinted three times;81 it was translated both into Italian and into Dutch in the same year.82 As he had done with the Lehre 79 In particular, “Einzelne Professoren. Wahlen, Urlaub, Entlassung, Besoldung, Personelles”: StAZH, U 106 c, 1a. 80 Jacob Moleschott, Physiologisches Skizzenbuch (Giessen: Roth, 1861); Jacob Moleschott, “Ein Spaziergang. Physiologische Skizze”. Album von Combe-Varin. Zur Erinnerung an Theodor Parker und Hans Lorenz Küchler (Zürich: Schabelitz, 1861), 51-78. 81 Jacob Moleschott, Licht und Leben. Rede beim Antritt des öffentlichen Lehramts zur Erforschung der Natur des Menschen, an der Züricher Hochschulegesprochen am 21 Juni 1856 (Giessen: Roth, 1856). The french translation, “Vie et Lumière” (translated by F. Papillon). Revue des cours scientifiques, 12 (September 23, 1865), 43: 698-703, was followed by an appreciation of Moleschott’s lecture by Ludwig Büchner, 703-705. 82 Respectively: Jacob Moleschott, Luce e vita (Milano: Brigola, 1856). Its translator, Luigi Stefanoni, was also the translator of Ludwig Büchner, Forza e materia (Milano: Brigola, 1868) and founder of the journal “Il libero pensiero”. Jacob Moleschott, Licht en leven. Redevoering bij de aanvaarding van het opentljik leeraarsambt, tot navorsching van de natuur des menschen, aan de hoogeschool van Zürich (Utrecht: van der Post, 1856).

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der Nahrungsmittel, also in this case Moleschott dedicated the lecture, or better its printed version, to his father, who had inspired him in the study of nature and of medicine.83 In this lecture, Moleschott described the numerous positive effects of light on the rhythm of the seasons and of the seas, on plants, animals, and human beings. He also underlined that light influences the mood of human beings, and therefore their will, which, as Spinoza had taught, is free only insofar as one is aware of it, and does not try to search for its cause.84 It is interesting to notice that Moleschott gave his lecture on the topic of the influence of light on organic life on June 21, the summer solstice; whether he paid attention to this symbolical element or not cannot be stated with certainty. Whereas, in this case, Moleschott primarily spoke about light in a physical sense, in his later speeches given in Rome, he spoke about light in a metaphorical sense: the light of freethought as opposed to religious obscurantism. However, even in the opening lecture (“Antrittsvorlesung”) he gave in Zürich, freedom and tolerance are mentioned at the beginning of the speech, representing Moleschott’s own hopes and expectations from the University of Zürich and the Swiss Confederation, which he opposed to the obscurantism of the University of Heidelberg and the government of the Grand Duchy of Baden (which he referred to as “Pfaffenseelen in der Badischen Regierung”).85 Thus, it is likely that, even in the lecture he gave in Zürich, Moleschott appealed to “light” not only in a scientific, but also in a broader metaphoric sense, with the meaning of freedom, tolerance and freethinking, as he would do in Rome in the 1880s. In fact, Moleschott argued that precisely education is necessary in order for people to become aware of their being determined by natural laws and by the social environment.86 Then, he lamented that the modern “inquisitors” were worse than those who condemned the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, because he considered 83 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, [dedication to his father, no page number]. 84 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 28: “Und doch wie sträubt sich der vermessene Wahn des Einzelwesens gegen das allgemeine Bekenntniß dieser stets bewegten Abhängigkeit, weil so wenige den Satz Spinoza’s in ihr Erfahrungsleben aufgenommen haben, daß die menschliche Freiheit, deren alle sich rühmen, nur darin besteht, daß die Menschen sich ihres Willens bewußt sind, ohne in den meisten Fällen die Ursache auch nur zu ahnen, von welcher sie bestimmt werden.” 85 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, [dedication to his father, no page number]: “Dir vor Allen würde ich’s vorjauchzen, wie viel das freie Zürich mir wiedergab, nachdem ich durch den Zusammenstoß mit der von Pfaffenseelen aufgestachelten Badischen Regierung und deren willfährigem Werkzeug, dem Heidelberger Senate, inmitten einer lernbegierigen Jugend, an dem reizenden Ort, dem ich so viele Wonne nie vergessen werde, auch viel und schmerzlich entbehren mußte.” Cf. also Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 291. 86 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 29-30.

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the stars and the sun to be natural elements in the sky: at least the latter did not accuse Anaxagoras of denying their existence, whereas the former accused those who were convinced that human beings and their will are governed by necessary natural laws of denying spiritual aspects.87 As he had already done in his German popularizing works, especially in the Kreislauf, Moleschott once more made clear his view that the spiritual and the natural, matter and force, are just two sides of the same principle: “Geist und Mensch, Kraft und Stoff, sind nichts Anderes als verschiedene Anschauungsweisen für ein und dasselbe Ding, und nur diejenigen verstehen die Ausdrucksweise der Materialisten, die im einzelnen Falle der Belehrung nicht bedürfen, daß die Letzteren bei dem Ausdruck Kraft zugleich immer an den Stoff, aber ebenso auch bei dem Worte Stoff jederzeit an die Kraft denken. Sie sagen mit Faust: ‘im Anfang war die That.’”88

The materialists, explained Moleschott, start from matter when they want to study nature because matter is observable and measurable.89 However, the unity of matter and force, he went on saying, cannot be explained: “So läßt auch die Natureinheit von Kraft und Stoff sich nicht erklären; denn was Eins ist von Ursprung an, kann nicht dadurch geworden sein, daß ein Merkmal desselben sich aus dem andern entwickelte.”90 As we can see, Moleschott’s opening lecture in Zürich is at the same time a manifesto of materialism: more precisely of Moleschott’s typically monistic version of materialism, consisting of the opposition to every kind of dualism: “Kraft und Stoff, Geist und Mensch, Naturgesetz und Weltall sind immer und überall zugleich, ungleichartige Merkmale derselben naturnothwendige Einheit, aber einander nie entgegengesetzt, sich selbst bestimmend, sondern aus sich selbst, d.h. ihrer innersten Natur nach, bestimmt zur Bewegung und dadurch immer bewegt, Bewegung hervorrufend.”91

With this lecture, Moleschott introduced himself to his new Swiss students and colleagues as a scientist belonging to the current of materialism, but at the same time taking care to rule out all possible misunderstandings about the meaning of this word: he did not intend to deny the existence of Geist, in the same way as Copernicus did not deny the existence of the sun when he stated that the earth turns around it.92 As he had done in the Kreislauf, also in this opening lecture Moleschott defined human 87 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 31. 88 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 32-33. 89 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 33. 90 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 34. 91 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 34-35. 92 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 36.

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beings as “organs” of the “Kreislauf des Stoffes”, as indissoluble parts of the greater whole of nature.93 According to Moleschott, “artists, historians and statesmen, together with physicists and chemists”, also contribute to the study of “the whole of nature”;94 as we will see, the idea of the cooperation of all disciplines would be typical for his Italian speeches, especially the ones he gave as a Senator regarding the reform of higher education. Towards the end of the lecture, and after having stated that he understood his tasks not as destructive of old systems, but as constructive of a new generation of scientists, and after having publicly declared his love for teaching, Moleschott expressed his thankfulness towards Jacob Dubs, celebrating the freedom of research and teaching which Dubs had given back to him.95 Finally, at the end of the lecture, Moleschott addressed his students, thanking them for trusting in him and pleading for cooperation between students and teachers in the enterprise of scientific research.96 In his autobiography – which, we should remark, was written late in his life, when he was in Rome and he was publicly fighting for the “light of freethinking” – Moleschott presented his “Antrittsvorlesung” in Zürich as having, besides the specific scientific content, also an explicit political content: “Der Inhalt meiner Vorlesung war ‘Licht und Leben’. Er bot mir Gelegenheit, mich bei meinen allgemeinen Betrachtungen auf eigene Untersuchungen zu stützen, und zugleich klar und unumwunden für meine Ansichten einzutreten.”97 The topic of the lecture was not new to him: as a letter he sent to Ludwig Feuerbach shows, Moleschott was already doing experiments on the influence of light on organisms in 1853.98 But it was not only on the natural sciences that Moleschott’s studies focused in this period: in fact, in another letter to Feuerbach, Moleschott explained his views on philosophy and history. For him, philosophy should only exist as history of philosophy, whereas history should not be limited to the history of Western Europe, but become global history. This goes together with his interest in anthropology, in the ethnological observations of the English physician and anthropologist James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848), and the explorations of the natural scientist

93 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 37. 94 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 39. 95 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 41. 96 Moleschott, Licht und Leben, 42-43. 97 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 289. 98 Cf. Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Heidelberg, October 9, 1853), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 58.

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Georg Forster as a contribution to comparative study of the development of world history.99

C ONCLUSION Summing up, in contrast with his time in Heidelberg and in Italy, in Zürich Moleschott acted as a private citizen rather than as a public figure. There are at least three reasons why Moleschott had a relatively quiet life in Zürich, dedicated to science and to teaching at the university, not taking part – at least overtly – in political debates. First of all, the political climate in Switzerland was not the same as in the German states around 1848, and not like in Italy immediately after the unification either: after the foundation of the Helvetic Confederation in 1798, there had not been any major cases of political insubordination or social protests. The importance of Switzerland, and of Zürich in particular, for European politics rather rested on its being a secure place for exiled revolutionaries from the whole of Europe; that was the environment Moleschott frequented, becoming friends with Francesco De Sanctis, Filippo De Boni and Gottfried Semper. Second, Moleschott was not a Swiss national, and therefore did not have the political rights of a Swiss citizen. Third, and most important, the Erziehungsrath was advised to take special precautions with regard to Moleschott, in order to not let him cause the same problems which arose in Heidelberg: from the very beginning, the Board of Education was advised to take care that Moleschott should limit his activity to the scientific field, without trying to spread materialist ideas among his students and the public.100 However, it was exactly his stay in Zürich, and more precisely his friendship with De Sanctis, that provided the conditions for his moving to Italy and, therefore, for his future as a public figure, as well as for his political engagement and his academic career. Moreover, while working at the University of Zürich, Moleschott intensified his international relations with other scientists, being for instance the contact person between the scientists publishing in his journal, the Untersuchungen, and the publishing house in Giessen. For instance, the famous scientist Emil Du Bois-Reymond from 99

Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Feuerbach (Mainz, March 19, 1854), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 72-73.

100 Unknown [Virchow?] to “Mein theurer Freund” [Jacob Dubs?] (s.l., August 6, 1855): StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21: “[…] Moleschott, im Fall man seine Berufung betreiben wollte, eine Art Versprechen abzunehmen, sich strenge an seine wissenschaftliche Thätigkeit zu halten und seine Partei-propaganda bei Seite zu laßen. […]” (1856 N. 44). Cf. also A[lbert von] Kölliker to Mein lieber Herr! [Jacob Dubs?] (s.l., August 8, 1855): StAZH, U 106 c 1a 21 (1856 N. 44). Both letters contain considerations about Moleschott's being apt for becoming a professor of physiology in Zürich.

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Berlin wrote to him in order to solve some problems with the publisher Ferber in Giessen; in the same letter, he asked him to greet and keep in contact for him with other scientists working in Zürich.101 Also in Italy, Moleschott would take care of the contacts and agreements with the publishing house in Giessen.102 Scholars addressed him to have their work translated, to suggest works to be translated, and to ask for references, recommendations and advice. In a letter sent to Moleschott in 1853, Hermann von Helmholtz not only sent him his own publication on energy conservation, Über die Erhaltung der Kraft, and its English translation,103 but also suggested to him that he translate Franciscus Donders’s Handleiding tot de Natuurkunde van de gezonden Mensch, and, in case he should not have enough time, to convince a student to do so: “Sie haben sich früher mit der Übertragung von Mulders physiologischer Chemie aus dem Holländischen beschäftigt. Jetzt hat mir Donders den zweiten Theil eines sehr vortrefflichen Lesebuchs der Physiologie zugeschickt. Handleiding tot de Natuurkunde van de gezonden Mensch door Donders en Banduin Utrecht. van der Post Jr. 1853. Es erscheint mir sehr wünschenswerth daß eine gute deutsche Übersetzung davon herausgegeben werde, und wenn Sie nicht selbst Zeit und Lust zu hätten, würden Sie in Ihrer Gegend wohl eher jüngere Mediciner finden, die es ausführten, und sich von Ihnen beaufsichtigen ließen, als es hier möglich ist, wo das Holländische unter den Studenten und Ärzten ganz unbekannt ist. Ich glaube, Sie würden sich dadurch großen Dank verdienen.”104

This example shows how Moleschott played the role of intermediator between scientists in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, facilitating an international exchange of ideas. In this way, he was able to join scientific and social “capital”: as we will see in the next chapters, in Italy he would play the role of translator between the scientific and the political spheres, and would become a cultural mediator between nation-states.

101 Emil Du Bois-Reymond to Jacob Moleschott (Berlin, July 2, 1860): BCABo, FSM A IV 11 p 5 [Corrispondenza Emil Du Bois-Reymond]. 102 Giulio Bizzozero to Jacob Moleschott (Varese, September 11, 1871): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Giulio Bizzozero. 103 Hermann von Helmholtz, Über die Erhaltung der Kraft (Berlin: Reimer, 1847); the English translation was published as “On the Conservation of Force; A Physical Memoirˮ, in Scientific Memoirs, selected from the transactions of foreign academies of science, and from foreign journals. Natural Philosophy, ed. John Tyndall and William Francis (London: Taylor & Francis, 1853), 114-162. 104 Hermann von Helmholtz to Jacob Moleschott (Königsberg in Pr[eußen], February 6, 1853): BCABo, FSM, 13.17 (new).

Experimental Physiology in Turin and Popularization in the Kingdom of Italy, 1861-1878

“‘Lassen Sie mich den Staub von meinen Füßen schütteln und weiter ziehen!’ So lassen Sie mich mit Forster sagen und geben Sie Ihren Segen […].”1

M OLESCHOTT ’ S A RRIVAL TO

HIS

“A DOPTIVE F ATHERLAND ”

The abovementioned quote originates from a letter Moleschott wrote to Valentin short before leaving Switzerland for Turin. It shows that Moleschott’s high degree of mobility was not only an opportunistic strategy, but that he himself had reflected on this issue and that he was aware of the chances offered by his transnational mobility as a scientist. He had already expressed similar thoughts in a letter to his friend and colleague, the geologist and politician Otto Volger (1822-1897), when he left Zürich for Frankfurt; although praising the Swiss for their love for freedom and hoping that his friend would one day come back to Swizerland, Moleschott supported his choice with the following words: “Es ist ein ganz eigenthümlicher Vorzug, der den Menschen und ganz besonders den gelehrten Menschen der Pflanze gegenüber auszeichnet, daß er einige Male verpflanzt werden muß, damit seinen Genossen das Auge aufgeht, um seine Leistungen gehörig zu schätzen.Wir wollen es uns gefallen lassen im Hinblick darauf, daß nicht bloß die Anerkennung, sondern auch unser innerstes Wesen bei solcher Verpflanzung gewinnt, wenn nur die Verhältnisse, in die wir versetzt werden, unserem Streben nicht weniger angemessen sind. Und Sie wissen, wie fest von

1

Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Geneve, October 21, 1861): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65.

164 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY Anfang an meine Überzeugung stand, daß Sie sich in diesen Verhältnissen durch die Übersiedlung nach Frankfurt wesentlich verbessern würden. Ich glaube sogar allgemein, daß für jeden lebhaft strebenden Menschen eine Zeit kommt, in der er sich an dem Ort, der seine heißesten Kämpfe gesehen, ausgelebt hat und nur zu seinem großen Schaden länger an demselben weilt. Und an diesem Zeitpunkt wäre es Jedem [sic] zu wünschen, daß ein bedeutender äußerer Wechsel den Übergang von den Lehrjahren in die Wanderjahre bezeichnete. Sie fühlen, dass ich aus naher Erfahrung spreche und nur aus ihr den Muth schöpfe, solche weise Betrachtungen vor Ihr scharfsichtiges Auge zu bringen.”2

In this passage, Moleschott described the need for a new, inspiring and stimulating environment through a parallel with plants: both should be transplanted in certain situations, in order to foster their growth and their ambitions. He was conviced that there is a point in life when it is better to leave than to stay, when the intellectual development (from the “Lehrjahre” to the “Wanderjahre”, as he expressed it with Goethe) must be accompanied and fostered by an outer, geographical or spatial change, by a moving. The same metaphor occurs also in another letter to Volger, where Moleschott congratulated him for settling in Frankfurt with his family and compared great men to great plants, needing to be transplanted to another ground in order to grow well: “Wir nehmen aber an allem Guten, was Ihnen in Frankfurt widerfährt, um so herzlicher Antheil, als für uns eine freundschaftliche Genugthuung darin liegt, einen Boden, auf dem Ihr ganzes Wesen so glücklich gedeiht, als den Ihrigen erkannt zu haben. In den Beziehungen sind ja die menschlichen Einzelwesen ganzen Pflanzenarten vergleichbar. Jeder will seinen Boden haben, und wie es bei den edleren Topfpflanzen der Fall ist, diejenigen, welche am üppigsten wachsen, bedürfen Gelegenheit der Verpflanzung.”3

From these sentences, we can infer that Moleschott had his own views on the transantional mobility of intellectuals in his time and that he consciously adopted it as his career strategy, while at the same time supporting, at least with his words, other colleagues choosing the same path and migrating to other cities or countries.

2

Jacob Moleschott to Otto Volger (Zürich, January 5, 1857): Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, Hs-19761, [2]-[3].

3

Jacob Moleschott to Otto Volger (Zürich, April 23, 1857): Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, Hs-19761, [1]-[2].

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Moleschott’s arrival in Turin was quite sudden, although not unplanned: from the letter De Sanctis sent to him between the end of October and the beginning of November 1861,4 it is clear that Moleschott knew about the possibility of the appointment, even though not even De Sanctis could guarantee him that his attempts would succeed. In that letter, De Sanctis briefly announced to Moleschott that he had managed, as Minister of Public Education, to get him the Chair of Physiology in Turin, in spite of some opposition from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin. His predecessor, Secondo Berruti (1796-1870), had been placed in early retirement,5 and Moleschott was now to hurry to organize his own and his family’s move from Zürich to Turin and take care that his Italian should become good enough that he would be able to teach courses at the university by the winter term. At the beginning, De Sanctis had encountered some difficulties with Moleschott’s appointment, since some of the faculty members and members of the governmental Board of Education were against taking an action that would have as an implication placing Berruti in early retirement.6 However, on October 9, 1861, the Consiglio Superiore della Publica Istruzione (the Italian Board of Education) communicated that, on October 7, it had approved De Sanctis’s proposal to apply the art. 73 of the law on public education of November 13, 1859 to Moleschott’s case,7 recommending him to the king for appointment as 4

Francesco De Sanctis to Jacob Moleschott [s.l., end of October/beginning of November 1861], published in Carla De Pascale Carla and Alessandro Savorelli, “Lʼarchivio di Jakob Moleschott: con documenti inediti e lettere di F. de Sanctis, S. Tommasi, A.C. de Meis”. Giornale Critico Della Filosofia Italiana, 6 (1986), 2: 233-234 (Appendice, I. Una lettera di Francesco De Sanctis).

5

Cf. also Lettera ministeriale 90 (October 14, 1861). ASUT, VI 12. From this letter, we also learn that Berruti had gained the title of emeritus at the Faculty of Medicine (“Professore emerito della facoltà medica”).

6

Cf. De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 233; based on the letters

7

The art. 73 referred to the art. 69: whereas the latter allowed the Minister of Public Educa-

in Francesco De Sanctis, Epistolario (1861-1862) (Torino: Einaudi, 1969), 312. tion to recommend appointments to the king without the need for any public competition, those scholars who, “due to their work, discoveries, or teaching”, had obtained “merited fame” in their subject, the former article allowed on the one hand to increase their salary by up to double in order to prevent them from accepting more advantageous offers from other countries, and on the other hand it allowed a Faculty, in case it applied the art. 69, to make an exception to the number of ordinary professors normally foreseen for it. Briefly, the art. 69 and all articles related to it facilitated the formation of an academic elite, which could be appointed by the king upon proposal of the Minister of Public Education without having to participate in an open public competition (“concorso”). Cf. “Legge Casati” (Regio decreto legislativo n. 3725), November 13, 1859.

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Professor of Physiology at the University of Turin.8 On November 9, 1861, Moleschott was already in Turin, and De Sanctis could report his success to the politician Camillo De Meis, telling him that Moleschott had “already many friends” in Turin, and that, even after the opposition he had found at the beginning, everyone was happy about him.9 Through a decree, he was dispensed from taking the exams for obtaining the degree of medical doctor at the University of Turin, and his degree from the University of Heidelberg was recognized as valid.10 As is evident from a letter Moleschott sent to his friend Édouard Desor on October 21, 1861,11 from the late summer of 1861 at the latest he knew that De Sanctis was negotiating for his appointment. On August 29 he was appointed at Pisa, and on September 3 he was appointed as the Chair of Physiology at the University of Turin, but this appointment was confirmed only on October 7, 1861.12 From that moment on, he only had twelve days to organize everything: officially leaving the University of Zürich, saying goodbyes, making an inventory of the university laboratory, selling books and instruments, and packing everything, before finally traveling to Italy. In fact, on November 5, the lectures would start at the University of Turin, and De Sanctis had pressed several times because he wanted him to be ready for teaching by that date. Moleschott himself wanted to travel to Italy as soon as possible: first, because he had to cross the Alps with a ten-week-old child (the little Elisabeth, who died in 1867), and second, because he wanted to learn and practice Italian as much as possible before he had to start teaching in that language. All difficulties notwithstanding, Moleschott was glad to leave Zürich, he wrote to his friend Desor: there, what he taught had to be free from ideological elements, and he felt limited in his educational task – evidently, what Moleschott called the “ideal” was for him an essential part of his activity as a teacher and as a popularizer of materialist science. Last but not least, Moleschott was happy about the salary: as he explained to his friend, he would have

8

Consiglio Superiore di Pubblica Istruzione (Turin, October 9, 1861). Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Roma: Cartella Numero 42, M[inistero] P[ubblica] Istruzione – Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396 [Giacomo Moleschott].

9

Cf. De Sanctis, Epistolario (1861-1862), 351, quoted in De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 233.

10 Cf. ASUT, Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1864-65 IV.3 (Posizione IV: Facoltà Medico-chirurgica; Professori ordinari). 11 Jacob Moleschott to Édouard Desor (Geneva, October 21, 1861). AEN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 55. 12 De Sanctis had probably confused physiology with psychology when he wrote about appointing Moleschott for the Chair of “experimental psychology” at the University of Turin. Cf. De Sanctis, Epistolario (1861-1862), 344, quoted in De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 233.

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an extra annual salary as director of the laboratory of physiology, he would enjoy the right to work as a physician, and his wife could get a pension in case he should die. Thus, Moleschott was aware that moving to a country whose language he had just started to learn, and doing so with his family, was quite a challenge; however, he promptly accepted De Sanctis’s proposal because it presented very attractive advantages. We might suppose that, when he was in Switzerland, De Sanctis had told Moleschott that, if the national unity should succeed, he would do his best to take him to Italy. In fact, in the perspective of an exiled revolutionary such as De Sanctis, Moleschott fell under the category of intellectuals that the newly established nation, Italy, would need: Moleschott was in favor of freethinking, was anti-clerical, and had the reputation of being an atheist. What is more, he opposed traditional religious conceptions based on what he presented as scientific facts: for Moleschott, as for many scientists at that time,13 science had the task of educating regarding ethical and political values, and Moleschott might have appeared as the perfect popularizer for the new nation. As far as his scientific and academic activity were concerned, Moleschott saw his moving to Italy as a clear improvement: not only did he have an ordinary professorship in one of the main universities of the country (Italian universities were classified as “università primarie”, the most important ones, and “università secondarie”, and Turin belonged to the first category), but he was also responsible for the establishment of a laboratory of physiology, a completely new laboratory which he had the honor to create and direct. As he would write later on to the mayor of Florence and superintendent of the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence in 1877 (when, as we will see, he was interested in the vacant position of Moritz Schiff), the laboratory in Turin was very poorly equipped when he arrived there, and he had to spend a lot of time in order to improve its conditions.14 However, his work was not limited to academia: he practiced as a physician and had both illustrious and common patients, both Italian and from abroad, both regular patients and patients who were in Italy only for a short period of time or for a journey. Moleschott was an internationally renowned physician, counting among his patients, for instance, the Austrian countess Hildeprandt, a contact provided thanks to the intermediation of Sophie: when the Englishman George Thomas, alias George Treherne, asked whether someone could recommend for him a good doctor for his

13 This was a common feature with German popularization, e.g. by Rudolf Virchow and Ernst Haeckel: cf. Peter J. Bowler, “Popular Science”, chapter 33 of The Cambridge History of Science, ed. by Peter J. Bowler and John V. Pickstone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 622-634, here 626. 14 Jacob Moleschott to Ubaldino Peruzzi (Turin, March 5, 1877), published in De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 239.

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mother-in-law, the countess Hildeprandt, she suggested that he try her husband.15 Such patients not only continued to ask him for advice even after his moving to Italy, but also became closer friends of the Moleschott family than they were before: in this way, the Moleschotts often spent time at the Hildeprandt’s castle at the Bodensee, where the children of their respective families could play with each other.16 Thus, not only Moleschott’s scientific activity, but also his practice as a physician had no borders: the architect Gottfried Semper, whom he helped in getting the commission for the project of the Polytechnic in Zürich, was among his patients in 1879.17 These examples show that Jacob Moleschott’s practice as a physician was part of a broad social “field”, where the borders between the professional, the private, and the political are rather blurred than clearly identifiable. Among Moleschott’s activities, we should also mention his being a member of the selection committees for the appointment of Professors of Physiology in several universities of the kingdom; for instance, in 1864 he was one of the members of the selection committee for the Chair of Physiology at the University of Pavia. What occurred that time was the object of long discussions in Italian medical journals: in fact, Moleschott had given a negative judgement about Filippo Lussana (1820-1897, from 1867 he worked at the University of Padua), who had applied for the position together with Luigi Vella and Eusebio Oehls, but the committee had finally favored Lussana anyway, giving him the highest number of points. As a result, Moleschott and Salvatore Tommasi (Molschott’s friend and a member of the same committee) left the committee, nullifying in that way the work done by it.18 Moleschott’s friends helped him to keep in contact with the German public opinion: in this way, for instance, the German readers were informed about Moleschott’s successes by an article written by the journalist and economist Max Wirth,19 whom

15 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 306. 16 On the relationship with George Treherne and the Hildeprandt family, cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 305-308. Apparently, George Thomas Treherne would have even hosted the Moleschotts in his castle until Moleschott should find a suitable position, if he had not obtained the position in Zürich. 17 Cf. BCABo, FSM, “Schede cliniche”, January 1879. 18 Cf. De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 239; they also report that the journal Gazzetta medica italiana. Lombardia offered a place for the polemics (XXIII, serie V, vol. III (1864), 259, 267, 281 ff., 285 ff., 291, 293, 299, 301 ff., 305-306, 321 ff., 345, 259 ff. On Moleschott’s academic activity in Turin, cf. also Paola Rumore, “Jakob Moleschott negli anni della docenza torinese”. Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 565-576. 19 Max Wirth (Breslau 1822 – Vienna 1900) had studied law and political economy at Heidelberg before becoming a journalist in Frankfurt; later, he was the director of the Swiss

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Moleschott had met in Heidelberg. In fact, Max Wirth belonged to the same circle of liberal intellectuals as Moleschott: during one winter, they used to meet in the “secret” (“heimlich”) vaults of the cellar of the castle of Heidelberg, discuss political questions, and then have a night walk in the snow. In his autobiography, Moleschott commented: “Wir waren alle durchaus freisinnig, aber keine Verschwörer”.20 Evidently, Wirth was also concerned about the development of his friend’s career several years later and took care in informing the German-speaking audience about his success in Italy – presenting it, at the same time, as the success of liberal ideas. The article was sent to Moleschott by Max Wirth himself, saying of Moleschott that he had not only become professor in Turin, but was also appointed in the order of Saint Maurice and Lazarus “for his scientific merits”. At the end, the article did not miss the opportunity to comment about the “intolerance” of the German universities, which had refused a talented scholar who was now honored abroad: “Turin, 10. April. König Victor Emanuel hat den berühmten Physiologen Professor Dr. Jacob Moleschott, welcher im vorigen Herbste dem Rufe an die hiesige Universität gefolgt war, das italienische Bürgerrecht geschenkt und denselben außerdem ʽin Berücksichtigung seiner wissenschaftlichen Verdiensteʼ zum Ritter des Ordens des h. Mauricius und des. h. Lazarus ernannt. So weiß das Ausland ein Verdienst zu ehren, das Intoleranz vom deutschen Lehrstuhl vertrieben!ˮ21

This article came to Moleschott attached to a letter from Max Wirth, in which Wirth was at the same time admiring Moleschott’s ability to speak Italian like a native speaker and thanking him for being the contact person between him and the Italian philologist and politician Ruggiero Bonghi (1826-1895).22 However, this was not the only case when Moleschott should bring academics into contact with each other and Statistical Bureau (1865-1873), and eventually moved to Vienna, where he was the correspondent for The Economist. He published books on political economy (Grundzüge der Nationalökonomie, 4 vols., 1855-1873) and on the history of economic crises (Geschichte der Handelskrisen, 1858). His father, Johann Georg August Wirth, was a politically engaged democrat and organized the Hambacher Fest in 1832. Cf. Fritz Hagmann, 100 Jahre Eidgenössisches Statistisches Amt 1860-1960. Biographische Skizzen über die früheren Direktoren (Bern: Bundesamt für Statistik, 1960), 3. 20 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 110. 21 Max Wirth to Jacob Moleschott (Frankfurt, April 27, 1862): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Max Wirth. It has not been possible to find out where the article was published, specifically whether it was published in the Frankfurter Zeitung. 22 Wirth asked Moleschott for recommendations and contacts (e.g. how to register a trade mark in Italy) also in two other letters: Max Wirth to Moleschott (Bern, August 30, 1865 and November 10, 1865): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Max Wirth.

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facilitate their scholarly and professional contacts in Italy: for example, in the same year, the famous Austro-Hungarian physician and discoverer of puerperal fever, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss (1818-1865), asked him for some information about a competition for medical research papers he wanted to participate in.23 This also worked the other way around, since Moleschott had also helped Italian scholars in their contacts with the German academic environment: already in 1860, the physician and later Moleschott’s colleague at the Senate in the Commissione Sanitaria, Salvatore Tommasi, asked him about the scientific state of research in Germany and the “opinion” of German scientists on certain parts of the nervous system.24 These examples testify to Moleschott’s ability to keep in contact with his German and Swiss colleagues, and at the same time in connecting some of these scholars with Italian institutions. For instance, Moleschott was responsible for bringing foreign scholars into contact with the Academy of Science in Turin. A letter sent by Moleschott to the philologist, Egyptologist, and historian Julius Braun (1825-1869) is a good example of this role of mediator he had in Turin, and at the same time shows the important role of interfamilial relationships in the contacts between Moleschott and other scholars. Once more, it was the Strecker family that had a mediating function between them, as we can see from the following passages: “Lieber Braun, ich habe es bis heute verschoben, Ihnen für Ihr schönes und lehrreiches Geschenk zu danken, weil ich mit meinem herzlichen Dank die Nachricht über die Verwendung des 2ten Exemplars Ihrer Naturgeschichte der Sage verbinden wollte. Ihrem mit diesem 2ten Exemplar mir erwiesenen Vertrauen glaubte ich am besten zu entsprechen, indem ich dasselbe in Ihrem Namen der hiesigen Akademie der Wissenschaften darbot. […] So war mir eine große Freude ein Lebenszeichen von Ihnen zu erhalten, ein glückliches Lebenszeichen war einem Ehrendenkmal begleitet, und dies nicht bloß mir, sondern auch meiner Frau und meiner Schwiegermutter. Letztere, die das Winter bei uns verbringt, hat uns – ebenso wie meine Schwägerin – so viel Liebes und Treffliches von Ihnen und von Ihrer lieben Frau erzählt, daß wir dieselbe nicht bloß um Ihretwillen zu dem Streife unserer liebsten Freunden zählen möchten. Daher bitten wir alle drei ihr auf das beste empfohlen zu werden, und die Damen fügen für Sie Ihre freundlichsten Grüße bei. […]ˮ25 23 At this time, the author of the letter is catalogued as “Semmelweiss” [sic]: almost certainly, it was Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, who sent the letter to Moleschott from Pest. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis to Jacob Moleschott (Pest [?], September 28, 1862): BCABo, FSM, 20.21 (new). 24 Salvatore Tommasi to Jacob Moleschott (Pavia, November 5, 1861): BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Salvatore Tommasi. 25 Jacob Moleschott to Julius Braun (Turin, January 4, 1865): Staatsbibliothek München, Halmiana VII, [1]-[2].

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From the ending of the letter, we can understand that Moleschott sent Braun one of his opening lectures (probably, either L’unità della vita from November 1863, or Un’ambasicata fisiologica from March 1864, less probably Fisiologia e medicina from November 1864, perhaps in their German translation) and a photo of himself. These lines are a perfect example of how Moleschott combined scientific communication with familial contacts, and of how he perfectly managed to transform the social “capital” of his family relationships into scholarly, transnational “capital”. Another example of Moleschott’s role of mediator between the Accademia delle Scienze in Turin and foreign scholars appears in a letter he wrote to the famous naturalist Karl Ernst von Baer,26 to whom he preannounced through a private letter that he had been nominated as a foreign member of the academy.27 The idea of the appointment of Ernst von Baer was Moleschott’s friend and colleague’s, Filippo De Filippi (18141867), Professor of Zoology and Compared Anatomy in Turin.28 However, since De Filippi was occupied with a research expedition sailing around the word, Moleschott had the honor of making the proposal within the academy. As we can discern from the letter, Moleschott had met von Baer in Zürich,29 and he was going to occupy the

26 Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) was a naturalist, geographer, zoologist and embryologist. He studied at the Prussian University of Dorpat (now Tartu, in Estonia) and carried on his most significant scientific research while in Königsberg, but was a member in many academies worldwide (e.g. the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg, the Prussian Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences). On his scientific work in the context of nineteenth-century history of biology, cf. Ortrun Riha and Thomas Schmuck, “Das allgemeinste Gesetzˮ. Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876) und die großen Diskurse des 19. Jahrhunderts (Aachen: Shaker, 2011), specifically on the critique of materialism, page 144. 27 Jacob Moleschott to Karl Ernst von Baer (Turin, December 25, 1865): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Nachlass Baer, Briefe, Bd. 16. 28 After De Filippi’s death in 1867, Moleschott gave a speech in his memory at the Academy of the Sciences of Turin, which was printed in the proceedings of the academy as: Jacob Moleschott, “Commemorazione del prof. Filippo De Filippi, con elenco de’ suoi lavori.” Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 3 (1867): 431-453. 29 Jacob Moleschott to Karl Ernst von Baer (Turin, December 25, 1865): Handschriften-abteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Nachlass Baer, Briefe, Bd. 16: “Um nicht ganz mit leeren Händen vor Ihnen zu erscheinen, da Sie mir vor einigen Jahren durch Ihren Besuch in Zürich eine so große Freude bereitet haben, füge ich unter Kreuzband eine antropologische [sic: possibly, this mistake shows the influence of the Italian language on Moleschott’s writing in German, L.M.] Mitteilung bei, die nur kurz gefaßte Resultate einer Arbeit enthält, die ich Ihnen in einigen Wochen zu senden hoffe: Stoppeln vor dem / Felde, auf welchem Sie allen Nachfolgern die schönste Ärnte [sic] vorweggenommen.ˮ On Moleschott’s admiration towards von Baer, cf. Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 92; on Berzelius, 86 and

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place of Tiedemann as an external member of the academy. Together with the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and the chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Moleschott considered him as one of the scientists who had most greatly influenced him. This statement made by Moleschott is significant with regard to nineteenth-century positions in biology, because both von Baer and Berzelius (1779-1848) were supporters of teleological and vitalist views, thus presupposing respectively a design or a vital force in organisms;30 as we will see, in his lectures Moleschott rejected vitalism and teleology as a design external to nature itself – but recognized the existence of an immanent order in organisms and nature. As far as his family life is concerned, the Moleschott family soon got acquainted with the new milieu: in a letter to Auerbach dating from July 1863, Moleschott narrated his present situation, focusing on the progress of his children. Karl attended the Gymnasium and was about to overcome the difficulties of the new language, and little Maria was the first in her class in spite of these difficulties: “Auch ich kann von meinen Kindern guten Bericht geben. Karl, der nun schon zwölf Jahre zählt, besucht das Gymnasium und ist nahe daran die Schwierigkeiten, welche das neue Medium der Italienischen Sprache ihm in den Weg legte, überwunden zu haben. Mariachen, die zehn Jahre alt ist, ist trotz jener Schwierigkeiten die erste ihrer Klasse […].ˮ31

Moleschottʼs family was an intercultural and multilingual family, in which the members of the family were themselves mediators and translators, and where many languages were present at once. Sophie was the one who took the longest to get used to the new environment, something which Moleschott explained as being typical for her “urdeutsch” character and the difficult conditions of the move; anyway, he underlined that her “love towards the German fatherland” had been strengthened, and that now they were both following the political events in Germany with much interest: “Sophie, die sich mit ihrem urdeutschen Gemüth anfangs in das hiesige Leben nicht finden konnte, hauptsächlich weil sie in sehr angegriffenem Zustande die Übersiedlung durchmachen mußte, hat sich jetzt nicht bloß eingelebt, sondern ich darf sagen, daß sie die neuen Zustände beherrscht. Die neuen Beziehungen und Erlebnisse bereichern nicht bloß ihr Verhältniß zur

116 (apparently, Humboldt told Moleschott that Berzelius had appreciated Moleschott’s awarded essay against Liebig). 30 On Humboldt’s and von Baer’s teleomechanism, cf. L.T.G. Theunissen and R.P.W. Visser, De wetten van het leven: historische grondslagen van de biologie, 1750-1950 (Baarn: Ambo, 1996), 63-66. 31 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Turin, July 23, 1863): DLA Marbach, Z3430/8 (microfiche).

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Welt im Allgemeinen, sondern auch ihre Liebe zur Deutschen Heimath, deren Geschichte wir mit schmerzensreichen Wünschen verfolgen.ˮ32

Moleschott’s interest in German politics was not the only element of continuity with his life in German-speaking areas: in fact, book projects also still connected him to his German-speaking audience, and the contacts with his German publishing houses were still active. In particular, Moleschott was still working on his great popularizing work, the Anthropologie: in fact, in the same letter, he told Auerbach that he wanted to continue working on that book.33 At the same time, he sketched in a very interesting way his perception of the process of learning a new language in that stage of his life (when he moved to Turin, Moleschott was thirty-seven years old, and when he wrote this letter to Auerbach, he was thirty-nine), giving lectures and speeches in that language. As we can read in the following lines, Moleschott was aware of the consequences that such a process of translation was having not only on the form – considered by Moleschott a highly important factor, as he made clear in this letter as well – but also on the very content of his knowledge (he used the nominal form of the verb “umgießen”, therefore metaphorically implying that the content, in such a process, takes a new form): “Ich will diese Ferien an meiner Anthropologie fortarbeiten, die in der letzten Zeit sehr langsam Fortschritt[e] gemacht hat. Es ist aber keine Kleinigkeit, wenn ein Mann, der schon das 39. Jahr zurückgelegt hat und dem die Form sehr ans Herz [!] gewachsen ist, dazu schreiten muß in einer neuen Sprache eine schwierige und für das betreffende Land beinahe neue Wissenschaft zu lehren. Das hat mich manches Zeitopfer gekostet. Aber ich beklage es nicht. Denn zu allernächst hat sich bei dieser Arbeit des Umgießens [!] in mir selber mancher Stoff abgeklärt und Manches was man so in geprägter Form als Schulballast mitschleppt ist als Schlacke hinweggeworfen worden. Sondern ist es ein reicher Genuß sich in Italienische Cultur mit tiefem Bewußtsein einzuleben: ist sie es doch, die das classische Alterthum mit unserer modernen Bildung verknüpft, und die goldenen Wurzeln unserer Entwicklungsgeschichte, die da so üppig ins Mittelalter hineinreichen, sind mir erst zu ächtem, sinnlichem Leben aufgegangen, seit ich Italienisch lese. Du mußt wissen, daß ich absichtlich nie eine Zeile der Italienischen Dichter in Übersetzungen gelesen hatte.ˮ34

During this process, Moleschott argued, he was able to get rid of some of the old concepts he had learned at school, which were not useful for him anymore; moreover, he enjoyed “consciously appropriating Italian culture”, which he saw as the connecting link between ancient classical culture and “modern education” (in the sense of 32 Ibidem. 33 Ibidem. 34 Ibidem.

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“Bildung”). In this letter, Moleschott also told his friend, as he would publicly declare during a Senate speech twenty-five years later, in 1888,35 that he had never read a single line of Italian poetry in its translation, since he wanted to read it in the original language (when speaking about “roots which reach back into the medieval time”, Moleschott was referring to the so-called “national” poet Dante Alighieri). Finally, Moleschott communicated to his German friend what a high reputation “German science and literature” enjoyed in Italy at that time: he really admired the Italian intellectuals for that because he thought that the German language should be very difficult to learn for a Latin folk (Moleschott used the term “Romanische Rasse”, where “Rasse” evidently did not bear any negative connotation, but had a neutral meaning): “Die Achtung, welche deutsche Wissenschaft und deutsche Litteratur [sic] hier genießen, grenzt ans Unglaubliche, zumal wenn man bedenkt, wie schwer es der Romanischen Rasse wird, die deutsche Sprache zu erlernen. Die besten Männer, diejenige welche zur Entwicklung des geistigen Lebens am mächtigsten beitragen, sind von deutscher Bildung genährt und haben einen festen und innigen Zusammenhang mit dem was in Deutschland geleistet wird.ˮ36

Interestingly, Moleschott himself recognized that, precisely because of the admiration of the Italians towards German culture, he had gotten enormous advantages in his current position. The only thing he did not like was that there were not enough qualified research assistants, but he was confident that the situation would improve, since he considered the Italian youth as being “extremely talented”: “Du kannst dir denken, wie viel[e] Vortheile daraus meiner hiesigen Stellung erwachsen und wie dankbar sie ist. Leider ist die Zahl der Arbeiter klein und groß noch die Legion derer, welche eitle Bespiegelung der mühsamen Forschung vorziehen. Aber es wird schon besser werden, die Jugend sucht den besten Weg und sie ist außerordentlich begabt.ˮ37

As we will see in the next chapter, Moleschott expressed the same positive opinion about the talent of the younger generations of the kingdom not only in his private correspondence with Auerbach, but also publicly, during a Senate speech on the reform of higher education about fifteen years later.

35 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2641. 36 Jacob Moleschott to Berthold Auerbach (Turin, July 23, 1863): DLA Marbach, Z3430/8 (microfiche). 37 Ibidem.

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If we try to imagine how Moleschott’s life looked like outside of academia and public life, we should keep in mind that music had great importance at his house: both he and Sophie could play the piano, and they often played four-hands pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn.38 The children also received musical education, and especially Maria would spend a long time delightfully playing the piano.39 Moleschott was a great admirer of Beethoven, whom, in his Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, he defined as classical, whereas the music of Richard Wagner, whom he had personally met in Zürich, he considered to be “Romantic”, and thus due to be surpassed by other genres.40 The correspondence with the pianist and composer Clara Schumann (18191896), the wife of Robert Schumann, for instance, comprising four letters written in the period between November 29, 1868, and September 22, 1872, shows that the Moleschotts had a very friendly relationship with her: for instance, she thanked Moleschott for his medical advice concerning the illness of her daughter Julie (18451872).41 His interest in music and his profound knowledge of this subject is also evident from a letter he wrote to Bertha Cornelius (1834-1904), the wife of the composer Peter Cornelius, in 1890: there, he compared Cornelius’ “Lieder” to Goethe’s and suggested that they be sung by a mezzo soprano.42 As far as the relation with his colleagues was concerned, we can infer that Moleschott liked it better in Turin than in Zürich: both in Turin and in Zürich the Faculty did not approve his appointment, but in Turin he was soon surrounded by scientists and intellectuals who had similar thoughts and the same educational mission: they were liberal and they were proud to contribute to the national cultural unification. In this sense, we can compare the situation in Italy to the one Moleschott had experienced in Heidelberg during the years of his studies; but whereas in Heidelberg the revolution had not succeeded and the German nation-state was still to come, Turin 38 Moleschott to Franciscus Cornelis Donders (Turin, December 17, 1863): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 133. Cf. also the drafts of the letters Moleschott sent to Herrmann Hettner, in which he often described the pieces played at his house and his taste for music: BCABo, FSM, 40.3 (new). 39 Moleschott to Donders (Turin, December 17, 1863): UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties, E.f. 133. In the letter, Moleschott tells Donders also about the progress of his children, their education, and their facility in learning the new language. 40 Jacob Moleschott, Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth, 87-88. 41 [Clara] Schumann to Jacob Moleschott (Vienna, November 29, 1868): BCABo, FSM, 19.42 (new). 42 Jacob Moleschott to Bertha Cornelius (Rome, July 14, 1890): Universitätsbibliothek Mainz (Dauerleihgabe in der Wissenschaftlichen Stadtbibliothek Mainz), Peter-Cornelius-Archiv, PCA B XXXI Mj 3.

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had just become the capital of a new nation. Despite the success of the unification, however, the process of nation-building had just begun, and the so-called “real unification” was still to be achieved. It is precisely in this context that Moleschott and his colleagues had a highly important role, namely that of educating the new nation. Scientists were at the forefront of this educating mission, and Moleschott, with his experience in popularization, his anti-clerical views, and his conception of science as the basis for social progress, was the perfect scientist and popularizer for Italy at that moment.43 Regarding the cultural and urban milieu, Turin was a highly interesting city: there were important Jewish and Valdese communities, both very active in the cultural life of Turin and playing an important economic role in the city since 1848, when king Carlo Alberto had decreed that religions other than Catholicism would be tolerated in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia.44 It is probably due to these favorable conditions, and to the fact that Moleschott himself was proud of the task which was given to him, that he always overcame the difficulties related to directing a laboratory of physiology with a low budget, expressing himself in a new language (of which he anyway soon became nearly a native speaker) and being accepted as an Italian citizen. Concerning the laboratory at the University of Turin, Moleschott wrote in a letter to the politician and writer Carl Mayer der Jüngere (1819-1889), who, apparently, had made suggestions to him or given him advice concerning the order of materials or instruments for the lab, the following ironic lines, in which he compared the finances of the laboratory with those of the king of Italy:

43 On the “education of the Italians” as a political program, cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 1818-1901: from nation to nationalism, 4-5. On the cultural élite in Turin and their nationalist engagement, cf. Silvano Montaldo, “L’università e le accademie”, in Da capitale politica a capitale industriale (1864-1915), ed.Umberto Levra, vol. 7 of Storia di Torino (Torino: Einaudi: 2001), 727-791. The research on the role of scientists as popularizers and “educators” of the newly established Italian nation is quite scarce; cf. e.g. Paola Govoni, “Dalla scienza popolare alla divulgazione. Scienziati e pubblico in età liberale”, in Scienza e cultura dell’Italia unita, ed. Francesco Cassata and Claudio Pogliano, Annali 26 of the Storia d’Italia (Torino: Einaudi, 2011), 65-81. 44 Cf. Umberto Levra (ed.), Da capitale politica a capitale industriale (1864-1915), vol. 7 of Storia di Torino (Torino: Einaudi: 2001), especially the Introduction by Umberto Levra, “Dalla città “decapitalizzata” alla città del Novecento”, XIX-CLXI; on the university and the academies of Turin, in the same volume, Silvano Montaldo, “L’università e le accademie”, 727-791. On the various religious movements in the city, cf. above all the following contributions: Fabio Levi, “Emancipazione e identità ebraica”, in La città nel Risorgimento (1798-1864), vol. 6 of Storia di Torino, ed. by Umberto Levra, 857-867; Augusto Comba, “I Valdesi”, in La città nel Risorgimento, 839-856; Augusto Comba, “La massoneria”, in Da capitale politica a capitale industriale, 249-275.

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“Von meiner Laboratoriumskasse muß ich leider das Nämliche sagen wie von der Königlichen. Bei der ersten Einrichtung bin ich genöthigt gewesen über mein Budget hinauszugreifen, um das Gleichgewicht zwischen Einnahmen und Ausgaben herzustellen. Ich werde aber Ihren Wink hinsichtlich etwaiger Bestellungen nicht vergessen.ˮ45

Until the end of his life, Moleschott had to fight for adequate financing of university labs, specifically of the physiological laboratories for which he was responsible: this happened in all of the universities in which he worked. At the beginning of his career in Turin, he was extremely glad to have his own laboratory; however, he soon realized that the means at his disposal were far too miserable with regard to both his teaching and his research activities. In some documents about the laboratory of physiology, Moleschott communicated to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin that 2000 Lire (to be read: per year) was far too little money to buy all that was necessary for a functioning laboratory. A laboratory of physiology, he argued, not only needed all kinds of instruments from the domains of physics, chemistry, anatomy, and microscopy, but also animals and everything which was required for the experiments of a scientific discipline that reached “from physics and chemistry to zoology and anthropology, to descriptive and micrographic anatomy”. The material needs of such a laboratory, he argued, were greater than those of a laboratory of physics, since it also needed the instruments of a chemical lab; they were greater than the needs of a chemical laboratory, since it also needed the instruments of a physical lab; in addition, it needed some of the instruments of laboratories of comparative human and animal anatomy (both physiological and pathological anatomy).46 Above all, since the beginning Moleschott held the budget of the physiological laboratory to be inadequate, and requested that the university increase it, due to the fact that its technical equipment always needed to be updated and broadened.47 In spite of all difficulties, in his autobiography Moleschott described his arrival in Italy and what was expected of him there in a very positive way: “Man übertreibt sicherlich nicht, wenn man von den anmutigen Formen und der bequemen Lebens-

45 Jacob Moleschott to Car Mayer d[er] Jüngere (Turin, August 13, 1863): DLA Marbach, A: Mayer, C. d. J., 56.603, [2]. 46 Cf. the request by Jacob Moleschott to the Rector of the University of Turin (Turin, December 28, 1867): ASUT, Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1867 VIII.8 (Posizione VIII: Stabilimenti scientifici; Laboratorio fisiologico). Moleschott was asking for quite basic things, such as wood for the fire, repairing the building, and buying instruments. Cf. also ASUT, Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1868 VIII.7. 47 Jacob Moleschott to the Rector (Turin, April 26, 1867, August 11, 1867, and December 20, 1867), as well as Moriggia (for Moleschott) to the “Economo” (Turin, February 1, 1867): ASUT Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1867, VIII.8, “Laboratorio fisiologico”.

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weise der Italiener spricht.” Of course, this was at the same time a positive representation of Italy for the German audience of his autobiography; at the same time, however, Moleschott explained why he liked it in Italy, describing the features of his Italian life at his arrival in Turin: “ein anständiges Auskommen, mäßige Anstrengung durch offizielle Pflichten, eine nette Praxis”.48 In fact, in his Italian years, Moleschott was very active as a physician – most of his patients belonged to the cultural, scientific, and political establishment. As far as his scientific research was concerned, he continued his studies on the nerves and on the bile and studied the growth and the water content of nails and other corneous tissues. He also continued with his research on nerves and the nervous system, as well as on embryology. If we consider a list of his publications from 1862 until 1879, the year in which he was appointed professor in Rome, we can observe that, mostly, he published articles on the same topics both in Italy and in Germany (in his journal, the Untersuchungen), an example of the formation of a transnational scientific audience.49 Throughout his career, Moleschott not only broadened his transnational networks and audience, but he also managed to improve his financial “capital”. In fact, his financial situation right before being appointed in Turin was not ideal, and in 1860 he had borrowed 1000 francs from his friend, the geologist Edouard Desor in Neuchâtel.50 In the same year, he had also borrowed some money from his friend van Deen: the Moleschotts had asked for 500 guldens, but van Deen could only lend them 200 (even in this case, it was Sophie who wrote him a letter asking for the loan).51 However, with his appointment, the situation improved, and Moleschott could pay back his debt to Desor.52 Upon his arrival in Turin, on October 10, 1861, Moleschott 48 Jacob Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 302; Cf. also Hagelgans, Jakob Moleschott als Physiologe, 15. 49 After his arrival in Turin, Moleschott’s research publications were very numerous, and most of the articles appeared in more than one language (mostly, in Italian and German). As an example, I will mention Sulla preparazione e conservazione dell’epitelio vibratile (with G. Piso-Borme) (Torino: V. Vercellino, 1871), published in German as “Über die Darstellungsweise und die Aufbewahrung des Flimmerepithels”. Untersuchungen, 11 (1873): 99-103 (with G. Piso-Borme). Or “Sugli effetti emodinamici della recisione dei nervi pneumogastrici”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 8 (1873): 691711, German version: “Über den Blutdruck nach Vagusdurchschneidung”. Untersuchungen, 11 (1876): 310-326. 50 Édouard Desor to Jacob Moleschott (Neuchâtel, January 23, 1860), enclosed “Schuldschein” for 1000 Francs, dated Janaury 25, 1860: BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Édouard Desor. 51 J[an] [most probably, it is Izaac, and not Jan as written in the actual catalogue] van Deen to Jacob Moleschott (Groningen, January 2, 1860): BCABo, FSM, 9.15 (new). 52 BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Édouard Desor.

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earned 4200 Lire per year; two years later, on February 6, 1862, his income as a professor was 5250 Lire, one year later 6750 Lire; moreover, since the beginning of his appointment, he earned 800 Lire as a director of the laboratory of physiology, and 600 Lire as a member of the Academy of Science in Turin. From 1864 to 1866, he was an ordinary member of the Consiglio Superiore di Sanità (Public Health Council), and later on, an extraordinary member.53 In that period, therefore, he had already started to join scientific and political activity through his role as an expert (the Consiglio Superiore di Sanità was an institution of the state for governing issues related to public health and hygiene). As far as his tasks at the Faculty of Medicine were concerned, Moleschott was appointed as a member of the examination committee, deciding who would become aggregate (“Aggr[egato]”) doctor of the Faculty of Medicine.54 In addition to that, Moleschott was part of the examination committee, conferring the title of medical doctor (“esami di laurea”).55 Regarding his honorary titles, he was appointed member of the Order of S. Maurice and Lazarus on March 30, 1862.56 Moleschott’s popularizing activity in Italy began with his first opening lecture in Turin, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita.57 This was the first of a long series: 53 Cf. Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169. As far as his initial stipend as a professor in Turin (4200 Lire) and as a director of the physiological lab is concerned, cf. also the document attesting to his appointment signed by King Victor Emmanuel and by the Minister of Public Education Francesco de Sanctis (Turin, October 10, 1861): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. In addition, cf. the letter sent by the Minister to the University of Turin on October 14, 1861): “Lettera ministeriale N° 90”. ASUT, VI 12 (“Il Sig.r Giacomo Moleschott è stato nominato Professore di Fisiologia e Direttore del Relativo Gabinetto”). Also the documents in ASUT, XIV 57, classe 1 fascicolo 3, confirm these data: cf. letter from the Minister on Moleschott’s stipend (April 29, 1878), as well as a letter by the Rector to the Minister (March 5, 1878). 54 Letter by the Minister of Public Education (June 27, 1862): “Lettera ministeriale 12”. ASUT, VI 13. 55 Letter by the Rector of the University of Turin (July 3, 1876): “Commissione per gli Esami di Laurea”. ASUT, XIV B 49 classe IV fascicolo 1. 56 The Minister, Antonio Brioschi (April 1, 1862): “Nomina nellʼOrdine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro”. ASUT, Corrispondenza - XIV A 13. 57 Jacob Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita: prima prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 16 dicembre 1861 (Torino: Loescher, 1862). As we will see in the last chapter, his first lecture was almost immediately translated into German and Dutch, respectively under the titles Zur Erforschung des Lebens: Rede beim Antritt der Professur für Physiologie an der Hochschule zu Turin. Gehalten am 16. December 1861 (Giessen: Roth, 1861) and Iets over

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in fact, every year Moleschott would give an opening lecture for the course in experimental physiology, which would then be published separately, whereas from 1867 his lectures were also available as a collection. In this way, he was setting forth on the work he had started in Germany: popularizing science and, at the same time, spreading ideas in favor of secularization, of national unity, and of the primacy of science over religion and speculative philosophy. His audience reached also beyond the university and beyond the readers of his lectures: for instance, he gave the popularizing lecture Un’ambasciata fisiologica esposta nella società torinese per letture scientifiche e letterarie, il dì 21 marzo 1864 (Torino: Loescher, 1864). In the same year, his lecture was translated into German as Eine Physiologische Sendung: in der Turiner Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche und litterarische Vorlesungen am 21. März 1864 vorgetragen (Giessen: Roth, 1864), as well as into Dutch as Eene physiologische zending (Rotterdam: 1864). At the same time, he had an intensely active period of publication of scientific articles, especially in German, in the Untersuchungen, of which he was the editor. His first scientific article in Italian, in co-authorship with G. Piso-Borme, was “Intorno alla presenza di biforcazioni nelle fibre muscolari liscie” [sic], dealing with muscular tissues and published in Modena in the Archivio per la zoologia, l’anatomia e la fisiologia.58 Through the Untersuchungen, Moleschott was, for many Italian scientists and students, a contact person for publishing scientific articles in German, that is, for an international and not only for an Italian audience. For example, his student Giulio Bizzozero (later Rector of the University of Turin) published several of his studies in Moleschott’s journal; this was the central topic of his correspondence with Moleschott in the early 1870s.59 Also in this sense, Moleschott played the role of a mediator between the German world of academic journals and the Italian scholars (especially young scholars). A typical example of his mediating role appears in a letter from Bizzozero, who asked him to correct his articles written in German, in

de methode van het physiologisch onderzoek. Redevoering ter aanvaarding van het hoogleraars-ambt in de physiologie aan de hoogeschool van Turijn. Transl. from German by C. de Jong (Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1862). 58 Jacob Moleschott and G. Piso-Borme, “Intorno alla presenza di biforcazioni nelle fibre muscolari liscie”. Archivio per la zoologia, l’anatomia e la fisiologia, 2 (1863), 2. 59 Giulio Bizzozero to Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Giulio Bizzozero. The letters sent from Milan, December 18, 1870 and December 26, 1870; from Pavia, January 23, 1871, July 1, 1871, and July 14, 1871; from Varese, September 11, 1871, and again from Pavia, February 24, 1872, are all related to the publication of works in the Untersuchungen and the relations with the publishing house of Emil Roth in Giessen.

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particular his grammar mistakes.60 However, his mediating function was not limited to letting Italian scientists publish in his journal: in fact, he sent copies of the Untersuchungen not only to other scholars working in the field of the natural sciences, but also, in later stages of his career, to some of his colleagues at the Senate, whose work seemingly did not have anything to do with the topics of the journal.61 In this way, he contributed to the diffusion of scientific publications both within and outside of academia.

T HE I TALIAN C ITIZENSHIP : M OLESCHOTT ’ S “G RAND N ATURALIZATION ” However, Moleschott would need his rhetorical and social abilities also for acquiring Italian citizenship: in fact, he had to put forth some effort in order to be granted political rights and Italian citizenship, which he obtained in 1867. This happened through a special law, as was customary for all cases of “grand naturalization” (“grande naturalizzazione”) in liberal Italy (whereas the “small naturalization” was limited to the administrative sphere, only the “grand naturalization” took place at the legislative level and granted full political rights).62 In fact, at the beginning of 1866

60 Giulio Bizzozero to Jacob Moleschott (Milan, December 18, 1870), and Bizzozero to Moleschott (Milan, December 26, 1870): “La mia buona volontà si è sempre spuntata contro le regole della grammaticaˮ. BCABo, FSM, Corrispondenza Giulio Bizzozero. 61 For instance, in 1891 he sent a copy to the Senator Pasquale Villari (Naples 1827 – Florence 1917), who was a historian: Pasquale Villari to Jacob Moleschott (Rome, November 25, 1891): BCABo, FSM, 22.9 (new). 62 Archivio storico della Camera dei deputati, Fondo Disegni e proposte di legge e incarti delle commissioni (1848-1943), Legislatura IX, Sessione I: “Cittadinanza italiana al professore Giacomo Moleschott di Bois-le-Duc (Olanda)ˮ, July 5, 1866, presented by Desiderato Chiaves, vol. 72, 279-287. The proposal was approved on the hearing of June 19, 1866: “Legge 19 Giugno 1866, n. 3015: Legge che accorda la cittadinanza italiana al professore Giacomo Moleschott, nato a Bois-le-Duc (Olanda)”, in Raccolta ufficiale delle leggi e dei decreti del Regno d’Italia, vol. 15, 941 (Turin: Stamperia Reale, 1866). Quoted after the study on citizenship in Italy after the unification by Sabina Donati, A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013): for a listing of the documents about Moleschott’s “grand naturalization”, 351; on “small” and “grand naturalization”, 83; on Moleschott’s application for the “grand naturalization”, 86, where she remarks that the Minister of the Interior Desiderato Chiaves, who presented the proposal in front of the Parliament, underlined his profound knowledge of the Italian language as a good reason to grant him Italian citizenship.

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he addressed the Minister of Public Education (at that time, Domenico Berti), expressing his will to obtain Italian citizenship. In that letter, Moleschott started with a wholehearted appraisal of what he, at the end of the same letter, defined as his “adoptive fatherland”: “The love for the beautiful country which has welcomed me among its workers with such benevolence, the gratitude for the noble impressions which I owe to its ancient culture, not less glorious in the history of science than in art history, the deep sympathy I feel towards the Italians and their political aspirations, have long since transformed me into an Italian citizen in the mind and in the heart.ˮ63

As we can see, in these first lines of the letter he mentioned the three most important reasons for his appreciation of Italy as a nation: its “ancient culture”, the “history of science” and “art history”, and the “sympathy” towards “the Italians and their political aspirations”. In fact, classical culture and references to the history of the sciences and the history of literature would play a central role in the way in which he popularized science in his lectures, and would later become central elements in his Senate speeches. On February 2, 1862, he explained, the king had granted him by decree all rights implied by citizenship.64 However, his desire “to enjoy the full rights of citizenship” was frustrated: in fact, “some authoritative friends” had told him that what the king had decreed before the publication of the civil code (“Codice Civile”) on June 25, 1865, was enough to grant him civil rights, but not political rights. If Molechott was so interested in having full political rights, this means that, in 1866 at the latest, he was already considering the possibility of engaging in politics in a more direct way than he was already doing with lectures. Thus, in order for him to acquire full political rights, the king’s decree (“Decreto Reale”) had to be renewed and political rights had to be explicitly granted to him in addition to civil rights; or, even better, the decree had to be validated by the Parliament and transformed into a law.65 Anyway, Moleschott immediately suggested another, better solution, namely that he be granted 63 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (“S.E. il Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione”) (Turin, January 21, 1866): “L’amore del bel paese che con tanta benevolenza mi ha accolto fra i suoi lavoratori, la riconoscenza per le nobili impressioni che io devo alla sua antica coltura, non meno gloriosa nella storia della scienza che in quella dell’arte, la profonda simpatia di cui sono animato per gli Italiani e le loro aspirazioni politiche, da molto tempo, hanno fatto di me un cittadino Italiano di mente e di cuore.” ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 64 Moleschott thereby referred to the so-called “small naturalization”. 65 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, January 21, 1866): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396.

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Italian citizenship: in such a way, not only would he enjoy full civil and political rights, but he would also “have the duty” to serve his “adoptive fatherland”. On the one hand, this would allow him to justify his being far from his old mother and the country where he was born; on the other hand, he could then refuse more firmly the interesting proposals which he had received from several universities in Germany and in Holland, specifically from Groningen and Leiden.66 Clearly, Moleschott was thereby not only requesting Italian citizenship, but at the same time negotiating about his very status as a member of an Italian university; indeed, he went on to say that the University of Leiden, the oldest in the Netherlands, would offer him an interesting pension after retirement, or a pension for his widow, and that all of these informal proposals, which he had until then refused, could easily be turned into official ones should he be ready to accept them.67 Thus, a mixture of personal financial interests and of will to officially engage in politics determined Moleschott’s request for Italian citizenship, for the “grand naturalization, and through it the full right of citizenship”, which would “bind” him to his “adoptive fatherland” not only by virtue of his “gratitude”, but also of the “duties” which would derive from his enjoying full political rights.68 His request was accepted, as is clear from the letters sent on February 6 and March 10 of the same year, and the decree granting him Italian citizenship was signed by the Minister of the Interior one year later, on February 8, 1867.69 As we will see in the following pages and in the next section, Moleschott indeed felt himself to be and presented himself as a citizen of his new fatherland, and a particularly patriotic one. The need to insinuate himself into the Italian institutions in order to improve his social, financial and political “capital” was not new for Moleschott: by 1865, he had already sent an official request regarding his entitlement to practice as a physician. In fact, he had acquired it in the Netherlands immediately after finishing his studies in Heidelberg, and now it had to be officially recognized by the Italian authorities; he argued that, when he had accepted the appointment in Turin, De Sanctis had promised

66 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, January 21, 1866): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. Documents attesting these proposals have not been found yet. 67 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, January 21, 1866): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 68 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, January 21, 1866): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 69 Cf. the document by the Ministry of the Interior (“Ministero dell’Interno”) (February 8, 1867): “Cittadinanza al Sig. Giacomo Moleschott”. Cf. also the letters sent by Moleschott to the Ministry on February 6 and March 10, 1867. All of them in ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396.

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him that his title would be accepted, but no formal acknowledgement had followed.70 As we have seen, his work as a physician was important for Moleschott not only because of his interest in and passion for medicine, but also as a possibility for extra income and for networking: in fact, his network of patients was at the same time a social network, since these were mostly politicians, intellectuals, artists, and other public personalities, not only from Turin and Rome, but also from other parts of Europe (including some of the people he had met in Switzerland and Germany, such as the architect Gottfried Semper).71 At the same time, Moleschott increasingly promoted himself as an expert for the Italian government: for instance, between 1867 and 1869 he wrote a report about the “progresses of physiology in Italy in the last twenty years”, which he handed in to the Minister of Public Education in two parts, the first one mainly consisting of a bibliography, the second one a description.72 His wife also spoke about it in a letter to Édouard Desor, explaining that the report was due for the Universal Exhibition and that it took Moleschott quite a lot of time (both she and her husband hoped that he would have more time in order to concentrate on his Anthropologie after finishing the report).73 Moreover, even the lab was a place where knowledge with political implications was produced and transmitted: in this way, Moleschott significantly influenced “several generations of scientists and medical doctors who […] deeply innovated the relationship of medicine with the society, with public hygiene”.74 In fact, the scientists who were formed in his laboratory of experimental physiology were involved in the political life of the city of Turin and instructed in their turn scientists and physicians who were the initiators of reforms and innovations in the new field of “public health”,

70 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, February 15, 1865): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 71 Cf. BCABo, FSM, Schede Cliniche, January 1879: not only the architect Gottfried Semper, but also the ambassador (“Ministro della Rappresent[anza]”) of Uruguay, Antonini y Diez, together with his wife, were among his patients. 72 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (s.l., March 31, 1867): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 73 Jacob Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (s.l., March 31, 1867): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. The Minister acknowledged receipt of the report “Relazione sui progressi della fisiologia in Italia” on April 2, 1869, and thanked Moleschott for having fulfilled his task. It was not possible to find out for which universal exhibition the report was written, i.e. where the exhibition took place. 74 Gian Mario Bravo, “L’ideologia del movimento operaio”, in Da capitale politica a capitale industriale (1864-1915), vol. 7 of Storia di Torino, ed. Umberto Levra (Torino: Einaudi, 2001), 134-135.

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spreading and popularizing knowledge about issues such as nutrition and the practice of physical education.75

A P UBLIC P ERSONALITY ON THE W AY TO F ULL P OLITICAL E NGAGEMENT However, things did not always work out as Moleschott would have liked them to do: the transfer of the capital away from Turin to Florence in 1865 and then to Rome in 1871 was something Moleschott especially did not like, as he communicated to Édouard Desor. Even if Turin would remain an important city from the cultural and industrial points of view, the center of political action would be somewhere else.76 If we consider that in 1866 he had already expressed the desire to enjoy full political rights, we can easily understand that Moleschott held political life in high regard and that he wanted to participate in it actively. Although in a letter he sent to the Minister of Public Education, Michele Coppino, he stated that the main reason for his request of getting the vacant chair of Moritz Schiff in Florence was the chance to dedicate most of his time to science,77 one could suppose that one of the reasons why he wanted to get a position at the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence was that the political life of the country was shifted from Turin to Florence and Rome. When he

75 Cf. Bravo, “L’ideologia del movimento operaio”, 135. 76 Jacob Moleschott to Édouard Desor (Turin, January 19, 1865): AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D55. On the transfers of Italy’s capital cf. Marco Meriggi, “Regionalismus: Relikt der Vormoderne oder Vorbote der Postmoderne?”, in Deutschland und Italien 18601960. Politische und kulturelle Aspekte im Vergleich, ed. Christof Dipper (München: Oldenbourg, 2005), 33. 77 Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education [Michele Coppino] (Turin, January 1, 1878): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. In this letter, Moleschott explicitly and “solemnly” told the Minister that he wanted to be considered as a candidate for the Chair of Physiology in Florence, referring to the fact that he had already told him verbally about his interest in that position. Cf. also the drafts of two letters written by Moleschott to the Istituto di Studi Superiori di Firenze, on January 2, 1877 (to the “Soprintendente”, who is to be identified as Ubaldino Peruzzi) and on April 18, 1878, printed in De Pascale and Savorelli, “Lʼarchivio di Jakob Moleschott”, respectively 238-239 and 240-241. Eight documents regarding this issue are transcribed and commented upon in section “II. Moleschott e l’istituto di studi superiori di Firenze. Lettere inedite”, 234-243. These include a reconstruction of the dialogue he had with Ubaldino Peruzzi, the mayor of Florence, whose wife, Emilia Peruzzi, had personally let Moleschott know that Moritz Schiff’s chair would become vacant, encouraging him to apply for the position, 235-237.

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spoke with Ubaldino Peruzzi about his possible candidacy for the position, he explained to him that the reason why he aspired to follow Schiff in that chair was that he would have had more time to dedicate to specific research, the Istituto di Studi Superiori being the equivalent of the Collège de France: after seventeen years of teaching, in which he had to repeat the same general courses in physiology every year, he was looking forward to being freed from this burden and dedicating his later career to research in a specific field of physiology.78 However, as we will see in the next chapters, his future career would not develop in this direction: in fact, at least from the time when he was appointed Senator by the king of Italy, on November 16, 1876,79 he dedicated more and more time to Senate debates, official ceremonies, and international conferences. This episode is, once more, an example of the entanglement of science and politics. In fact, the reason why Moritz Schiff was obliged to leave the Istituto di Studi Superiori was related to the polemics regarding the methods of his experiments, in particular vivisection. The president of the directory board and superintendent of the institute, Ubaldino Peruzzi, together with Francesco De Sanctis (who, from March 1878, was again Minister of Public Education) had tried to keep Schiff, or at least to appoint a famous researcher (“di chiara fama”, based on the art. 69 of the law on public education from 1859 – the same article, which allowed De Sanctis to appoint Moleschott in Turin), but their attempts did not work, and two years later the institute’s Chair of Physiology was still vacant.80 In those seventeen years at the University of Turin, however, Moleschott was able to leave lasting traces, and to form what was called “the new materialist school” in medicine, his most important disciples being Cesare Lombroso and also Angelo Mosso and his assistant Simone Fubini. Both Cesare Lombroso and Simone Fubini

78 Cf. the letter sent by Jacob Moleschott to Ubaldino Peruzzi (s.l., January 2, 1877) and the report of the dialogue between Jacob Moleschott and Ubaldino Peruzzi, which Moleschott related in a letter to his wife, Sophie Moleschott, telling her that she should not tell others about that dialogue, since it constituted an “absolute secret” (“absolutes Geheimniß”, emphasis in the original) (Florence, December 21, 1876). Both sources are printed in De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 235-237 and 237-238 (see in particular 237). 79 Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169. In the Archivio Storico del Senato, no specific document on Moleschott’s appointment was found. 80 De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 243; Ubaldino Peruzzi, “Relazione del Consiglio Direttivo sulla sua gestione”. Annuario dell’Istituto di Studi Superiori di Firenze (1880): 31-32.

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originated from Jewish families,81 which shows that Moleschott worked and lived in a vibrant cultural and academic milieu that was not dominated by Catholicism; in his correspondence with Moleschott, Fubini quoted Hebrew sayings.82 In 1876, Fubini was charged with substituting for Moleschott every time he had to attend the Senate meetings in Rome.83 From 1878 on, Moleschott’s second assistant at the laboratory of physiology was Luigi Pagliani, whereas Simone Fubini became his first assistant.84 Recommending Fubini to the Minister of Public Education (once more, Francesco De Sanctis) in 1880, Moleschott praised Fubini’s qualities as a researcher, as well as his love for science and his ability to transmit the passion for research to younger generations.85 Thus, Moleschott supported his students’ academic careers: for instance, when Angelo Mosso became ordinary Professor of Physiology in Turin, he was on the examination committee which decided upon his own successor for the Chair of Physiology at the University of Turin,86 thereby actively contributing to the continuation of his “school” at that university. That Moleschott had a good reputation at the Faculty is proved by the fact that when he left for Rome, his students and assistants wrote him a message, testifying to their profound admiration for their teacher. In the name of the whole Faculty of Medicine of Turin, they expressed “gratitude”, “love” and “admiration” towards their teacher and colleague, who was about to leave the university “after seventeen years of common work”. In addition, they recognized that the “fame and scientific activ-

81 Cf. Giuseppe Armocida, “Lombroso, Cesare”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 65 (2005), online version: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/cesare-lombroso_%28Dizio nario-Biografico%29/; Giuseppina Bock Berti, “Fubini, Simone”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 50 (1998), online version: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/simonefubini_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/ (both consulted July 7, 2015) . Cf. also a speech given by Moleschott himself in 1880, Chi è il dottor Simone Fubini? (Roma: Forzani e C., 1880), 3. 82 The correspondence is conserved in BCABo, FSM, 11.37 (new); the Jewish saying is reported in a letter sent by Simone Fubini to Jacob Moleschott (Turin, July 30, 1883). 83 The Minister of Public Education to the University of Turin about Simone Fubini substituting Moleschott (Rome, December 23, 1876). ASUT, XIV 55, IV 2. Cf. also Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1877-78, XIV.B 58 (Regolamenti universitari), 1.12., as well as Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1875, XIV B 45, classe VIII (Stabilimenti scientifici) fascicolo 5 (Istituto fisiologico) and Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1873, IV.2 (Posizione IV: Facoltà Medico-chirurgica; Preside, professori ordinari, straordinari, incaricati e supplenti). 84 The Rector of the University of Turin (Turin, March 13, 1878): ASUT, XIV B 60 IV 12. 85 Jacob Moleschott, Chi è il dottor Simone Fubini?, especially 4-5 and 9. 86 Jacob Moleschott to the Rector of the University of Turin about Mosso’s appointment (Turin, August 13, 1878): ASUT, XIV B 60 fascicolo 2 classe 4.

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ity”, the “fertile word, and vigorous and faithful initiative” of Moleschott had contributed to the University of Turin becoming one of the most important Italian universities (both with regard to the number of publications and to the number of students). Although regretful that Moleschott was leaving their university, the Faculty members were sure that his students would continue his work, transmitting “the holy flame” he was able to light: in this sense, they finished with Lucretius’s verse “quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt”.87 However, Moleschott’s connections with the University of Turin continued after 1878: as had been the case with Germany and the Netherlands, he corresponded intensively with a network of scientists, showing an extraordinary ability to retain and expand his number of contacts each time he moved, instead of losing them. As his substantial correspondence shows, he stayed in contact not only with many of his German colleagues,88 but also with scientists, scholars and popularizers from all over Europe.89 When he left for Rome, he was appointed honorary professor (“professore onorario”) of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin. On that occasion, 87 “Commiato” (Turin, December 12, 1878). ASUT, XIV B 65 bis fascicolo 27 classe 1: “La Facoltà Medica di Torino nel momento, in cui Voi, dopo XVII anni di comune lavoro, state per staccarvi da lei, mentre sente raddoppiarsi lʼamore e lʼammirazione, che Vi ha ognora professato, prova il bisogno di mandarvi un saluto dʼaddio, ed insieme una parola di gratitudine, che attesti, come essa riconosca doversi, in gran parte, alla Vostra fama ed attività scientifica, alla Vostra faconda parola, e vigorosa e leale iniziativa, se le fu dato di contare pel numero dei lavori e dei discepoli, e pel giusto indirizzo, fra le prime dʼItalia. In così grave jattura essa può trovare un solo conforto, quello dʼessere certa che anche nella Vostra assenza una parte di Voi le rimane; poiché i molti discepoli che qui lasciate, anche nel suo seno, sapranno alimentare e trasmettere fino ai tardi nepoti la sacra fiamma che qui ravvivaste… quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt. (Lucretius.)” The document was signed by his students and assistants with surname and first name: Malinverni Sisto Germano, Bruno Lorenzo, Pacchiotti Giacinto, Tibone Domenico, Bizzozero Giulio, Reymond Carlo, Lombroso Cesare, Concato Luigi, Mosso Angelo, Fissore Giuseppe, Giacomini Carlo, Colomiatti Vittorio, Gibello Giacomo, Pagliani Luigi, Bozzolo Camillo, Fubini Simone. The quote is from Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, book II, line 79; contextualized, it reads as follows: “Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur / inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum / et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.” 88 E.g. Robert Wilhelm Bunsen to Jacob Moleschott (Florence, July 2, 1868): BCABo, FSM, 7.45 (new), but also the correspondence from Adolf Fick (also in BCABo, FSM) and Moritz Fleischer: BCABo, FSM, 11.20 (new). 89 E.g. J[ean] P[aul] Durand to Jacob Moleschott (Neuilly sur Seine, November 17, 1867): BCABo, FSM, 9.46 (new): “Monsieur, Jʼai lʼhonneur de vous adresser mes Essais de Physiologie Philosophique espérant que ce travail vous paraitra dègne dʼinterêt, et bien apuré dʼailleur quʼil ne ait tomber en de meilleurs mains que les vôtres.ˮ

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he stated that, in this way, he was bound to the city of Turin and its scientific corpora, connecting the past and future of his career.90 In the next section, we will attempt to understand more concretely how Moleschott left traces at the University of Turin: in fact, he gave, altogether, eight opening lectures to the course of experimental physiology; moreover, in 1870 he was chosen as the one professor in the whole university who would give the traditional lecture on the occasion of the opening of the academic year in front of students, university members, and “the most educated people of Turin”.91

M OLESCHOTT ’ S P OPULARIZATION OF THE N ATURAL S CIENCES IN T URIN AND ITS T RANSNATIONAL R ECEPTION In the following pages, we shall explore the form and content of Moleschott’s popularization in Turin. Considering his opening lectures as the main form of popularization Moleschott used in Italy in the 1860s and most of the 1870s, I will focus on his strategies of popularization, dealing both with the style and with the message of the six opening lectures he gave at the University of Turin from the end of 1861 until 1867, plus a popularizing lecture about blood cells given in 1864, the lecture he gave on the occasion of the opening of the academic year in 1870, and his last opening lecture to the course of experimental physiology in Turin, given in 1878.92 All lectures were published by Loescher in Turin (apart from the one given in 1870, which

90 Jacob Moleschott to the Rector of the University of Turin (Rome, January 18, 1880): ASUT, corrispondenza classificata XIV B 71 classe IV fascicolo 2. Moleschott, having received the King’s Decree of December 4, 1879 (on January 8, 1880, it was transmitted to the Rector and it is now preserved in XIV B 71, IV 2 as well), appointing him honorary Professor of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin. The proposal to appoint him honorary professor had been made by Michele Lessona – who was the Rector of the university in that moment, but at the same time also himself a colleague of Moleschott at the Faculty of Medicine – on November 15, 1879, and it was accepted by the Minister of Public Education on December 9, 1879. On December 15, 1879, the Rector communicated that the Faculty unanimously appointed Moleschott honorary professor, the King having signed the decree on December 4. 91 Cf. the letter by Jacob Moleschott to the Rector of the University of Turin (Turin, January 12, 1870), where Moleschott announced the topic of his opening lecture Dei regolatori della vita umana: ASUT, Corrispondenza classificata serie XIV B 23 (1870), I.6. 92 Another opening lecture to the course of experimental physiology was given in 1875: Jacob Moleschott, Dell’indole della fisiologia: parole dʼintroduzione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nellʼUniversità di Torino, pronunziate il 12 dicembre 1875 da Jac. Moleschott

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had different publishers, namely the King’s print house in Turin and Treves in Milan) within a short time, and later they were collected in one volume and published as Sulla vita umana. Prolusioni e discorsi (1861-1867) (Torino: Loescher, 1872). Since Moleschott’s lectures became sporadic after 1867, the year in which he was accorded the Italian citizenship, we could perhaps interpret the series of his lectures until that time also as an attempt to be fully accepted as a member not only of the Italian university, but also of the Italian nation. In addition to the opening lectures he gave at the University, Moleschott gave a popularizing speech at the Society for Scientific and Literary Lectures in Turin (Società Torinese per Letture Scientifiche e Letterarie). This lecture is, at the same time, an exception with regard to his university lectures (he had a different audience), and the most representative lecture for showing the entanglement of science, rhetoric and politics in Moleschott’s popularizing speeches. All lectures were translated into German and published by Roth in Giessen almost simultaneously with their Italian original versions. They were also collected and published as Sechs Vorträge (Giessen: Roth, 1865) and as Vorträge (in 8 volumes, Giessen: Roth, 1862-1871), including the opening lecture given in Zürich, Licht und Leben, and the popularizing speech Eine physiologische Sendung, but excluding the lectures he gave in 1866 and 1867. Moreover, many of the lectures were translated into French and English and published as journal articles. For the German translation of his first Italian opening lecture,93 Moleschott wrote a preface94 with the explicit intention of keeping a bond with his German-speaking readers (both German and Swiss): there, he declared that the lecture was the result of the research he had done in the previous years, being a continuation of the courses in (Torino: Loescher, 1876). Its topic, the nature of physiology, had already been anticipated in many of Moleschott’s previous lectures. 93 The Italian original lecture was: Jacob Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita: prima prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 16 dicembre 1861 (Torino: Loescher, 1862). In the same year, it was translated into German as: Jacob Moleschott, Zur Erforschung des Lebens: Rede beim Antritt der Professur für Physiologie an der Hochschule zu Turin. Gehalten am 16. December 1861 (Giessen: Roth, 1862), and into Dutch as: Jacob Moleschott, Iets over de methode van het physiologisch onderzoek. Redevoering ter aanvaarding van het hoogleraars-ambt in de physiologie aan de hoogeschool van Turijn. Translated from German by C. de Jong (Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1862). Translated into French as: “Discours d’ouverture – De la méthode en physiologie” (traduit de l’italien par Eugène Mir). Revue des Cours Scientifiques de la France et de l’étranger, 1 (January 16, 1864), 7: [73]-78. 94 Jacob Moleschott, Vorwort to Zur Erforschung des Lebens (Turin, February 23, 1862), IIIIV.

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physiology and anthropology he had taught in Zürich in the winter term 1860/61.95 At the same time, he once more accused the Ministry of the Grand Duchy of Baden of being illiberal, contrasting it with “das deutsche Volk”, who, he was sure, would have never acted in that way, forcing him to abandon the university.96 While doubting whether publishing a German version of his lecture would reach more readers than those who appreciated his work and had already met him personally, Moleschott had decided to print it anyway because he wanted to keep in contact with Germany and to show that, even in Italy, he had not forgotten his “intellectual motherland”: “Ich lasse aber drucken, ohne mich viel darum zu bekümmern, weil ich, soweit es meine schwache Kraft erlaubt, die Fäden erhalten möchte, die mein Leben und Denken mit Deutschland verbinden, und weil mir es in dieser Denkweise natürlich erscheint, dafür zu sorgen, daß es für Deutschland kein Geheimniß sei, was ich, als dankbarer Jünger und Vertreter deutscher Wissenschaft, in Italien, das mir ein bürgerliches Vaterland geboten hat, von meinem geistigen Mutterlande rede.ˮ97

Thus, Moleschott depicted himself as a “grateful pupil and representative of German science”, who did not hide his intellectual roots from his new Italian audience: in this way, even at the very beginning of his Italian career, Moleschott took care to keep his contacts among the audiences of the countries where he had previously taught and done scientific research. At this time, he was thus already laying the groundwork for what would happen in the following years: his work was translated into several languages, Moleschott himself being a translator and cultural broker between Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, and in international contexts in general.98 Moleschott also wrote a preface to the Italian original version of his first opening lecture;99 however, its content is, of course, different from that of the German preface: in it, Moleschott expressed his gratitude towards his new colleagues and the institution which had appointed and welcomed him as one of its members, having enough confidence in his abilities to let him teach in Italian from the very beginning. He would have never published that speech, he declared, if he had not believed that this sort of “publicity” (“pubblicità”, thus, bringing science to a larger public) to be one 95 Moleschott, Vorwort to Zur Erforschung des Lebens, III. 96 Moleschott, Vorwort to Zur Erforschung des Lebens, IV. 97 Moleschott, Vorwort to Zur Erforschung des Lebens, III-IV. 98 Cf. for instance the international sanitary conference held in Rome in 1885, of which, as we will see, he was elected president precisely because of his international experience and his being a polyglot: Jacob Moleschott, La conferenza sanitaria internazionale di Roma, 20 maggio-13 giugno 1885 (note sintetiche di Jac. Moleschott) (Torino: Loescher, 1885). 99 Jacob Moleschott, “Proemioˮ to Del metodo nella investigazione della vita (Turin, July 26, 1862).

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of his duties as a scientist. In what he himself defined as a captatio benevolentiae, Moleschott apologized for his language mistakes, which, he wrote, he could not avoid. In conformity with the determination to be part of a new national community and support its nationalism – and showing, once more, his extreme adaptability to different contexts and situations – Moleschott began his first lecture by establishing the role of “Italy” in the history of science.100 As was typical for a nationalizing discourse, he understood “Italy” as including pre-national states – from the ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, up to the nineteenth century – that had recently formed the Kingdom of Italy. Italy, he explained, had been at the forefront of scientific research in ancient times; in the Renaissance it played a relatively secondary role, whereas England, France, the Netherlands, and then Germany in the eighteenth century, had leading roles.101 However, he explained that it was normal that nations alternate with each other in their development, helping each other on the way to scientific progress:102 “peoples are like trees”, and they “do not bring fruits at the same time”.103 This was why Italy then had to learn from other countries, and it was in this context that Moleschott justified his appointment at an Italian university – thus, the very fact that a “foreigner”104 was speaking from the Chair of Physiology. In fact, his task was precisely to “lay on the altar of Italian science […] every fruit that the German intelligence has produced or is producing”, for it was Germany that transmitted to him that “ardent love for science”, which gave him the courage to teach.105 Then, quoting verses from Dante, he stated that, as a “foreigner”, he was “feeling the great responsibility” of speaking in Italian106 and, apologizing for his imperfect language skills, he promised that he would put every effort into learning the language, since “science […] is worth of every beauty, every vigor, every sublimity”.107 As we can easily see, the beginning of Moleschott’s speech was an apology for his own appointment, for the fact that a “foreigner” was occupying a chair at an Italian university, and for the fact that, moreover, he was still learning the language. At the same time, however, it was also a statement of his engagement in joining his skills as a scientist to the skills of a good orator – a good speaker in the Italian language. In his first year in Italy, Moleschott already knew that his task was not only to teach 100 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, [1]-4. 101 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, [1]-2. 102 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 2. 103 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, [1]. 104 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, [1]. 105 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 4. 106 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 4. 107 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 5.

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physiology to his students, but also to popularize it in a “beautiful” and “sublime” language. Moreover, he described science with adjectives and words pertaining to religion, as was typical for the popularization of science in the nineteenth century, not only in Italy, where science became part of the “cult of the nation” (using an expression of Christopher Duggan), but also in other European countries, for instance in Germany.108 Thus, at the inception of his lecture, Moleschott was configuring his role of researcher, popularizer, and ambassador for scientific progress, not only and not so much despite, but rather because of, his being a “foreigner” and coming from the German cultural area. After this kind of self-positioning in the scientific and academic landscape, Moleschott went on to describe his understanding of physiology: for him, experimental physiology was called “experimental” not merely because experiments are needed for teaching effectively, but above all in order to “investigate the mysteries of human nature”, where physiology needs the help of all other natural sciences (which, just like in his later lecture La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, are called “sisters”).109 However, in order to achieve the goal of physiological research and reach the “sun” of “truth”, one must know its “method”: it is the method of physiological research, the science studying “the relations of the various organs” with each other and with the external world,110 which Moleschott would explain in the next pages. However, what was most important to him was the awareness of the limitations of experiments in physiological research: coherently with his organicist conceptions, he knew that a physiologist could not isolate the object of his studies from the external world111 and that he could not repeat the same experiment more than once, since the conditions of organisms are always changing.112 For this reason, Moleschott suggested, as a “general rule for physiological methodology”, that one not immediately draw consequences from one’s results, but rather observe phenomena longer than any other kind of scientist, in order to validate one’s hypotheses.113 Citing Hippocrates (καιρὸς ὀξύς, ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή, meaning that the experiment is dangerous and the opportune moment fleeting), Moleschott explained to his students that one should prefer observation to experiment; with this quote, he started a long series of Greek quotes, which

108 Alfred Kelly, The Descent of Darwin. The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860-1914 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 75-99 (chapter 5, “The Holiness of Science”). On the “cult of the nation”, cf. Duggan, The Force of Destiny, 41. 109 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 6. 110 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 7. 111 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 10. 112 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 11. 113 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 12-13.

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are typical for his Italian lectures and speeches.114 According to him, a physiologist should look for causes, not being content with morphology (i.e. the classification of forms) and teleological explanations (i.e. final causes and the presupposition of an external order and design).115 Interestingly, Moleschott did not reject teleology (here called Τέλος, with an explicit reference to Aristotle) in nature,116 but, in conformity with his organicist view, he rather criticized the analogy between an organ and an instrument as being reductive,117 since all organs cooperate and interact with each other and have multiple functions.118 However, he warned his students not to forget that, until physiology had come to full and perfect knowledge of the whole and its parts, one should look at the causes (rerum cognoscere causas), not at purposiveness.119 Then, he stated that life was not static, but an ever-becoming process, a dynamic “flux, albeit contained in an individual alveus”,120 thus bringing the central message of his Physiologie des Stoffwechsels and of his Kreislauf des Lebens to his new Italian audience. Therefore, a physiologist should study the functions of the organs in relation with all internal and external conditions,121 observing and comparing organisms, experimenting, and maintaining a critical attitude towards his results.122 He should observe “the totality of phenomena, explore their cause, without being willing to guess their purpose”, which could only be known after the “entire series of causes and effects” had become evident.123 These important considerations shed new light on Moleschott’s attitude towards teleology: apparently, he criticized a teleological explanation of natural phenomena not just because of its being teleological, but because it implied a reductionist view of nature, not doing justice to the complexity and multiplicity of correlations.124 This is very significant, especially if we recall what we have observed previously in this chapter, namely that Moleschott had a great admiration for Berzelius, Alexander von Humboldt and Ernst von Baer, and that all of them had a teleological view of the universe (not postulating any external design, but postulating an immanent natural order).125

114 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 13. 115 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 14. 116 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 22. 117 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 17. 118 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 18. 119 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 22-23. 120 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 23. 121 Ibidem. 122 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 24. 123 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 25. 124 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 17-18. 125 Cf. Theunissen and Visser, De wetten van het leven, 63 ff.

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At the end of the lecture, Moleschott did not forget to join scientific “capital” with political and social “capital”: in fact, he explained to his students that, on the one hand, they should “elevate themselves to the highest degrees of intellectual culture, in order to be worthy of the social position they aspire to” and, in doing so, they would at the same time bring Italy to that “sublime degree” in the history of knowledge, upon which its “glory” and the consideration of the other nations depended.126 In his second lecture, Dei limiti della natura umana, Moleschott focused on the limits of knowledge.127 Starting with a quote from Goethe, and its translation by Anselmo Guerrieri, he continued to point out the continuity between his German past and his Italian present: in fact, Anselmo Guerrieri (1819-1879) was not only a prominent literary figure, but also an Italian nationalist who participated in the revolution in Milan in 1848 (“Cinque giornate di Milano”), became an Italian politician by 1860, and had participated in several missions of support to democratic nationalist revolutions (e.g. of Rhenanian states against Prussia).128 The speech itself begins with Protagora’s motto that man is the measure of all things, to which Moleschott added that “man, when he measures, measures for man himself”.129 Then, he continued by explaining the relativity of human knowledge, deriving from the fact that man is himself part of the universe he studies and explains, himself obeying the same necessary laws of nature he discovers, and himself depending for his nutrition upon the earth and its plants, the air, the sun, the rotation of the earth, the winds and the waves, the temperature and the pressure of the atmosphere.130 Thus, the human intellect is itself a product of nature, and the scientist who investigates nature is himself a part and product of the object of his investigation.131 What such a scientist measures, thus, always results in a “human measure”, both absolute and relative: “absolute” because “every true relation between two objects, even though one of the objects is man, represents an absolute quality of the universe”, and “relative” because one of the elements of 126 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 26. 127 Jacob Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana: seconda prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino letta dal Professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 24 novembre 1862 (Torino: Loescher, 1864). German translation: Jacob Moleschott, Die Grenzen des Menschen: Vortrag bei der Wiedereröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule, 24. November 1862 (Giessen: Ferber, 1863). 128 Paola Bernasconi, “Guerrieri Gonzaga, Anselmo”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 60 (2003). Online version: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/anselmo-gue rrieri-gonzaga_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ (last viewed July 7, 2017). 129 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, [1]. 130 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 2-3. 131 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 4.

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this relationship, i.e. man, could be substituted for by another, e.g. an insect: “measuring all things, man finally measures himself”.132 Therefore, according to Moleschott it was precisely the task of the natural sciences to find out the “limits” of human beings, whereas “the knowledge of these limits is necessary in order to study the nature of the universe in a humane way” (“umanamente”)”.133 In other words, the natural sciences indicate human limits, and precisely the knowledge of one’s limits makes science humane. Thus it is precisely physiology which, “searching for the limits of human nature”, “contributes to the solution of one of the greatest problems of universal science, i.e. of philosophy”.134 In some of his manuscript notes, Moleschott wrote that scientists, who reach a high level of speculation, will often have the feeling that it is impossible for them to achieve complete knowledge: “And often such an investigator […] will have […] the same feeling that let Socrates say that he did not know anything, that let Goethe say that we cannot know anything.”135 In a similar way to what Emil Du Bois-Reymond had stated in his lecture Die Grenze der Erkenntnis, Moleschott believed that true scientists should give up any pretension of absolute, complete knowledge, while remaining firmly convinced that human knowledge could always be expanded. In the next pages, Moleschott indeed attempted to fulfill the philosophical task of explaining the limits of human knowledge, which meant, for him, how exactly mankind depends on its environment, how human beings transform nutritional elements in their body, what the function of single organs and substances are: in other words, how the human body works. In doing that, he often used technical metaphors, comparing the heart to a locomotive, the muscles to the steam pressure (“tensione”),136 the organs of sense perception to physical instruments that, “like a steam engine” need water, need blood circulation in order to work.137 Moleschott was particularly interested in measuring the limits of

132 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 5. 133 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 5. 134 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 5. 135 Cf. Jacob Moleschott,“Quaderni”: BCABo, FSM, B I 6 a, 31 (manuscript): “E sovente colle mani intrecciate tal investigatore in mezzo al cimento, si riconoscerà sbigottito e compreso da quel medesimo sentimento il quale a Socrate facea dire che nulla sapea, a Goethe che nulla saper possiamo […].” 136 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 9. 137 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 13. The analogy between the human organism and machines has a long tradition: in the eighteenth century, cf. Julien Offray de La Mettrie’s L’Homme machine (1747) and, in twentieth-century popularization, Fritz Kahn’s drawings and his conception of the body as an industrial machine. Cf. Uta and Thilo von Debschitz, Fritz Kahn: Man Machine / Maschine Mensch (Vienna: Springer,

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sense perception, fundamental for the investigation of the limits of knowledge.138 Quoting the Romantic and nationalist poet Ugo Foscolo, Moleschott enumerated passion among the “limits of human nature” because he considered it an obstacle to reason.139 For Moleschott, “the history of human culture lies for a good deal in tracing the history of the development of the senses”: “the possibility of such a development, and even more, the very fact that development has its own history”, are an essential quality distinguishing man from animals.140 Thus, according to Moleschott, it was through historical narration that the human species reaches what no other species could achieve, namely cultural and intellectual progress and the fact of being conscious of the life of the species: for him, the limits of human knowledge were the limits of the species, not of the individual.141 This is significant in the context of nineteenth-century political culture, in which liberalism did not imply individualism, but nationalism, and the individual was conceived as meaningful only insofar as he or she was able to renounce his or her individuality for the sake of the fatherland.142 In the next lecture, L’unità della vita, Moleschott did not describe the limits of knowledge, but the unity of life, meaning thereby the complex and multiple correlations of natural phenomena and their essential harmony, albeit this complexity.143 We can see that Moleschott’s lectures became increasingly longer during these first three years: the first lecture was 26, the second 33, and the third 50 pages (excluding footnotes). This might indicate that Moleschott was feeling more and more at ease ex-

2009) as well as Cornelius Borck, “Communicating the Modern Body: Fritz Kahn’s Popular Images of Human Physiology as an Industrialized World”. Canadian Journal of Communication, 32 (2007), 3/4: 495-520. 138 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 20-22. 139 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 27. 140 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 31. 141 Moleschott, Dei limiti della natura umana, 32. 142 For the “religion of the fatherland”, with particular reference to its realization during Francesco Crispi’s government, in the 1880s, cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 393. 143 Jacob Moleschott, L’unità della vita: terza prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella regia Università di Torino, letta dal prof. Jacob Moleschott il 23 novembre 1863 (Torino: Loescher, 1864). German version: Jacob Moleschott, Die Einheit des Lebens (Giessen: Roth, 1864). Dutch: Jacob Moleschott, De eenheid des levens. Redevoering bij de heropening der physiologische lessen aan de hoogeschool te Turijn (Kampen: van Hulst, 1864). Translated into French as L’unité de la vie (Cours de M. J. Moleschott de l’Université de Turin: III). Traduit de l’italien par M. Odysse-Barot. Revue des Cours Scientifiques, 40 (September 3, 1864), 41 (September 10, 1864), 42 (September 17, 1864).

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pressing himself in Italian and that he had more confidence in his style and vocabulary; however, reading the texts of the lectures, it is not possible to observe any significant difference concerning Moleschott’s progress in the Italian language, which is possibly due to the fact that the lectures were probably edited by or with the help of a native speaker before being published. On the model of Hegel’s idealist system, in this lecture Moleschott divided the history of humanity into three epochs: a “poetic” period, an “analytical”, and a “rational” one.144 In the first epoch, mankind was ingenuously bound to nature, and sentiment prevailed over thought. In the second, mankind started to feel the contrast with its terrestrial boundaries and sought transcendence in order to flee from them. In the third one, mankind became aware of its limits: it conciliated with the external world, knowing that man is an “organic part” of the whole, a “microcosm” in that “macrocosm” whose laws he wants to investigate.145 As we have just seen, according to Moleschott, this was the task of the scientist, which he himself tried to fulfill in his second opening lecture: in fact, in this third lecture, Moleschott would define the third period as the “scientific” period. Subsequently, Moleschott applied this division to the history of science. He called the first period the poetical, vitalist, or teleological period, and identified it with the time extending from the ancient Greek civilization until the time of Galilei, being characterized, according to him, by a fundamental unity of human culture with nature. He explained that, at that time, knowledge of nature was expressed through religion and mythology. The human mind tended to personify unknown causes of phenomena, and the most powerful faculty in this period was imagination. Interestingly, Moleschott concluded each of the three parts with a quotation from a literary work belonging to the respective period he had just described: in this case, he quoted from Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto XXV, in which Statius explicates the formation of the soul, its being set into the human body, and their eventual separation after death:146 both the literary form and the conceptions expressed through it are, in Moleschott’s sense of the word, “poetical”, in the sense that mankind saw everywhere a divine τέλος in the creation of the universe. Then, Moleschott went on by describing the second period in the history of science, which started with Galilei and the foundation of exact physics, and ended with the work of the Swiss naturalist and anatomist Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777, considered the founder of physiology) and the French physiologist and surgeon François Bichat (1771-1802, considered the founder of histology). In this phase, an essential division between man and nature took place: nature was seen as an object to study and to experiment upon – this was the era of mechanics. According to Moleschott, 144 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 2. 145 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, [1]-2. 146 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 12-14.

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Galileo Galilei, whom he considered the father of modern science and of the experimental method, ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge: because of him, mankind lost its paradise, but at the same time acquired self-consciousness and knowledge.147 When describing the main discoveries in physiology and medicine that took place in that epoch, Moleschott concentrated on the role of “Italian” scientists and “Italian” universities, such as the University of Padua, and among the scientists, not only Galilei, but also the physicians Giovanni Battista Borelli (1813-1891), Vesalio, i.e. the Flemish Andreas van Wesel, in Latin Andreas Vesalius, whose career started at the University of Padua (1514-1564), Gabriele Fallopio (1523-1562), and Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), considered the founders of modern anatomy and physiology.148 In this way, he contributed to forming the history of “Italian” science, which included research done in all territories which would become part of the Italian nation in the nineteenth century. The section ends with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, in which Menenius Agrippa compares the role of the Senate in Rome to the role of the stomach in the human body: in the same way as the stomach serves as a storehouse for all the nutrients and then dispenses them throughout the rest of the body, the patricians presented themselves as collectors and dispensers of grain to the entire city.149 Here, we can notice that the literary genre once more mirrors the spirit of the epoch, since tragedy, according to nineteenth-century poetical theories, is also based on the opposition of two contrasting principles.150 Finally, in the third period – which, according to Moleschott, corresponded to that in which he was living and working – mankind and nature were united again. This happened through the research on electromagnetism and physiology at the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Similarly to Hegel’s interpretation of history in the Phänomenologie des Geistes, this kind of unity with nature comprehends the consciousness of the difference between man and nature, which had been achieved in the second phase: now, human beings recognized themselves as organisms which are part of nature, obeying the same universal and necessary laws which govern natural life. Through the scientific disciplines of chemistry, biology and physiology, the scientist was now able to acquire scientific knowledge of man’s intimately belonging to nature and contributing to the harmonious life of the whole universe.151 Moleschott called this period synthetic, or monist: the word “monist” signifies that there is but one principle at the base of the intimate connection 147 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 15-17. 148 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 20-22. 149 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 30-31. 150 For contemporary poetics and the division into epic, lyrics and tragedy, cf. Friedrich Hölderlin, Über den Unterschied der Dichtarten [summer 1800 or later], in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 4, ed. Friedrich Beißner (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1962), 277-285. 151 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 34.

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and collaboration of all parts of the organism, and of the necessary relations which constitute the harmonious unity of the whole of nature: this unique principle was meant to be matter. The word “synthetic” means that the original unity which had been lost in the period of analysis is reestablished (however, with the consciousness of the difference between man and nature). It is the era of the intellect or of reason, in which mankind, having become conscious of its own limits, conciliates with nature, knowing that it is an essential part of that macrocosm whose laws he tries to discover and understand. Significantly, the concluding quotation is the first verses of one of Goethe’s poems, Antepirrhema,152 which indeed celebrates the harmony and infinite connections of the universe conceived as an organism. It is highly probable that Moleschott, well before conceiving of this lecture, had read an opening lecture by his friend and colleague Franciscus Cornelis Donders, which was entitled “De harmonie van het dierlijke leven. De openbaring van wetten” (“The harmony of animal life. The discovery of laws”), and which he gave on January 28, 1848, when he was appointed as a professor at the University of Utrecht. Even though we cannot affirm it with certainty because, as I reported in the introduction, nothing is left of Moleschott’s library, most probably Moleschott owned a printed copy of the lecture.153 As its title tells, Donders’ speech dealt with the “harmony of life”, a topic very similar to Moleschott’s “unity of life”, in connection with the natural laws governing “animal life”. It is divided into three main parts, each corresponding to the law expressed in it, namely: “wet van gewoonte”, “wet van oefening” and “wet van erfelijkheid” (“law of habit”, “law of exercise”, and “law of inheritance”). In Donders’ opinion, these three laws are the fundamental laws that govern the evolution and progressive perfection of the species on the basis of their adaptation to the environment around them and the changes it undergoes. Only together do they constitute the harmony of organic life on the earth. The first law says that every living being changes its organization according to the influences to which it is exposed, in such a way that it harmoniously adapts to those influences.154 This can be seen, for

152 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 50. The poem was published in Gott und Welt in 1819 and reads as follows: “So schauet mit bescheidnem Blick / Der ewigen Weberin Meisterstück, / Wie ein Tritt tausend Fäden regt, / Die Schifflein hinüber, herüber schießen, / Die Fäden sich begegnend fließen, / Ein Schlag tausend Verbindungen schlägt! / Das hat sie nicht zusammengebettelt; / Sie hat's von Ewigkeit angezettelt, / Damit der ewige Meistermann / Getrost den Einschlag werfen kann.” 153 Franciscus C. Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven. De openbaring van wetten (Utrecht: Van der Post, 1848). 154 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 21: “Elk dierlijk wezen wordt door de invloeden, waaraan het duurzaam is blootgesteld, in zijne organisatie zoodanig gewijzigd, dat het aan die invloeden harmonisch beantwoordt.” Italics in the original.

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example, in the adaptation of human populations to the sorts of food which are available in the area where they are settled, and in other kinds of adjustment of the organs – significantly, Donders is well-known for his studies on the accommodations of the eye in the field of ophthalmology – which contribute to an evolution of the species in relation to their environment. The second law points out that every organ and part of the body changes under the influence of the will or of the circumstances, in such a way that it responds to what the will or the circumstances require from it.155 According to Donders, even the so-called instincts derive from the interaction with the environment and from the exercise of specific faculties, and the will also contributes to the development of one or the other faculty; just like Moleschott, Donders emphasized that the organs of the animal body are not isolated from each other, but remain in a relationship of intimate mutual influence and connection.156 The third law affirms that the parents’ condition becomes innate in their children: this is the law by virtue of which what has been achieved through adaptation and exercise is then transferred to the whole species, contributing to its evolving perfection (similarly to Lamarck, Donders thought that acquired characteristics could be inherited).157 Like Moleschott, Donders warned his audience that one should not assume the existence of a transcendent ordering principle, or even of an anthropomorphic God, from the fact that all living beings are connected with each other and with the environment around them, just like the parts of an organism harmoniously relate to the whole. On the contrary: after having observed the teleological organization of the cosmos, in which each part and each phenomenon is necessary to the flourishing and development of the whole, the scientist should look for the primary causes (“oorzaken”) of the harmony in the organization of animal life (“het dierlijke leven”). Each part of the speech ends by exhorting the audience to look for the causes of harmony in the universe, without postulating a personified creator or a transcendent plan, so that the exhortation to look for causes can be seen as the leitmotif of the speech. As we have seen, Moleschott also incited his audience to look for causes without postulating any external finality. However, both Moleschott and Donders were convinced that there was an immanent harmony in the whole universe; what they firmly opposed was postulating an external

155 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 36-37: “Elk orgaan, elk ligchaamsdeel wordt onder den duurzamen invloed van den wil of van andere omstandigheden zoodanig gewijzigd, dat het beantwoordt aan hetgeen de wil of de omstandigheden van hetzelve eischen.” Italics in the original. 156 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 44. 157 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 46: “De toestand van het voorgeslacht plant zich telkens op het nageslacht over; de toestand der ouders wordt telkens aangeboren in de kinderen.” Italics in the original.

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teleological design instead of explaining the causes of phenomena.158 In fact, one of the aims of Donders’s lecture was to show that, even if he recognized the existence of an immanent order within nature, teleology should never be tolerated among scientific disciplines.159 He also admitted that anthropomorphism and the understanding of goals as if they were causes was an “innate human inclination”, but maintained that one had to look for causes in order to discover natural laws.160 Summing up, in 1848 Donders had already labeled teleology as non-scientific and as an obstacle to scientific development:161 according to him, one should abandon the teleological perspective and ask for the answer to the question “waardoor?” (“for what reason”), instead of “waartoe?” (“to what aim”).162 Another similarity with Moleschott’s lecture can be found in the fact that Donders also explained that the task of the scientist was establishing relationships between the different phenomena in nature, which appears to the observer as a perfect organic unity (“als een volmaakt geëvenredigd, organisch geheel”).163 Since he was convinced that the scientist himself would participate in the harmony and order of nature, he thought that the contemplation of nature was strictly related to ethics and aesthetics.164 We should keep this connection between the natural sciences and ethics in mind because, as we will see, Moleschott would argue in a similar way in Rome in the 1880s, when he justified his position in favor of criminal anthroplogy and explained that it was the task of the scientist to bring order and morality to the society. Like Moleschott, Donders maintained that the harmonious development of organic nature was a necessary progression, albeit one made step by step: each of those steps is just as essential for the steady improvement of the species. Just like Moleschott, Donders was convinced that, in order to study the causes of harmony in

158 Donders, Voorbericht to De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, [III]: “Immers niet enkel worden de verschijnselen hier met het predicaat van doelmatig bestempeld: teleologische betoogen ook vindt men als bewijsgronden in het midden gebragt en erkend, ja! in plaats van de op te sporen oorzaak, wordt het onderstelde doel tot ʽverklaringʼ der verschijnselen ingeroepen.” 159 Donders, Voorbericht to De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, IV: “[…] eene leer van het doel nimmer wetenschap worden kan, en derhalve op het natuurkundig gebied niet mag worden geduld”. 160 Ibidem. 161 Ibidem: “[…] die […] de verdere onwikkeling belemmeren, en met het stellig karakter van wetenschap geenszins strooken”. 162 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 9. 163 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 4. 164 Ibidem: “Zóó ontwikkelt natuurbeschouwing bij hem een waar gevoel voor het schoone en goede. Zóó kan zij de grondslag worden eener verheven wijsgeerige moraal”.

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nature, one should observe nature through sense perception.165 Donders understood his own lecture as an attempt to improve the human capacity to acquire knowledge through the senses, and both Donders’s and Moleschott’s lectures dealt with the unity underlying the structure and organization of nature, called respectively “unity” (“unità”) by Moleschott and “harmony” (“harmonie”) by Donders. Both of them believed that, in researching the multiplicity of phenomena, the scientist must reveal their concordance and their unification under the most general natural laws. Discovering these necessary natural laws through the observation of the infinite connections between phenomena, causes and effects, environmental changes, and evolution of the species, the natural scientist would, in their opinions, make the harmonious unity of life apparent for everyone. According to both of them, the harmony and unity of organic life depended on the necessary laws that connect natural phenomena to each other, and bring order and unity into the multiplicity and complexity of the various forms of life. As Moleschott explained at the end of his lecture, for him the “unity of life” derives from the “intimate connection” of all parts with each other: according to him, “organic” is the most appropriate term to express this proportionate, functional condition not only in biology, but also in the arts, languages, laws, and all scientific disciplines.166 The unity of life, he went on saying, does not mean that life is an “emanation of one single force”: life is “a flux”, he maintained, in conformity with the lecture he had held the previous year and with his Kreislauf des Lebens; life is one because it obeys the absolute laws of natural necessity, he stated, ending with Goethe’s poem.167 Just like Moleschott, Donders also understood nature as ever-becoming, always developing and evolving towards an ideal condition of perfection: although perfection can never be achieved, it is nevertheless a “regulative” ideal (in the Kantian sense) that directs growth, change and adaptation in natural processes.168

165 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 65: “De kennis, die gij verlangt, ligt in de voorwerpen en verschijnselen der natuur opgesloten: zintuigelijke waarneming van deze is de éénige wijze, waarop zij te verkrijgen is.” 166 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 49: “L’unità della vita risulta piuttosto dalle attinenze profonde ed universali, in cui tutte le funzioni sono fra di loro connesse, dal connubio intimo necessariamente adeguato delle singole parti, il quale di continuo si riflette su tutte le altre, da quel legame espressivo per proporzionalità, per franchezza, per assolta ed insita utilità che ha fatto del nome organico l’ideale epiteto per ascrivere ordine, connessione, simmetria, disinvoltura, vitalità, insomma a qualunque creazione dell’ingegno umano: alle lingue, alle leggi, all’arte, a tutte le scientifiche discipline.” 167 Moleschott, L’unità della vita, 49-50. 168 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 31-32: “De harmonie is niet. Zij ontwikkelt zich; zij wordt. Zij streeft voortdurend naar eene volmaaktheid, die zij nimmer bereikt.”

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Both Moleschott and Donders had a fundamentally organicist conception of the universe. On the one hand, they thought that all living beings are in a harmonious relation with each other and with their environment (as Donders noticed, living beings are useful to the flourishing of the environments where they live).169 On the other hand, they were convinced that in the animal body as well each part serves the good functioning of the whole, and a change in any of its parts involves changes in all of the other members, too. Finally, both of them regarded the achievement of self-consciousness as the highest task of science: whereas Moleschott defined the third period, the period of the awareness of the boundaries and the differences between mankind and nature, as the epoch of modern science, Donders wanted to teach, with his lecture, how to correctly use one’s own senses as instruments of knowledge, which he regarded as a “secret” leading to independence (“Daarin bestaat het groote geheim, om zelfstandig te worden”).170 Thus, the task of science was presented as being highly ethical and political at the same time.171 All these similarities prove that Moleschott knew the lecture De eenheid van het dierlijke leven by Donders, having as a topic precisely the laws of nature. Thus, L’unità della vita is a typical example of how Moleschott contributed to transnational cultural transfer from the Netherlands to Italy: the “unity of life” perfectly shows how concepts traveled between different contexts, and how an opening lecture at an Italian university could resemble the opening lecture given at a Dutch university fifteen years earlier.172 At the same time, Moleschott’s lecture contains a panoramic view of the history of science in the three epochs, with particular concern to the history of medicine: in this sense, we can regard it as the realization of Berthold Auerbach’s suggestion to write a history of science, which, as we have seen, he made to Moleschott in Germany in the 1850s – of course, Moleschott adapted the literary form to the new national and social context. In this way, Moleschott proved to be an active element in bringing to Italy a conceptual framework for scientific discourse and its popularization and, thanks to his international career and the transnational networks he belonged to, he contributed in knowledge transfer between different European academic contexts. Nevertheless, as we have seen, Moleschott tended to emphasize the

(Italics in the original). In this process, the difference between life and death was understood as an absence of connection: Donders explained that death is just another condition of life, a condition in which harmony and unity are lacking. 169 Ibidem. 170 Donders, De harmonie van het dierlijke leven, 66. 171 On German scientific popularization and the presentation of science as challenging “traditional sources of moral and political authority”, cf. Bowler, “Popular Science”, 626. 172 Concerning “travelling concepts”, cf. Bachmann-Medick, “Translation: A Concept and Model for the Study of Culture”.

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Italian national character of certain scientific discoveries, contributing to the construction of a national history of science: this is another case showing that nationalist ideas were not juxtaposed to international networks, but profited from transnational influences both in their genesis (Donders’s opening lecture was a model for Moleschott’s lecture) and in their diffusion (the lecture has been translated into all major western-European languages). Moleschott’s fourth lecture, Fisiologia e medicina (43 pages), given on November 28, 1864 and published in 1865, focused on the role of physiology within medical sciences and, in particular, its relation with pathology.173 Moleschott wanted to explain why physiology is “the heart of medicine”, why it is physiology that makes medicine “scientific”, the physician “rational”, and transforms “the magician into a scientist”.174 He maintained that the methods for observation and experimentation are the same both in physiology and pathology;175 however, the conditions of experimentation and observation are different in both disciplines, since the pathologist has to deal with the sick organism, and for this reason one should not confuse pathology with physiology.176 Nevertheless, sometimes it is pathology that teaches the relations which the various organs and functions of the body have with each other,177 since a “pathological symptom” is just a physiological fact becoming manifest “in an unusual measure, place or time”.178 Through “rational analysis”, physiology “reveals the functional relations” between pathological phenomena, thus making understandable what before was interpreted as mere coincidence.179 Moreover, physiology had, according to him, the important task of indicating what kind of nutrition is most adequate for each particular sickness, thereby contributing to healing many ill people, whose illness depends mainly on scarce or bad nutrition:180 in many cases, dietetics and public hygiene, explained Moleschott to his young students, “are more valuable

173 Jacob Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina: quarta prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. università di Torino letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 28 novembre 1864 (Torino: Loescher, 1865). German: Jacob Moleschott, Natur und Heilkunde. Vortrag bei der Wideröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule am 28. November, 1864 gehalten (Giessen: Roth, 1865). French: “La physiologie comme base de la médecineˮ. Revue des cours scientifiques, 3 (1865), 5: 81-88. 174 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 6. 175 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 15. 176 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 16. 177 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 23. 178 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 25. 179 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 27. 180 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 31.

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than pharmaceutical remedies not only to prevent, but even to fight illnesses”.181 According to him, before physiology illuminated pathology with its methods of observation and its “rational” ways of healing, pathology was like systematic botany, being limited to collecting materials. After physiology had studied the interconnectedness of organic functions, however, pathology had gotten the task of making a “synthesis” of what physiology had separated through “experimental analysis”.182 At the end of his lecture, although condemning rivalry between scientific disciplines, Moleschott pled for pathology to become “a noble part of the great physiological science”, physiology being part of “physical disciplines”.183 The relationship between pathology and physiology would also be the central topic of the lecture Moleschott gave one year later, on December 2, 1865, entitled Patologia e fisiologia (35 pages):184 this time, Moleschott’s aim was to show that physiology would be incomplete and useless without pathology.185 In this way, Moleschott indicated to his audience that he was standing both on the side of physiologists and of pathologists, considering both categories fundamental to medical science. Scientific disciplines always illuminate each other, he explained, using the metaphor of the multiplied reflex of a luminous object between two parallel mirrors.186 Moleschott named concrete examples of physiological processes that had been discovered when studying pathological conditions, referring to the research of the famous French experimental physiologist François Magendie (1783-1855), as well as that of his own teachers at Heidelberg, Tiedemann and Gmelin.187 Moreover, he added that pathology can often easily confirm in case of illnesses the presence of phenomena which the physiologist could only observe through vivisection.188 In this lecture, Moleschott had the occasion to describe in every detail the symptoms of several illnesses that his students would possibly have to cure: for instance, he dedicated several pages to the description of symptoms and consequences of cholera.189 In fact, precisely in that period, Moleschott was writing a popularizing booklet on the prevention of and 181 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 33. 182 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 39. 183 Moleschott, Fisiologia e medicina, 40. 184 Jacob Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia: quinta prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino, letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 2 dicembre 1865 (Torino: Loescher, 1866). German: Jacob Moleschott, Pathologie und Physiologie: Vortrag bei der Wiedereröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule am 2. Dezember 1865 gehalten (Giessen: Roth, 1866). 185 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 5 and 32. 186 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 11. 187 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 12-13, other examples: 8-16. 188 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 17. 189 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 17-22.

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cure for cholera.190 Further, he clarified the importance of pathology in confirming the results of experiments on animals: in fact, there are numerous differences between the function and the form of animal and human organs,191 he explained, so that pathology can sometimes correct or confirm the results of physiological experiments192 – under the condition that pathology also follows the “rigorous method” which all sciences have taken from physics.193 Especially in the case of the so-called “social illnesses”, chemistry, pathology, histology, and anatomical pathology would allow finding the causes in malnutrition, climate or profession.194 Moleschott concluded his speech with the encouraging message that, even though sometimes it seems hard to make progress in one’s research, nevertheless one unveils, little by little, “the image of the divine beauty of human nature”, which obeys the necessary, immanent laws of the universe and everything which is “sublime” in it.195 In this way, Moleschott hinted at Feuerbach’s conception of religion (for instance in his fundamental work, Das Wesen des Christentums, 1841), considering human nature as the truly divine, and the divine a human projection. Defining the contemporary epoch as “fertile and sometimes feverish” for scientific research, since “the methods and results of chemical and physical research mix with each other to such a point, that one cannot indicate with certainty where the limit of their respective domain lies”, Moleschott did not doubt – once more quoting Goethe – the fact that this development and “intermingling of single disciplines” would lead to scientific progress.196 In the last opening lecture he gave in Turin in the 1860s, Della causalità nella biologia (1867, 35 pages, starting with a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar), Moleschott joined once more his theoretical considerations on science with more specific information about determining causes and effects in life sciences.197 What is most 190 Moleschott, Consigli e conforti nei tempi di colera, translated into German as Rath und Trost für Cholerazeiten. 191 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 22-23. 192 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 25. 193 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 28. 194 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 32. 195 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 34-35. 196 Moleschott, Patologia e fisiologia, 35. 197 Jacob Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia: sesta prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Universita di Torino, letta dal prof. Jac. Moleschott il dì 8 gennaio 1867 (Torino: Loescher, 1867). Published in German as: Jacob Moleschott, Ursache und Wirkung in der Lehre vom Leben: sechster Vortrag zur Wiedereröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule, gehalten am 8. Januar 1867 (Giessen: Roth, 1867). French: “De la causalité en biologieˮ. Revue des cours scientifiques, 4 (1867), 51: 801-807.

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interesting to us are perhaps the initial considerations on the “unity of science”, which Moleschott defined as one of the “noblest human aspirations”.198 Whereas in the past, from Aristotle to Humboldt, the best scholars “have tried to embrace nature and history”, being eager to represent organic life in an artistic way, later scholars were divided into two categories, mainly because of the differences between their methods: “philosophers” and “scientists” (even though this division, remarked Moleschott, was more typical for the “Latin” than for the “Germanic world”).199 The first category, that of philosophers, does not rely on experience and on the “external world” to acquire knowledge about the universe, but “on innate properties of the human soul”,200 whereas “scientists”, a “less ancient” but also “more modest” category,201 are interested in “facts”, and follow “experience”, albeit in a critical way.202 The scientists rely on “observation”, not on “imagination”;203 what is more, they are aware that they are bound to the laws of natural necessity, which they study, and precisely for this reason they are content.204 As we have seen, Moleschott had already explained this concept of natural necessity in the lecture he gave in Zürich, Licht und Leben, eleven years before: following Spinoza, he was certain that being conscious that one is subject to the laws of nature means being free. However, the most interesting part of the lecture was that Moleschott did not himself consider these two categories, the scientist and the philosopher, to be in opposition to one another in an absolute way, but pled for their cooperation and for the integration of their methods, in a way which anticipated his contributions in the Senate debates on the reform of higher education twenty years later. In fact, Moleschott stated that “poetry” and “positivism” do not exclude each other: to the contrary, he greatly admired what he called “naturalist poets”, among whom he included Chamisso, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Sophocles.205 He pled for a cooperation of “poets and naturalists” in “understanding and accepting that law of necessity, which is the base and absolute condition for every [form of] knowledge”,206 and he observed that the methods of the natural sciences were becoming part of linguistics, philology, history, and social sciences (the social sciences including hygiene, jurisprudence,

198 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 3. 199 Ibidem. 200 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 4. 201 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 5. 202 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 6. 203 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 7. 204 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 8. 205 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 9. 206 Ibidem.

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economics, education, administration, and “public charity”).207 Summing up, Moleschott thought that even the categories of the scientist and of the philosopher were not juxtaposed, since “philosophy worthy of its name embraces the quintessence of the tree of science, of which it is nothing else than the ripest fruit”.208 As we will see, the cooperation of the sciences and the humanities would become the central topic of Moleschott’s Senate speeches on higher education in the 1880s. Moleschott ended his speech by quoting some verses by the poet Giuseppe Giusti (1809-1850) and advising his students not to be content with logical rules when looking for causes and studying their effects in biology, since nature is much more complex than one thinks, and requires constant and patient observation instead of abstract speculation.209 Moleschott’s last opening lecture to the course of experimental physiology in Turin was given in 1878, thus a short time before he followed the appointment in Rome, and in a time when the center of his life had already shifted in the direction of Rome, where he had become a Senator in 1876. The lecture was entitled Veder nascere; it was relatively short (21 pages) and hinted at the activity of the natural scientist, and of the physiologist in particular, who observe organisms originating and growing; it was published in Turin in 1880, and in Giessen in 1882 (with the title Ein Blick ins Innere der Natur), by Moleschott’s usual publishers (respectively Loescher and Roth).210 At the beginning of the lecture, Moleschott explained its title as being a borrowed from an expression authored by the French journalist and historian, the liberal and republican Armand Carrel (1800-1836), who said that “the word is efficient and powerful only when the ones who listen to it see how thought originates”. Moleschott applied this idea – which, if we think about his own speeches, he might have applied to the task of scientific popularization as well – to the passion of the natural scientist, whose need to see life being born and growing inspires his love for biology.211 In fact, Moleschott defined this as the very essence of physiological research, “veder nascere” corresponding e.g. to microscopic research, and to every time the physiologist “unveils” by a little the secrets of natural life.212 This metaphor clearly hinted at “Isis’s veil”, a typical image in Moleschott’s understanding of scientific research, which we can find, for instance, in some of his handwritten notes for a lecture, dating December 16, 1882, in which he maintained that “man does not

207 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 9-10. 208 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 11. 209 Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia, 34-35. 210 Jacob Moleschott, Veder nascere: prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale, pronunziata il 5 novembre 1878 nellʼUniversità di Torino da Jac. Moleschott (Torino: Loescher, 1880). Translated into German as: Ein Blick ins Innere der Natur (Giessen: Roth, 1882). 211 Moleschott, Veder nascere, [3]. 212 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 7.

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lacerate Isis’s veil, but corrodes it” (“l’uomo non squarcia il velo d’Iside ma lo corrode”); at the same time, in these notes in his Quaderni we can also find the word “ottimismo”, indicating his optimistic conception that one can “unveil the mystery” of nature (“svelare il mistero”).213 As Moleschott had already expressed it in this lecture, given in Turin in 1878, it was precisely nature’s “veil” which exhorted the scientist to discover its secrets.214 In particular, the reference to the activity of being born, of originating and developing of organic life, referred to the evolutionary theory, which Moleschott supported and which he contributed to spread and popularize, among others through this lecture: in fact, he explained that there was no difference between natural history and biology anymore, since both of them now studied nature in its development and the evolution of life, seeking for the moment of its origin.215 Classification, explained Moleschott, was not the main task of the natural sciences anymore: their task was “to understand the conditions” of the life of every specific species, “the intimate relationships of the organs with each other”; in other words, the task was “to see [each organism] being born and living”.216 While recognizing that Aristotle had already observed nature with the same spirit and with good results, Moleschott considered the microscope as an essential instrument that had substantially improved that quality of scientific observation.217 Moreover, he regarded the analysis of chemical processes and the “measuring” of phenomena, “reduc[ing] to precise cyphers the values” that needed to be compared, as being necessary elements of scientific knowledge.218 Moleschott summarized his own speech by saying that if one perseveres in his observations, one can see the origin of life (“veder nascere”), and in doing that one gains an always-increasing knowledge of nature.219 With this image, similar to the image of the sphere whose volume always increases representing knowledge, which we have already found in some of his notes,220 Moleschott showed and pled for a positive, non-skeptical attitude vis-à-vis the development of scientific knowledge. Also in 1882, Moleschott exhorted his students to “optimism”, and explained to them that knowledge consisted of studying relationships.221 In these concluding lines, Moleschott criticized Albrecht von Haller’s skepticism with regard 213 Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni” (December 16, 1882): BCABo, FSM, B I 6 d. 214 As we will see in the next page, at the end of the speech Moleschott would come back to that image: Moleschott, Veder nascere, 21. 215 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 5. 216 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 7. 217 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 9. 218 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 9 and 16. 219 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 21. 220 Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni” (December 16, 1882): BCABo, FSM, B I 6 b. 221 Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni” (December 16, 1882): BCABo, FSM, B I 6 d: “Si tratta dovunque di relazioni”.

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to the achievement of a complete knowledge of the secrets of nature and to all contemporary scientists having a similar position (which he considered as being particularly wide-spread in Germany and he called ignorabimus, thereby implicitly referring to Emil Du Bois-Reymond).222 In fact, he was sure that, although scientists should be ready to admit that their knowledge of the universe is still incomplete, they should at the same time be proud of the progresses of science since Galileo (whom, as we have seen, he had already defined as the founder of modern science in his lecture L’unità della vita).223 As he had done in his lecture Dei limiti della natura umana, Moleschott underlined the immortality of scientific knowledge, which would come to an end with the death of the individual, but be transmitted to the whole species and become part of a tradition in virtue of the method of scientific research, contributing thereby to the “continuous evolution of the human species”.224 “Know thyself”, the motto of the Delphic oracle, was, for him, the key to the achievement of what, as we have seen, he called “absolute knowledge” in his handwritten notes, and which he identified with the whole of the relationships between mankind and the world, admitting at the same time that, since mankind itself evolves, knowledge never comes to an end (“è un mare senza fondo”, meaning that it is a sea without a bottom).225 As we can see, in this lecture, the last opening lecture he gave in Turin, Moleschott synthesized the themes he had developed at some length in the previous opening lectures, explaining both his conception of scientific knowledge as belonging to the whole species and being transmitted and evolving together with it, but at the same time also the value of observation and of measurement for the scientific method. This is accompanied by an optimistic, anti-skeptical view, since Moleschott opposed the ignorabimus attitude in this lecture. These theoretical considerations, many of which are concentrated in the last page of the lecture, give us an idea of how Moleschott used literary references and references to ancient culture in order to transmit a message that went well beyond the domain of the popularization of empirical results, concerning the methodologies, the aims, and the very essence of scientific research. The point of Moleschott’s rhetoric, however, is not contained in an academic speech, but in the popularizing speech Un’ambasciata fisiologica, a sixty-page lecture which he gave for the Società Torinese per letture scientifiche e letterarie on March 21, 1864.226 He dedicated the printed version to his colleague, the chemist Raffaele Piria 222 Moleschott, Veder nascere, 21. 223 Ibidem. 224 Ibidem. 225 Ibidem. 226 Jacob Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica esposta nella società torinese per letture scientifiche e letterarie, il dì 21 marzo 1864 (Torino: Loescher, 1864). Translated into

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(1814-1865), to whom he expressed gratitude for having encouraged him and having been “a luminous and noble example” for him.227 The occasion of the speech can be better reconstructed from the preface to the German translation: there, Moleschott explained his feelings vis-à-vis “his fourth fatherland”, as a friend of his, the physicist Wilhelm von Beetz (1822-1886) (whom he had probably met in Switzerland, since he was Professor of Physics in Bern from 1855 to 1858), had recently called it. Moreover, he reported about the great success of this lecture, which he considered his first lecture in front of a broad audience in Italy. Additionally, Moleschott made a comparison between Italy and the Netherlands, where he was born and which he fiercely identified as the land of the philosopher Spinoza and the physicist Huyghens; the comparison went on with Germany, to which he owed most of his education, but also his dismissal from the university within a short time, and finally with Switzerland, where the enlightened statesman Jacob Dubs had to oppose the Faculty of Medicine in the issue of his appointment. Italy, to the contrary, had given him the means to do research, the possibility to teach, and the opportunity to have his own “school” (“Wirkungskreis”).228 For this reason, he could not refuse to give one of those popularizing lectures that had become common in Holland, in France, in England and in Germany, even though lecturing for a broad audience in what he defined as “one of the most beautiful living languages” was still a challenge for him, having started to learn Italian from Georg Herwegh’s wife, Emma, only six years earlier.229 What his German readers were about to read, was “keine Kathederweisheit, […] sondern ein lebender Trunk aus dem leichten Strome frisch emporblühenden Lebens”.230 Indeed: Moleschott’s lecture is a masterpiece of his popularization, and probably the wittiest he ever wrote. Addressing first the ladies, and then the gentlemen, Moleschott presented himself as the “ambassador of a very numerous folk”.231 Even though he believed he was not worthy of such a prestigious task, because others knew “the character, the habits, the constitution, the history of [that] kingdom” very well, he could not refuse, because these experienced scientists were too far away, or occupied with more important tasks, because he had been studying that topic for sixteen German as Eine Physiologische Sendung: in der Turiner Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche und litterarische Vorlesungen am 21. März 1864 vorgetragen (Giessen: Roth, 1864) and into Dutch as Eene physiologische zending (Rotterdam, 1864). Translated into French as: “Une ambassade physiologique. Les globules du sang.ˮ Revue des Cours Scientifiques, 4 (1867), 11: 167-176 (February 9, 1867). 227 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, [6]. 228 Moleschott, Eine Physiologische Sendung, vol. 4 of Vorträge, [3]-6, Turin, August 30, 1864. 229 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 5. 230 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 6. 231 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 7.

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years, and, finally, because giving the lecture was part of his duties vis-à-vis the social community.232 And although he felt his language was lacking the fast, colorful and vivid character a native speaker would have offered in his place, he was hoping that his audience would be sufficiently interested in the topic and kind enough to forgive him that lack of his style.233 We do not know if Moleschott apologized out of false modesty, but what is certain is that the speech is a real high point of his popularizing activity, a masterwork of allegory. The country he represented, Moleschott explained, had been discovered at least fifty centuries before its inhabitants;234 its inhabitants were extremely numerous: in 1852, they were more than sixty-thousand trillion, and for this reason the country was called “Polibrozia” (an Italian-sounding word made up by Moleschott from the Greek words πολύς, many, and βροθύς, mortal: the land with many inhabitants).235 Each province of the land has more than sixty billion inhabitants, and their number grows fast in times of abundance; however, the aristocracy grows faster than the working class.236 Moleschott went on by describing the climate of this country, which is warm and humid in all provinces: it is even warmer than the Senate and the administration offices of Turin during the winter – Moleschott added wittily.237 As far as their character is concerned, the “Polibroziani” are all very similar to each other: the older they become, the more they are similar.238 They are capable of great sacrifices to save the lives of their compatriots: sometimes, more than four billion would die to save the others. In general, their life is very short, and what is most amazing is that they erect very simple sepulchral monuments, which are made out of the corpses themselves and have wonderful geometric shapes, their colors going from dark red to pale pink, and sometimes they form a black mosaic which covers the vault of a chapel without an altar.239 They all have the same profession: they travel; even though their speed is forty-five times slower than that of the railway, sometimes they travel throughout their province more than sixty-thousand times.240 However, they leave the province where they live extremely rarely, and only when they have to help out another province because of a great calamity (when the allegory will be revealed, it will become clear that Moleschott was referring, at this point, to the innovative practice of blood transfusion): they always work for the interest of their own province, due to constant 232 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 8. 233 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 8-9. 234 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 9. 235 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 10. 236 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 10-11. 237 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 11. 238 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 12. 239 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 12-13. 240 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 13.

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patriotic love rather than to provincialism.241 Fortunately, they do not have a constitutional representation, otherwise one could not get rid of local interests in any discussion – commented Moleschott, who apparently knew the problems of Italian politics, in particular, the prevalence of local interests over national ones.242 Their public education is extremely liberal, and every student has a lot of teachers, in a similar way as Gulliver, but even many more than he had – the fact that Moleschott himself made a comparison with Jonathan’s Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels clearly indicates that he must have had it in mind as source of inspiration for his own popularizing lecture, in which he was playing the ambassador of a strange, highly populated country.243 The sciences they cultivate are physics, physiology, medicine, and empirical psychology. There are aristocrats and workers, but the middle class is absent – just like in Poland, commented Moleschott.244 And just like in Piedmont, in England, and in Holland, the aristocracy wanted to be separated from the workers, whom they criticized for their “red color, which they also hate as a symbol of democracy”.245 And yet, there is not a kingdom with such a developed form of socialism as “Polibrozia”, since when the nobles become older, they all turn into workers. The form of their government, however, is an absolute despotism, in which the power of the tyrant is founded on the “grace of nature” (in analogy with the “grace of God”).246 However, sometimes the tyrant himself sends brigands to certain regions, causing great problems – even much worse than what happened in the province of Naples, commented Moleschott, thus demonstrating that he was perfectly informed about the most important political issues of contemporary Italy.247 Sometimes, the problems are caused by the fact that the tyrant educates his subjects to obedience, and as a result they are not able to command.248 The subjects cannot break the tyranny, not even 241 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 14. 242 On parochialism and fragmentation of Italian bourgeoisie in liberal Italy cf. Alberto Mario Banti, Storia della borghesia italiana: l’età liberale (1861-1922) (Roma: Donzelli, 1996). 243 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 15. 244 Ibidem. 245 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 16. 246 Ibidem. 247 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 18. On the “brigantaggio” in the former Bourbon territories, which consisted of phenomena of revolt against the new Italian nation-state that occurred between 1861 and 1865 (often ferocious, and ferociously repressed), cf. Franco Molfese, Storia del brigantaggio dopo l’unità (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1964); for the parliamentary debates on the topic, cf. Giampiero Carocci (ed.), Il parlamento nella storia d’Italia (Roma, Bari: Laterza, 1964), 30-40. 248 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 17. Here Moleschott quoted another Italian nationalist, the historian and politician Pietro Colletta (Naples, 1775 – Florence, 1831).

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through a revolution, lest they ruin the whole province: they are just like the French, commented Moleschott, who cannot live without a ruler. And even if they could revolt, their revolutions would not be successful: just like in Germany, where every province has its own sovereign and they understand each other better than they understand their own respective peoples – once more, Moleschott could not help making sarcastic comments on European politics.249 As far as the military is concerned, in their parades they form simple rows, which mingle in elegant and marvelous combinations, and in war they make huge “sacrifices”, since up to hundreds of billions of them die.250 It is only at this point, at page nineteen of the printed version of the speech, that Moleschott unveiled the allegory: the “true name of Polibrozia is human blood”, and every province of the kingdom corresponds to one individual. Moleschott said that he had the honor to see circa three-hundred “provinces” in front of him, that is, his audience was composed of more or less three-hundred people. He had felt the need to use such an allegory, he explained, because his audience, especially the ladies, would have never come to a lecture on the seemingly disgusting topic of human blood and blood cells: Moleschott hoped that the images he had chosen to describe the blood and its cells could help his audience overcome their disgust.251 Through this rhetorical imagery, Moleschott had just described the number, shape, disposition, function, and behavior of blood cells (the “Polibroziani”): the “aristocracy” represents leucocytes, the “working class” represents erythrocytes,252 their “tyrant” is the heart,253 the “brigands” are made out of fibrin and constitute, as Moleschott explained further,254 the cause of thrombosis – against these “enemies”, scientific research was even less mighty than the parliamentary inquiry against the emissaries of Francis II (the King of the Two Sicilies) and Pius IX (the Pope), Moleschott remarked sarcastically, hinting in this way to the accusation of their involvement in the phenomenon of “brigantaggio” in Southern Italy, where the pope sided with the Bourbons and their supporters in the former Bourbon territories, the so-called “briganti”.255 The colleges where the cells are “educated” correspond to the glands where leucocytes are generated,256 whereas the “sepulchral monuments” correspond to the 249 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 18. 250 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 18-19. 251 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 20-21. 252 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 21. 253 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 39. 254 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 52. 255 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 53. Cf. Marco Meriggi, “L’unificazione nazionale in Italia e in Germania”, in Storia contemporanea, ed. Alberto Mario Banti (Roma: Donzelli, 1997), 129-150, in particular 138-139. 256 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 26.

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crystals of coagulated blood,257 the “black mosaics” to the melanin on the internal surface of the choroid of the eye.258 Hoping that “the Polibroziani would not accuse him of being impious”, he was convinced that they were composed of homogeneous material, without any difference between their inner and external parts – metaphorically speaking, he did not believe they had a “body” and a “soul”.259 Psychology, one of the subjects which blood cells “study”, is involved in the expression of emotions, Moleschott explained. In this way, not only did he make his topic visible and easy understandable, but he also addressed his audience, involving them in the speech: in fact, he threatened that he could easily order thousands of blood cells to reach the cheeks of the ladies who were listening to him, making them reddish.260 In the next pages, Moleschott continued with a detailed description of the function and composition of blood cells and plasma in the organism, this time mostly out of metaphor, but never forgetting to awaken the interest of his audience: for instance, he explained that the erythrocytes are as small as half the diameter of the hairs growing on the back of a lady’s hand.261 Therefore, the lecture is the perfect combination of his own scientific research (Moleschott referred to experiments he had himself done together with Marfels),262 popularization, and political observations. After this wonderful lecture, in which he quoted both Moses in the Bible263 and Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust,264 expressing the idea that blood is the essence of life, Moleschott concluded with a patriotic tone and a patriotic message, exhorting his audience to preserve their blood to salute Saint Mark and revive the ancient Roman glories (i.e., to conquer Venice and Rome),265 and admitting that the only “equivalent” of blood is “the freedom and independence of the whole fatherland” – where the word “whole” doubtlessly referred to the conquest of the abovementioned territories, still belonging to the Holy See and the Habsburg Monarchy.266 There is yet another opening lecture that Moleschott gave at the University of Turin, Dei regolatori della vita umana (1870): in this case, the lecture did not inaugurate Moleschott’s own courses in experimental physiology, but the academic year at the

257 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 33. 258 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 34. 259 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 38. 260 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 47. 261 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 22. 262 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 31. 263 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 57. 264 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 58. 265 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 60-61. 266 Moleschott, Un’ambasciata fisiologica, 61.

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whole University of Turin.267 Therefore, its audience was broader than in the former cases, and we can infer that, if Moleschott was chosen as the ambassador of all faculties and of the whole university, this should be attributed not only to his qualities as a speaker, but also to his abilities as a public figure and his political interest. In fact, the lecture wisely combines nutritional advice with references to high culture and with nationalist celebration. As all other lectures, this one was also translated into German, and like the first opening lecture, it was provided with a special foreword, explaining the usus of the University of Turin to choose each year one speaker who would offer an opening lecture for the whole university and educated society. In addition, Moleschott explained that he had decided to make his lecture available to the German public because in that year Rome was annexed and “Italy [had] reached the most important completion of its unity” (“[…] Rom sein Joch abschüttelte und Italien die wichtigste Vervollständigung seiner Einheit errang”).268 For this reason, Moleschott, recognizing the centrality of the role of Germany in these events – in fact, that Rome became part of the Italian nation was a result of the German victory in the Franco-Prussian war269 – decided to publish a German version of his speech: “Um dieses Ereigniß haben Deutschlands Geistesthaten und Waffenehre so außerordentliche Verdienste, daß ich schon um deswillen folgende Blätter meinen deutschen Freunden mitzutheilen wünschte.ˮ270 Once more, we are dealing with an example of cultural transfer, of popularization and translation on a European level. Publishing a German version of his opening lecture, Moleschott was in this case a quasi-ambassador not only of Italian science, but also of Italian politics, playing not only the role of a scholar, but also that of a diplomat.

267 Jacob Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana: discorso pronunciato nel solenne riaprimento della Regia Università di Torino addì 16 novembre 1870 da Jac. Moleschott (Torino: Stamperia Reale, 1870; Milano: E. Treves, 1871). German: Jacob Moleschott, Von der Selbststeuerung im Leben des Menschen. Rede zur Wiedereröffnung der Turiner Hochschule am 16. November, 1870 gehalten (Giessen: Roth, 1871). French: “Les régulateurs de la vie humaineˮ. Revue des cours scientifiques, 2ème série, 1 (1871), 1: 486491. 268 Moleschott, Von der Selbststeuerung im Leben des Menschen, Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe (Turin, October 27, 1870). 269 Cf. Christopher Duggan, “Politics in the era of Depretis and Crispi, 1870-96”, in Italy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. John A. Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 154155. 270 Moleschott, Von der Selbststeuerung im Leben des Menschen, Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe (Turin, October 27, 1870).

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In his preface to the German translation of the academic year opening lecture he gave in Turin, Dei regolatori della vita umana, Moleschott explained that, at the Italian universities, it was common that every year one of the faculties would chose a speaker to inaugurate the reopening of the academic year, giving a lecture in front of the teachers and students of all faculties, the representatives of the most educated classes (both religious and secular), including women: “Um Inhalt und Haltung dieser Rede zu erklären, genügt es zu erzählen, daß an den italienischen Hochschulen alljährlich eine der Facultäten einen Redner wählt, der die Wiederaufnahme der Studien einzuweihen hat. Seine Zuhörer sind die Lehrer und Schüler sämmtlicher [sic] Facultäten, Laien und Priester, die Vertreter der gebildetsten Klassen der Gesellschaft, zu denen natürlich auch Damen gehören.ˮ271

In this way, Moleschott made clear for his German audience that, if he had been chosen as the speaker who would give this lecture in front of the whole university and the most educated classes of Turin, this meant that he was playing a very important role in the academic milieu of Turin. The lecture took place on November 10, 1870, at 11 a.m., in the “grand’aula” of the university, and was accompanied by the music of the “Guardia nazionale”. This gives us an idea of the patriotic character of the event, and of the entanglement of science and nationalism.272 As we can determine from the foreword to the German version, the lecture was centered on the patriotic sentiments deriving from the fact that Rome had become part of Italy. At the beginning, Moleschott explained, in a way which is easy to follow, but full of humor, the functioning of metabolism, of sense perception and of the different organs, sometimes using technical metaphors, as we have already seen in other lectures. For instance, he described the trachea as a chimney expulsing combustion gases, and he explained that the skin serves both the expulsion and the absorption of oxygen.273 This part of the lecture ends by underlining the mutual and necessary relationships of all organs with each other, of the organs with blood, with nerves, and the need for oxygen for their proper functioning. This fundamental organicist thought is further developed at the beginning of the next section, in which 271 Moleschott, Von der Selbststeuerung im Leben des Menschen, Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe (Turin, October 27, 1870). 272 Moleschott had been nominated by the rector as speaker for the “orazione inaugurale” in 1869: ASUT, Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1869 I.6 (Posizione I: Segreteria; Riapertura dellʼUniversità. Orazione inaugurale degli studii. Funzioni religiose e civili). For Moleschott announcing the title of his lecture, the official invitation and the thanks for the compliments he had received from the Rector, cf. ASUT, Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1870 I.6. 273 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 17.

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Moleschott underlined the interdependence of all parts of that marvelous whole which is the unity of life, where no part is autonomous because they are all related with each other and depend upon each other.274 Further, Moleschott dealt with nutrition, his favorite topic, connecting it with the issue of energy metabolism and explaining that “each food deserving the name of a complete food” (“alimento completo”, that is, meeting all nutritional needs) includes carbohydrates, proteins, fats and minerals.275 Moleschott not only quoted passages from famous literary works, but also sayings from popular wisdom in his speeches.276 At the same time, he gave his audience plenty of advice on hygienic matters (e.g., that one should breath with one’s mouth closed in order not to expose one’s breathing organs to cold air).277 It is remarkable that Moleschott consequently followed his organicist model all the way up to suggesting that an abnormal functioning of the body-machine is due exactly to an attempt by the body to repair itself and get back to its optimal working conditions278 – this thought was at the basis of the representatives of the abovementioned “naturgemäße Diätetik”, which would culminate e.g. in the theories of the Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner.279 Besides nutritional advice, Moleschott gave his audience advice about practicing physical activity, which he held to be highly important and one of the basic principles of “hygiene”: some moderate physical activity, Moleschott argued, is necessary to the intellectual, in the same way as some intellectual activity is necessary to the working class; however, these efforts should not be excessive, in order not to weaken the intellectual faculties.280 As we will see, when he was a Senator in Rome, Moleschott engaged in the debate on the introduction of physical education at schools, exposing its benefits for both the physical health and the discipline of the new national youth. Another topic which would become central 274 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 24. 275 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 28. 276 Cf. for instance also Jacob Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella Sapienza di Roma, pronunziata il dì 11 gennaio 1879 da Jac. Moleschott (Torino: Loescher, 1879), 12. 277 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 34. 278 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 37. 279 Cf. Jörg Melzer, Vollwerternährung. Diätetik, Naturheilkunde, Nationalsozialismus, sozialer Anspruch (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003), 113-139. 280 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 47: “Equilibrare la vita dei nervi e dell’intelletto all’attività muscolare, è uno dei più gravi precetti dell’igiene. Avvegnaché l’uomo dotto non possa abbandonarsi a grandi sforzi muscolari, se non vuole turbare le sue elucubrazioni ed indebolire le facoltà intellettuali, pure, se trascura troppo una moderata ginnastica, le sue funzioni vegetative prendon detrimento così sicuro, come si abbrutisce l’operaio al quale non si conceda qualche ora del giorno per occupare la mente in sobrie meditazioni.”

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in the public speeches Moleschott gave in Rome was that of religion, which this opening lecture anticipates: in fact, Moleschott explained that, for him, being “religious” was related to ethical qualities, moral strength, moderation, and courage, but not with any belief about the origins of the universe. In fact, he stated that “Socrates and Spinoza were not less religious than Jesus or Augustine, Galilei more religious than his persecutors, and Voltaire much more than all the inquisitors of the world”.281 As a conclusion, we can say that the lectures Moleschott gave in Turin were another way to popularize the ideas of his German books, but they also anticipated many of the issues and strategies of his Senate speeches, such as the references to classical culture (both modern and ancient), the construction of an “Italian” history of science, and the use of rhetorical imagery in order to make ideas comprehensible to the minds of an audience of non-scientists. The content of his lectures in Turin was partly similar to what he had expressed in the Physiologie des Stoffwechsels and in the Kreislauf des Lebens, in the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel and in the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, explaining a fundamental organicist conception of nature, exhorting his students to look for causes and not for finality, and pointing to the importance of nutrition for the functioning of the body. At the same time, these lectures anticipate some topics of his Senate speeches, for instance the importance of bodily exercise, or the necessity of laboratory research and experiments as a means to teach the students to do independent research. Even though the lectures often had a nationalist tone, underlining the role of Italy in the history of science and of medicine in particular, their reception was not limited to Turin or Italy, but had an international, European character (as we have seen, all lectures were translated into German, and some of them into French). Thus, Moleschott’s way of popularizing science in Italy is an example of the entanglement of science and politics as well as of the role played by scientists in the program of political education of the Italians, but at the same time it also displays a transnational reach and highlights the role of translation in the European reception of scientific popularization.

C ONCLUSION Summing up, Moleschott’s time in Turin occupied a central place in his life and career. There, he passed the first eighteen of the thirty-two years he stayed in Italy, namely from 1861 until 1879. Even if the start of his teaching in Italian and his moving to Turin had not been planned very far in advance, he and his family managed to 281 Moleschott, Dei regolatori della vita umana, 50: “Imperocché Socrate e Spinoza non erano meno religiosi di Gesù o Agostino, Galilei più religioso de’ suoi persecutori, e Voltaire assai più di tutti gl’inquisitori del mondo.”

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adapt to the new country, the new language, and the new ways of practicing science extremely quickly. Besides occupying the Chair of Physiology in Turin, Moleschott was also responsible for the laboratory of physiology at that university, and he soon became a member of the Academy of Sciences in Turin (Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 1861), and a member of the national Public Health Council (Consiglio superiore di Sanità, 1864). Giving not only the yearly opening lectures on experimental physiology, but also a lecture in an association for the diffusion of arts and sciences among the educated middle class in 1864, and a lecture on the occasion of the opening of the academic year in 1870, Moleschott was fulfilling the function not only of scholar and scientific expert, but also of popularizer – albeit for a selected and educated audience. This engagement in popularization was a sign of Moleschott’s political role, which he wanted to broaden when, in 1866, he requested that he be granted the Italian citizenship with full political rights (the “grand naturalization”), which he obtained in 1867. His being appointed Senator in 1876 was the fulfillment of his determination to be more directly engaged in the political life of the country. In the next chapters, we will see in what debates Moleschott was involved, how his life as scholar and politician changed after moving to Rome and becoming Professor of Physiology at La Sapienza, and how science and politics intermingled both in his career and in the very arguments of his speeches. His transnational scientific and social networks continued to play a key role both in Turin and in Rome, and his international career would be the reason why he acted as a cultural and scientific “translator”, a “cultural broker”, and as a “quasi-ambassador”282 of Italian science and politics. Moreover, practicing as a medical doctor was for him one way to transform scientific into professional and financial “capital”, and the professional and financial into social “capital”, because his profession as a physician not only provided him with extra income, but was also the source for social contacts, opening new possibilities in his broad and transnational social and scientific network.

282 I borrow the term from Martin Kohlrausch, Building Europe on expertise, 159, who defines Guglielmo Marconi as “quasi-ambassador” of Fascist Italy.

Moleschott in Rome (1878-1893): Scholar and Senator between Internal and Foreign Politics

“Let us start consulting our own language; and I say ‘our’, even though my accent could reveal that I was not born in Rome, or in Florence, not in Naples, not in Venice, not in Turin; but I say ‘our’ because I feel yours; and because the affection and the deference I nurture for each of my colleagues make me feel that the senators are mine. (Good, bravo).”1

This statement, which was part of a speech Moleschott gave at the Italian Senate concerning the right of women to vote for the so-called “administrative elections” (“elezioni amministrative”, i.e. the election of the mayor of one’s own municipality), expresses his attitude vis-à-vis his “adoptive fatherland” at its best, whereas the last two words in the parenthesis represent the comments of the audience, his fellow Senators. In fact, Moleschott’s arrival to Rome marked the climax of his career as a public personality and implied at the same time an increase of his engagement in the cause of Italian nationalism. His new function as Senator made him a public personality to an even greater extent than he already was before 1876, and he was required

1

BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2641: “Cominciamo pur col consultare la nostra lingua; e nostra io dico quantunque il mio accento possa rivelare di non essere io nato né a Roma, né a Firenze, non a Napoli, non a Venezia, non a Torino; ma nostra io dico perché mi sento vostro; e perché l’affetto e la deferenza che io nutro per ognuno dei miei colleghi mi fa sentire che i senatori sono miei. (Bene, Bravo).”

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to provide his contribution in shaping and spreading national and nationalist ideology. Practically everything he did and published between 1876 and 1893 was connected with the representation of Italy as a unitary nation-state and displayed nationalist tones. Moreover, at the Senate, his political position was always supporting laws that would break with the cultural and political monopoly of the Catholic Church and aid in the formation of a secular national culture. However, explaining it as mere opportunism would not do justice to the seriousness and the breadth of his engagement, to his personal conviction, and to the continuity between his Roman phase, during which his nationalism is most pronounced, and the previous phases of his life and career: as we have seen, Moleschott was a devout supporter of the idea of nation well before 1876, both in Germany and in Italy. In fact, his nationalism was not limited to rhetoric: he attempted to solve problems of national relevance, both as a politician at the Senate and as a scientist, e.g. through his work in international associations and as an expert on hygienic matters at the International Sanitary Conference in 1885. Certainly, Moleschott was not the only intellectual, and not the only scientist, who understood his public function as a political mission in the service of the nation: rather, this was a common trend in unified Italy, as well as in the other European states. In Italy, Leopoldo Maggi understood his task as a scientist and as a popularizer of Ernst Haeckel’s Darwinism as bearing national importance.2 In Germany, Rudolf Virchow was not only a bacteriologist, but also a politician and a public figure. A great number of Senators of the Italian Kingdom were scientists and university professors, such as the mathematician Luigi Cremona (1830-1903), who was also Moleschott’s colleague at the University of Rome, where he had been Professor of Geometry since 1877. The reason for that was quite simple, namely that the members of the Academy of Sciences could become Senators after seven years from the start of their membership.3 In addition, there were other foreign scientists in Italy, such as Moritz Schiff, who occupied the Chair at the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence (as we have seen, Schiff had to abandon his position because of the polemics about vivisection, and Moleschott aimed at being his replacement, but without success). However, Moleschott’s position was a special and privileged one, since he was not only a scholar, but also one with a broad transnational network, who had gained Italian citizenship only in recent years. As we will see, this played a fundamental role in

2

On Leopoldo Maggi and his scientific and popularizing activity, cf. Brömer, Plastidules to Humans.

3

This rule was sanctioned by the “Statuto Albertino” (promulgated by Carlo Alberto, King of Sardinia, March 4, 1848, extended to the Kingdom of Italy by Victor Emmanuel II), art. 33 (on the appointment of the members of the Senate), category 18 (“I membri della Regia Accademia delle Scienze, dopo sette anni di nomina”).

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his function as mediator (e.g. at the International Sanitary Conference) and as a delegate of the Italian government and thus a representative of the Italian nation abroad. For Moleschott, Rome was the last, glorious step of his international career. Even though, as we have seen, he had already been appointed a Senator in 1876, he kept his position at the University of Turin until 1878, which obliged him to travel to Rome in order to attend the meetings at the Senate. Only in 1878 did he finally move to Rome with his family: he was appointed Professor of Physiology at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, on November 8, 1878, and was granted an allowance of 235,44 Lire for transferring from Turin.4 As ordinary Professor of Experimental Physiology (“Professore ordinario di fisiologia sperimentale”) at the University of Rome, his salary amounted to 6750 Lire per year, plus 700 Lire as director of the physiological laboratory (“direttore del gabinetto di fisiologia”); moreover, he got an allowance of 600 Lire per year as a member of the Academy of Science in Turin (“membro ordinario della r[egia] accademia delle scienze d[i] torino”). This amounted to the same he was earning in Turin as an ordinary professor (the salaries of state employees were, indeed, the same in the whole Kingdom, as sanctioned by the “Legge Casati” on public education). Therefore, moving to Rome did not imply any direct financial improvement for him: on the one hand, however, the move had become almost a necessity, due to his participation in the hearings at the Senate starting from November 16, 1876.5 For Moleschott, then, transferring to Rome essentially meant following the political life of the country, after the capital had been moved

4

Cf. the appointment by king Umberto I (also signed by Francesco De Sanctis), dating December 16, 1878, as well as the letter from the Rector (“Nomina a Professore nell’Università Romana”), written to Moleschott on December 3, 1878. The decision was communicated to the Faculty of Medicine on December 6, 1878 by the Rector (“Partecipazione di provvedimento per la Cattedra di Fisiologia”, in: fascicolo “Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia”); there, the Chair is mentioned as “Human Physiology” (“Fisiologia umana”), and Moleschott’s predecessor, Professor Socrate Cadet, is said to be retired. On the allowance for the moving, cf. the communication by the “Direttore Capo della Divisione Universitaria” to the “Rettore della Regia Università di Roma” (May 27, 1879), “Compenso di traslocazione del Sig. Prof. Moleschott” (the Minister of Public Education deliberated on the sum that would be refunded to Moleschott for his transfer); cf. “Pagamento di trasferta”, May 30, 1879. All documents are preserved in: Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169.

5

For all these givens, cf. the report edited by the administration of the University of Rome in Moleschott’s personal file (Rome, January 1, 1881): Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169.

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from Turin to Florence in 1865, and in 1871 to Rome. What Moleschott was expecting from his transfer, then, was being again close to the places where political decisions of national importance were made.6 After moving to Rome, Moleschott became a public figure as never before, combining his engagement in national questions and nationalist issues with his function as an international delegate. As had already been the case with his opening lectures in Turin, many of his speeches and lectures (apart from the ones given at the Senate) were translated into German. In Italy, his most significant Senate speeches were not only reported in the Senate reports, but also published as separate pamphlets within a short time.7 In addition to that, Moleschott was playing a central role as an official delegate of the government and the Universities of Turin and Rome in Germany and in the Netherlands (on the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg in 1886, and for the celebrations in honor of Franciscus Cornelis Donders in 1888),8 as well as a Dutch delegate (despite having already lost his Dutch

6

Anyway, Moleschott’s salary did increase during his time in Rome: every five years, i.e. in 1883, in 1888 and in 1893, his salary was augmented by 500 Lire (in 1888 it was increased from 7000 from 7500 Lire, in 1893 from 7500 to 8000 Lire): cf. the letter from the Rector to the Minister of Public Education on the “Aumento di stipendio spettante all’On. Senatore Jacopo Moleschott, Prof. di Fisiologia in questa Università” (Rome, February 15, 1888), referring to the “Decreto Ministeriale” of January 2, 1888; on the following raise of Moleschott’s salary, cf. the declaration by the Minister of Public Education (Rome, March 16, 1893), referring to the “Decreto Ministeriale del 21 Dicembre 1892 registrato alla Corte dei Conti addì 28 Febbraio 1893 Registro 352 Personale Civile Foglio N. 81” (the decree would become effective, and the raise would start from January 1, 1893). In 1883, however, Moleschott had to insist on the raise of the wage that was due to him every five years according to the “Legge 31 Luglio 1862”, and only after some communication with the Minister of Public Education and the Rector of the University was he able to obtain it. Cf. the letter from the Rector to the Ministry of Public Education (Rome, February 15, 1883) and the letter from the Minister to the Rector (Rome, March 24, 1883); the raise was granted by the Minister of Public Education on March 30, 1883, and this was communicated to Moleschott by the Rector on April 5, 1883, whereas the decree was sent by the Minister to the Rector on April 13, and from the Rector to Moleschott on April 16, 1883. All of the documents are in: Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169.

7 8

For a full list, cf. the bibliography at the end of this book. As it turned out, Moleschott was charged by the Ministry of Public Education to represent Italy at the celebrations in honor of Donders at Utrecht: cf. the letter from the Ministry of Public Education to the Rector of the University of Rome (Rome, May 16, 1888). Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169. His speech

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citizenship many years before) on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno in Rome. At the University of Rome, Moleschott faced similar problems to those he had faced in Turin: for instance, the laboratory of physiology was not sufficiently equipped, and he once more had to address the Minister of Education in order to ask him to provide the laboratory with an adequate budget.9 To this engagement in the small scale corresponded an engagement on a larger, national scale: in fact, Moleschott underlined the importance of laboratory research not only in his opening lectures, but also in the debates on the reform of higher education at the Senate. As we will see in the next chapter, on that occasion Moleschott, although pleading for the institution of an all-encompassing Philosophical Faculty modeled on the German philosophische Fakultät, which would constitute the “ground of all disciplines”, at the same time pled for the development of scientific laboratories in the whole country, arguing that only in that way would it become possible for Italy to be at the level of German and other European universities in the natural sciences. His words were preceded by more than twenty years of strenuous fights, fought with paper and pen in his numerous letters to the Rectors, Deans and Ministers, for adequate funding of the physiological laboratories at the Universities of Turin and, later on, Rome. However, Moleschott’s public engagement was not limited to the improvement of the conditions of the laboratories and of higher education in general: as we will see in the next chapter, he pled for the abolition of the grist tax in order to improve the material conditions of the peasants and of the working class, and he supported the introduction of physical education at school (not least in the service of nationalism). He also took part in international associations, promoting social equality and better conditions of life for all, wherein the State would take care of the lower classes and would thereby substitute for the activity of the Catholic Church in the fields of care and assistance. was published in Dutch (cf. Moleschott, “Franciscus Cornelius Donders”), Italian (as “Francesco Cornelio Donders”), and German (as Franciscus Cornelius Donders). 9

Cf. the copies of the letters sent by Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Rome, September 24, 1886, and February 18, 1887): in the second letter, Moleschott sent a copy of the previous letter (which means that he had gotten no response yet), demanding an extraordinary funding of 6000 Lire, and for an increase of the regular annual subsidy from 5000 to 8000 Lire. At the time when I viewed them (September 2013), the letters were erroneously catalogued as being addressed to “De Sanctis”; this cannot be true: De Sanctis was only mentioned in the first letter, but was not the person addressed. The letters are addressed to the “Minister of Public Education”, who was, at that time, Michele Coppino (government of Francesco De Pretis, legislature VIII). The abovementioned letters are in: BCABo, FSM, 40.1 (new).

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On the cultural level, Moleschott gave speeches and supported several initiatives, such as the construction of a statue of Giordano Bruno in front of the Vatican, which aimed at the affirmation of secular Italian national culture. At the same time, as a medical doctor he participated at the International Sanitary Conference, which took place in Rome in 1885 and, by virtue of his abilities to speak several languages and to mediate between different perspectives, he was elected president of the technical committee of that conference. However, his function as cultural mediator was already well established, since from the beginning of his career in Italy he had also played the role of delegate of the Italian nation in Germany. As we will see in the chapter about Moleschott’s role as a translator, as early as at the festivities in honor of Friedrich Schiller, which took place in Mainz in 1862, he had encouraged the German states to follow the Italian example and to become a nation-state. After the German unification, for the celebration of the anniversary of the University of Heidelberg in 1886, he stressed the similarities between the two countries and their literary culture, pointing out that the German university system was a model for the reform of the Italian universities. Before dealing with the issue of Moleschott’s function as cultural mediator and “quasi-ambassador”, however, we will consider his engagement in the rights of women and in the fight against anti-Semitism. Specifically, in 1884 Moleschott gave and published a speech on the question whether women should have the opportunity to study and practice a liberal profession. Regarding the condemnation of anti-Semitism, in 1894, he wrote the preface of a book published in German,10 whereas in Italy he joined an initiative for helping Jewish people expelled from Russia.11 In the following chapters, which are ordered thematically rather than chronologically, we will have a detailed insight into Moleschott’s involvement in cultural, political, and academic issues from 1878 until 1893. 10 The anthology was the Antisemiten-Hammer. Eine Anthologie aus der Weltlitteratur. Mit einem Vorwortvon Jacob Moleschott und einer Einleitung von Josef Schrattenholz (Düsseldorf: Ed. Lintz, 1894). 11 Cf. the letter by Ruggiero Bonghi to Moleschott (Rome, July 10, 1891): BCABo, FSM, call number missing in March 2012. The letter was in the file “Corrispondenza Borghi o Bonghi”; however, the correct name is “Ruggiero Bonghi”: as one can easily check in the collection of autographs in the same archive, BCABo, the signature corresponds to that of the Minister of Education Ruggiero Bonghi. Cf. the letter by Ruggiero Bonghi, President of the Consiglio Centrale of the Società Dante Alighieri, to the professor and Senator Giuseppe Ceneri (Rome, October 2, 1893): BCABo, Coll. Autogr. CI Posiz. 23450; cf. also the letter by Ruggero Bonghi to Emilio Broglio (Rome, April 30, 1875): BCABo, Mss. Landoni XIV.7. In the abovementioned letter, Bonghi, on request of the chief rabbi Margulies “and other persons”, invited Moleschott to come to the meeting at the “Associazione della Stampa”, in “Via della Missione”, on Sunday, 12 July 1891, at 2:30 pm, in order to form a General Committee who would be willing to influence public opinion in order to

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Let us consider the gender issue more closely: in general, Moleschott’s position was in favor of granting more rights to (cultivated) women. However, we can find in his own writings several comments, e.g. on the intelligence of women and the dimensions of their brains, which show how he was still married to traditional understandings of gender and gender roles. For instance, in his first opening lecture in Turin, he explained that the fact that “the brain of men be more developed than the brain of women” was “balanced by the acuteness of women’s senses”, while the gentleness of women corresponded to men’s more acute intelligence, and men’s force was won by the “vezzi soavi del sesso più debole”, he maintained, citing the epic verses of the Orlando Innamorato (canto XXX, strophe 29) by the fifteenth-century poet Matteo Maria Boiardo.12 In the specific case Moleschott dealt with in his Senate speech, he was undoubtedly on the side of a progressive development of the Italian legal system for women’s rights. The case was quite an important one: it dealt with the possibility for a woman, Miss Lidia Poët, to pursue the career of a lawyer. Lidia Poët, born in Piedmont in 1855, had attended a humanistic high school (“liceo”), had graduated at the Faculty of Law of the University of Turin in 1881 (starting from 1878, with the reform of higher education, women were allowed to attend lectures at the university and to get their degrees there) and she was accepted in the Lawyer’s Guild (“Albo degli avvocati”) in 1883. However, in the same year the “Corte d’Appello” (Appellate Court) of Turin cancelled her subscription, and she was denied the opportunity to practice her profession as a lawyer because this was considered to be a public office (“ufficio pubblico”), and women did not have access to such positions. In his own speech, in which he brought the issue to the attention of the Senate, Moleschott argued against the exclusion of women from any profession: Lidia Poët had attended high school and university, she had graduated with success, and there

help the Jews expelled from Russia. Among the organizers we find, besides the abovementioned rabbi, a sculptor, a certain Ezekiel, who was among Moleschott’s patients (cf. BCABo, FSM, Schede Cliniche). 12 Moleschott, Del metodo nella investigazione della vita, 16: “Finalmente si rinviene ancora questa relazione teleologica nella sfera intellettuale. Lo sviluppo maggiore del cervello nell’uomo vien equilibrato dall’acutezza dei sensi della donna, ed il tatto più fine di questa corrisponde all’acume d’ingegno di quello, siccome la forza dell’uomo è vinta dai vezzi soavi del sesso più debole. Voi conoscete i versi del Bojardo là dove dice di Alessandro: Da poi che vinto egli ha ben ogni cosa, / Ben vede lui, ch’è vinto dall’amore, / Perché Elidonia, quella graziosa, / Coi suoi bell’occhi gli ha passato il core.”

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was no reason for forbidding her to practice as a lawyer.13 No doubt, Moleschott defended the rights of women in this case; however, he showed a very high level of moderation, explicitly stating that he did “not like emancipated women”, and that he did “not want to subtract women from their own sphere”.14 In fact, Moleschott believed that educated women should be allowed to follow their vocations, choosing their own professions and careers, but still maintained that the women’s “own sphere” would be the traditional family sphere. These ideas reflected the gender roles within his own family: his wife was an irreplaceable support for Moleschott’s career, helping with the translation of his books into German and keeping in contact with other scientists and friends from their time in Zürich and Heidelberg, as well as with some publishing houses. In the speech about Lidia Poët in 1884, Moleschott cautiously asked whether the judgment of the court in Turin was to be considered irrevocable, but immediately after he explained that a woman should, indeed, be the “educator of

13 Lidia Poët became an internationally renowned woman, a symbol for the fight for women’s emancipation, and was herself engaged in the field of women’s and children’s rights. The Report of the International Council of Women wrote about her in 1888: “‘Woman and the Practice of the Law,’ by Lidia Poet [sic], our Italian sister, ‘discusses the question of womanʼs right to practice law as it has been presented recently in Italy.’ Under ‘the educational law’ of 1876, which ‘opened the doors of the University of Italy to women, and thereby enabled them to obtain academic degrees in law,’ Signora Poet ‘completed the university curriculum in law, and having assiduously attended courts, and otherwise complied with legal requirements, was admitted to the Society of the Bar of Turin.’ But her sex precludes her from practicing. In speaking of her case, the American Law Review says: ‘In view, however, of the strong support which the claim of the Signora Poet has found among the best and ablest lawyers in Italy, we think it likely that the ability, zeal, and learning displayed by the author of this pamphlet (‘Woman and the Practice of Lawʼ), if turned in the direction of amendatory legislation, would put a womanʼs right to practice law in Italy beyond cavil.’ I am told that Signora Poet, while waiting for legal recognition of her right to practice, is occupying a professorship of law in the University of Bologna.” This long quote is taken from: National Woman Suffrage Association, Report of the International council of women, assembled by the National woman suffrage association, Washington, D.C., U.S. of America, March 25 to April 1, 1888. Condensed from the stenographic report made by Mary F. Seymour and assistants, for the Womanʼs Tribune, published daily during the council (Washington, D.C.: R. H. Darby, 1888), 178. 14 Jacob Moleschott, Sulla signorina Lidia Poët e sul diritto delle donne di esercitare lʼavvocatura. Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato in Senato nella tornata del 23 giugno 1884 (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1884), 4. Surprisingly, however, I could not find any trace of the speech in the Senate reports.

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her children”, an “advisor of her husband”, a “consoling angel”.15 Moleschott’s cautious attempt to draw attention to the rights of women to follow their professional vocations did not provoke any further debates in the Chambers, nor did the court change its judgment, and Lidia Poët had to wait until 1919 to be officially recognized as a lawyer in Turin.16 In 1891, she sent Moleschott a letter of condolence after the death of his wife, which shows that they had contact with each other, and perhaps even knew each other personally.17 The case of Lidia Poët was the first, but not the last time when Moleschott engaged in favor of the rights of women: in 1888, he spoke in favor of the emendation of the provincial and communal law that was promulgated in 1865 and forbade women to vote in administrative elections (i.e. the elections of the mayor of a city or the provincial government). In that case, his argument was not based on general reflections about the right to follow one’s own vocation, but on scientific considerations. Just like in the debates on the grist tax and on the introduction of physical education at school, where, as we will see, he argued on the basis of his expertise in physiology, here too he used biologic-anatomical arguments in order to contrast with arguments against the rights of women to vote. In fact, he was convinced that the argument that the brains of women were smaller than those of men did not have any value; instead, one should have counted the cells of women’s brain, he argued, and analyzed their quality, in order to find out something about women’s intelligence: “Many times have we heard that the women’s brain is smaller than the men’s. And it is indeed smaller with regard to its mass, to its volume, to its weight; and so what? Is maybe the human brain, or the brain of whatever animal, a piece of gold one could weigh and which is valuable only in virtue of its weight in grams? Should we not rather, enlightened by the new studies in biology, try to verify how many cells there are in its cerebral cortex and what their quality is? The problem lies exactly here.ˮ18 15 Moleschott, Sulla signorina Lidia Poët e sul diritto delle donne di esercitare l’avvocatura, 4. On women and their right to legal professions, cf. Edoardo Ollandini, Le donne e l’avvocatura: studio storico-giuridico sociale (Genova: La Celere, 1913), 267. Recently, Virginia Lalli, Women in Law (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2014): on the case of Lidia Poët, 4554, on the debate in the Parliament, 50-54, on Moleschott’s contribution, 51. 16 Lalli, Women in Law, 45-54. 17 Lidia Poët to Jacob Moleschott (Pinerolo, October 23, 1891): BCABo, FSM [no call number at the time of consultation]. 18 Jacob Moleschott, Progetto di modificazioni alla Legge Comunale e Provinciale. 20 marzo 1865. Sul diritto delle donne di prender parte alle elezioni amministrative. Senato del Regno. Seduta del 27 novembre 1888 (Roma: Forzani e C., Tipografi del Senato, 1888), 910 (also in BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul

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With these sentences, Moleschott suggested that intelligence does not depend on the dimension of the brain, but on the “quality” of its cells – whatever this meant to him. Countering in this way the argument of the opponents of women’s political rights, Moleschott voted for the emendation of the law and for the right of women to vote in administrative elections. However, he once more showed a moderate attitude, underlining that he did not want a complete change in the relation between men and women, and stating that they complete each other, but cannot be said to be identical. The way Moleschott argued on that occasion is worth dealing with in more detail: not only does it reveal a great deal about Moleschott’s ideas on gender roles and the specificity of female character, but also his satirical forecasts for a future society populated by emancipated women. These almost equated with the points of irony of Aristophanes’ comedy Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι (Ekklesiazousai or Women in Parliament or Assemblywomen, 391 BC), which was possibly a source of inspiration for Moleschott’s speech, or at least for its biting tone. At the very beginning of the speech, Moleschott declared that he could not but hold a speech with a rather informal, personal, and intimate tone, because speaking about women he would immediately think about the dearest persons in his life, namely his mother and his wife. In this way, Moleschott made explicit how emotions influenced his own arguments; considering that this speech was part of a debate which took place at the Senate and was to become part of the official parliamentary reports, it can be read as a manifesto on the role of affections. In the same way as Moleschott was convinced that scientific experiments could be influenced by subjective experiences, remembrances and affective states, he was aware of the fact that his own way of arguing and even his official speeches were influenced by his emotions. That Moleschott consciously structured his speech in order to grant significance to affections is clear from its inception, in which he apologized for having to speak in a less formal way than he would usually do in front of such an official meeting.19 In this sense, affections and emotions were among the explicit themes of the speech, besides women’s right to vote in administrative elections. progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2640-2645, here 2642): “Molte volte abbiamo sentito ripetere che il cervello della donna è più piccolo di quello dell’uomo. Ed è più piccolo in massa, in volume, in peso; ma che perciò? È forse il cervello umano, o magari il cervello di qualsiasi altro animale, un pezzo d’oro che si pesa e che solo per il numero di grammi che rappresenta possiede valore? Non si dovrebbe cercare piuttosto, illuminati dai moderni studi di biologia, di verificare quante siano le cellule che porta nella sua corteccia cerebrale e quale ne sia la qualità? È qui che sta proprio il problema.” 19 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2640.

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Moleschott’s argument starts with some remarks about grammar and language: the most important virtues, he argued, are “feminine”, meaning that they belong to the feminine grammatical genre in Italian (but implicitly drawing attention to the fact that, as he would develop in the rest of his speech, these virtues pertain to ladies rather than to gentlemen). The apologies for having to speak in a less formal way than usual and for being particularly influenced by affections can be interpreted as anticipating that there is a necessary connection between the “feminine” and “affections”, as Moleschott’s main argument suggests in the following part of the speech. In fact, besides mentioning some “feminine” virtues, Moleschott also mentioned some “feminine” substantives such as “providence”, “prudence”, “nature”, “culture”, “wisdom”, “science”, “beauty”, “religion”, “peace”, “glory” and even “war” (“guerra” is also a feminine substantive in Italian; however, this association between war and femininity caused much hilarity among his fellow Senators).20 The reference to the gender of certain nouns in the Italian language was at the same time, for Moleschott, an occasion to remind his colleagues (and the nation) about the fervor with which he embraced Italian culture, though not having been born an Italian citizen.21 The reference to the “intelletto d’amore”, a typical concept from Dante Alighieri’s poetry and the “Dolce stil novo” at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which Moleschott adopted as definition of women and their qualities, was also part of this strategy. As a follow-up to the list of “feminine” nouns and qualities, Moleschott invited his audience to “follow” him to the Olympus. In this way, he paid his tribute to ancient Greece through a reference to classical culture: Juno, Minerva, Venus, and above all the Muses, who preside over and inform culture, were all goddesses, he explained, as well as the “moral and intellectual government which is and will be, in spite of every law, a domain and a task of women”.22 Moleschott continued with some remarks on the progress in the field of civil and political rights since 1789, thus inscribing his intervention on the rights of women in the “spirit” of the French revolution, with its ideals of equality, freedom and fraternity.23 However, he noticed that the rights of women had not been sufficiently taken into consideration yet; since women played a key role in the family and the economy (meaning thereby the domestic finances), he considered this a mistake which should

20 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2641. 21 Ibidem. This is a real declaration of veneration and will to belong to the Italian nation; the quote is reported at the beginning of this chapter. 22 Ibidem. 23 Ibidem.

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be corrected immediately.24 In fact, Moleschott conceived the acknowledgement of the rights of women as a necessary step forward in the history of the European nationstates and their liberal spirit, completing the recent developments in the sphere of human rights and of an equal legislation, as is clear from the following passage: “Gentlemen! Precisely in these days, the Senate has started to engrave in the table of the law the rights of man [also translatable as: ‘human rights’, L.M.]. The Senate has decreed the abolition of the death penalty; the Senate has recognized the equality of the rights and duties of all citizens, including the priests. […] But, gentlemen, until this point we have been dealing with the rights of men. And what have we done in favor of the rights of women?ˮ25

Further on, Moleschott continued with the abovementioned argument about the size of the brain, and then remarked that women’s intelligence is not inferior, but different from men’s intelligence. In this sense, his position was clearly different from that of the socialists, who theorized the equality of women with men on a deeper level.26 In his opinion, one should take into account this difference, e.g. when reforming the law on secondary education and allowing women to study at universities: in fact, he believed that certain aspects of women’s moral and physical character would be inadequate for certain tasks. Women, he maintained, are more emotional than men, and for this reason less inclined to follow logical arguments and to be convinced by statistics. They are more attractive; therefore, they would be a factor of distraction for their male colleagues and, what is more, they could even lead to unequal and unjust judgments being made in courts – interestingly, this was one of the main arguments

24 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2642. 25 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 26412642: “Signori! Il Senato, proprio in questi giorni, ha cominciato ad incidere nella tavola delle leggi i diritti dell’uomo. Il Senato ha decretato l’abolizione della pena di morte; il Senato ha riconosciuta l’uguaglianza dei diritti e dei doveri di tutti i cittadini, i preti compresi. […] Ma, o signori, fin qui si tratta dei diritti dell’uomo. E che cosa abbiam fatto noi in favore dei diritti della donna?” 26 On the position of communism vis-à-vis the rights of women, albeit with a focus on a later period, cf. Aurelia Camparini, Questione femminile e Terza Internazionale (Bari: De Donato, 1978).

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against allowing women to become lawyers and one of the arguments of his opponents in the question about Lidia Poët.27 “A particularity of their [i.e. of women’s, L.M.] intellect” was, according to Moleschott, that they often do not accept the conclusion of logical arguments and question their premises: surely, everyone has the right to reconsider the premises of logical arguments, he went on to say, but according to his own observations, women “sometimes do abuse” this right. In this case, again, Moleschott presented himself, in a way, as an expert, since he declared that his remarks were based on simple observation, but at the same time maintaining that, by virtue of the very nature of his profession of natural scientist, his observations were quite reliable and based on a broad range of cases.28 In this way, Moleschott was presupposing that his arguments had a greater value than those of other politicians who did not have an educational and professional background in the natural sciences. He exemplified his argument that “affection can overwhelm intelligence” (something which, as he observed, was not uncommon for men either) by saying that a mother would not care about probability calculations and a low rate of soldiers who are killed during a war, if her son were one of these soldiers: she would in any case be unhappy, if her sons were to be conscripted.29 Further, Moleschott explained his rhetorical strategy: he would first present some bad aspects of a woman’s character, in order to “let her then shine” by focusing on her positive aspects.30 According to him, another problematic aspect of women’s character was that, in them, “one side of morality is less developed than in men”, namely the “sense”, or the conception, of property. Firstly, because women did not have the occasion to practice this sense as men did, due both to their profession and to their social tasks; secondly because, in his opinion, a women is easily moved to pity and is therefore much more generous and helpful than a man.31 At this point, Moleschott provoked the amusement of his colleagues, saying that he did “not know whether the most imbecile of women was more imbecile than the most imbecile of men”, but that for sure the most intelligent of women had many qualities which men would never possess, such as “grace” and “charm”, but also “readiness in acting” and 27 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2642. 28 Ibidem. 29 Ibidem. 30 Ibidem. 31 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 26422643.

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“rectitude of judgment”.32 For this reason, he stated, man and women completed each other: “[…] women complete men. And someone who dares to say that, without man, the woman would not be complete, may well add that virile intelligence would be as incomplete without the particular forms of intelligence of the woman.”33 For this reason, Moleschott wanted his colleagues to agree on granting the right for women to vote in administrative elections. Not only did he think that women’s intellectual qualities completed men’s qualities and intelligence, but he also considered women as the true experts in economic matters (in the original sense of “ruling of the house”): being a “housekeeper” was “the mission the woman has in every family”, he explained.34 Therefore, he argued that it would be absurd to deny women, whom one praises as housekeepers, the right to vote in administrative elections, and it would be hypocritical to exclude them from this “particular political form of housekeeping” constituted by the town’s government when, at home, one praises their abilities in that field: “Now, my dear gentlemen, to these women we do confide the education of our children, the direction of the house, the inspiration of our courage, we expect from her [the woman, L.M.] the best advice, we owe to her the most suave consolations, from her we do receive the sweetest, the most continuous, the most constant reward of our efforts, and at the doors of the communal palace we would like to tell her: ‘You cannot enter even with a thought, not even with a vote; you are not intelligent enough, cultivated enough, foreseeing enough for that.’”35

Moleschott concluded that, if his observations were true, then “noblesse oblige”, one should not have any doubt about admitting women to the communal elections and granting them political rights.36 32 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2643. 33 Ibidem: “[…] la donna completa l’uomo. E chi si permette di dire che senza l’uomo la donna non sarebbe completa, aggiunga pure che altrettanto incompleta sarebbe l’intelligenza virile senza l’aiuto delle particolari forme dell’intelligenza della donna.” 34 Ibidem. 35 Ibidem: “Ora, signori miei, a queste donne noi confidiamo l’educazione die figli, la direzione della casa, la custodia del nostro onore, l’ispirazione del nostro pensiero e del nostro coraggio, noi aspettiamo da lei i migliori consigli, dobbiamo a lei le più soavi consolazioni, da lei riceviamo il più dolce, il più continuo, il più costante guiderdone delle nostre fatiche, e noi vorremmo dirle sulle porte del palazzo comunale: ʽTu non puoi entrare neppure con un pensiero, neppure con un voto; tu non sei abbastanza intelligente, abbastanza colta, abbastanza preveggente per ciòʼ.” 36 Ibidem. Italics in the original.

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At this point, Moleschott had explained at length his argument in favor of modifying the law and allowing women to vote in such elections. However, his speech did not end here, for he went on, saying that, as John Start Mill had remarked, women could never enjoy such a high level of education as men and, for this reason, their intelligence developed in a different, and not-so-educated direction, as the intelligence of men.37 Nevertheless, he did not plead for the opportunity of women to get the same higher education as men: to the contrary, he believed that this path, for which the recent reform of the law on secondary education had paved the way, was not the appropriate way to foster women’s intelligence and praise their abilities. He defined this as a “very sad” (“tristissimo”) development, and repeated that the “nature of young women’s intelligence” was “not inferior” but just “different” from men’s, and that for this reason it would be unfair to “oblige” them to follow the same long path to higher education. Instead, Moleschott pled for a differentiated education path for male and female students and scholars, one that would fit the needs of each gender in the stages of their respective intellectual evolution.38 In fact, Moleschott stated, generalizing on the basis of his own experience, that there are certain subjects, such as geometry, in which girls are better than boys, and other disciplines in which boys learn faster than girls. For him, the question was not simply how to open the doors of higher education to women, but how to find the most fitting educational paths and didactic methods, ones that would suit the particularity of women’s intelligence and character. As Moleschott concluded, “girls are no less the hope of the fatherland than young men are”, but “[w]omen’s education must be improved, it must be enhanced, it must and can develop a lot, but it should not aim at arriving everywhere with the same means, at reaching the same goals to which the young man and the boy should be led.”39 As we can see, Moleschott explicitly inscribed the amelioration of women’s education within the framework of the overall progress of the nation and of that program of education (first of all, political education) that he contributed to shaping during his whole Italian career. He had a progressive position vis-à-vis the education of women and their right to vote (as well as, as we have seen, their right to practice the professions they were entitled to practice), but at the same time he took care not to appear too extreme in his conclusions. In the same way as, in the speech in favor of Lidia 37 Ibidem. 38 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2644. 39 Ibidem: “Le giovinette non sono meno la speranza della patria che non lo sono i giovani. […] La istruzione della donna deve migliorarsi, deve perfezionarsi, deve e può crescere di molto, ma non deve prefiggersi di arrivare dappertutto coi medesimi mezzi, ai medesimi fini cui deve essere condotto il giovane ed il ragazzo.”

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Poët, he declared himself not to be in favor of women’s emancipation, in his speech about women’s right to vote he maintained that the point was not “to invert the world”, and that “[n]o one pretends, as I have heard it in these days from a quickwitted lady, to see a time in which men instead of women will have to give birth”.40 For him, the question was not to invert all norms and traditions: the question was just “to make a first step”, but such “a first step must absolutely be done”, and precisely because he was convinced that, in such issues, “going too fast” means “going backwards”, Moleschott supported the emendation of the law suggested by his colleague, the Senator and military (general tenant) Clemente Corte (1826-1895).41 However, what Moleschott “dare[d] to foresee” was, all in all, very progressive, and would not be realized as quickly as he thought: he told his colleagues that “even the oldest among them” would “see many things”, including “divorce”, “which is in the end rather a right of women than of men, sometimes more indispensable for women than for man, who unfortunately knows how to find from time to time out of home the most vulgar compensations.”42 Moreover, Moleschott was convinced that, soon, women would not only be allowed to elect, but also to be elected: he considered the passive vote (i.e. the right to vote, as opposed to the active vote, the right to be elected), which was the main issue of the debate, as just one first small step towards full political rights, including the active vote, not only at communal elections, but even at the Parliament. At this point, the tone of Moleschott’s speech became more and more ironic, and one does not know how serious Moleschott was in pronouncing these words; what is certain is that he provoked the amusement of his colleagues when he spoke as an “anthropologist” (again, referring to his professional competence and thus presenting himself as an expert) and foresaw that women would soon occupy their seats in the Parliament and even in the Senate. At the Parliament, they should be admitted after their fiftieth year of age, he explained, “because, in order to assiduously participate in the sessions of the Chamber” – “more assiduously than their male colleagues do”, he added, wittily criticizing contemporary politicians – “they must be free from the concerns of maternity”.43 As far as the Senate was concerned, Moleschott was even more sarcastic in 40 Ibidem: “Nessuno di noi pretende di invertire il mondo, nessuno pretende, come udii dire in questi giorni argutamente da una signora, di vedere il tempo in cui dovranno partorire gli uomini invece delle donne.” 41 Ibidem. 42 Ibidem: “Noi vedremo il divorzio che in fin die conti è più diritto delle donne che degli uomini, più indispensabile alle donne in certi casi che all’uomo, il quale sa trovare pur troppo qualche volta fuori di casa i più volgari compensi.” 43 Ibidem: “Nella Camera avranno sede le donne, a condizione di avere compiuti i 50 anni (Ilarità) perché, per essere assidue (più di quello che in genere non sono i deputati) alle sedute della Camera, non devono essere disturbate dalle cure della maternità.”

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sketching the future situation, one in which women would be admitted starting from the age of forty, since “first of all, we know that the sessions at the Senate do not require such an absolute assiduity as the ones at the Chamber of deputies, and secondly for another reason, namely that whereas a woman of forty years of age would be dangerous among the deputies (Very vivacious vocal laughter), she would not be as dangerous among senators, since senators look for the persons to whom they want to dedicate their adoration among the ones in a younger age (Very vivacious vocal laughter). They want women from thirty to thirty-five (Very vivacious and prolonged vocal laughter).ˮ44

At this point, the president of the session had to interrupt and reprimand Moleschott, asking him to get back to the topic of his speech. In this way, Moleschott had probably achieved his goal, since he then quickly finished by saying that he would vote for the “emendamento Corte”, the emendation of the law which would allow women to participate to communal elections; but he had done that without giving the impression that this would imply any subversive change in the legislation and, with his witty observations, he had managed to focus the attention of his colleagues on the much broader problem of female education and of the participation of women in the political life of the nation. At the same time, he had affirmed his conception of the woman as an “angel” for her husband and family, as the housekeeper, and as being responsible for the economy, both inside and outside of the house. In fact, Moleschott argued that loyalty compelled every man who declared in the intimacy of his house that his wife was his “angelo custode”, his protecting angel, to praise her in the same way when he was in the public sphere and to act accordingly. Again, Moleschott utilized ancient Roman culture and mythology in order to support his argument: he called the public sphere “fôro”, the ancient Roman forum (as we will see, the references to antiquity are part of an everyday culture of remembrance and self-representation in the Italian Senate), whereas he defined women as “Egeria”, i.e. a nymph who, according to the legend, was the counselor, mistress and then consort of Numa Pompilius, second Sabine king

44 Ibidem: “Perché, prima di tutto, sappiamo che le sedute del Senato non richiedono un’assiduità così assoluta come alla Camera dei deputati, e poi per un’altra ragione, ed è, che mentre la donna a quarant’anni sarebbe pericolosa fra i deputati (Ilarità vivissima), non sarebbe altrettanto pericolosa fra i senatori, giacché i senatori cercano le persone cui vogliono dedicare le loro adorazione in un’età più giovane (Ilarità vivissima). Vogliono le donne dai trenta ai trentacinque anni. (Ilarità vivissima e prolungata).”

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of Rome.45 Thus Egeria, who advised the Roman king on issues regarding religious laws and political reforms, symbolized Moleschott’s conception of the woman as a wise advisor not only on domestic and economic issues, but also on crucial political and public affairs. On the one hand, one could argue that, if he dared to speak in such an ironic way about the issue, Moleschott did not take it seriously enough, and that he would have never had such an attitude on the occasion of other debates. On the other hand, however, his witty observations were directed at the same time towards his colleagues (of course, all male) and were at the same time a critique of the sometimes hypocritical attitudes of politicians: for example, he criticized their not being assiduous in attending the hearings, but also their incoherent attitude towards women, whom they praised at home, and then refused to accord political rights.

M OLESCHOTT ’ S E NGAGEMENT A GAINST A NTI -S EMITISM At the beginning of the chapter about Moleschott’s family and his educational background, we made some remarks about Moleschott’s religious background. Throughout his life, Moleschott had a critical attitude towards institutionalized religions, especially towards the Catholic church: as we have seen, he reported that his father had taken a distance from Catholicism and had more respect for Protestants than for Catholics, which he explained as being a consequence of the unhelpful attitude of the inhabitants of his town when their pharmacy burned. As we have seen in the previous chapters, Moleschott had very good relationships with Jewish people: some of his colleagues and assistants in Turin were Jewish, as well as some of his friends in Heidelberg, such as Berthold Auerbach. As we have noticed, in Rome he joined an initiative in favor of the Jews exiled from tsarist Russia and, in 1892, he wrote a preface to an anthology (which he admittedly had not read) criticizing anti-Semitism. It is not clear why precisely Moleschott was chosen to be the author of the foreword for such a book, since, until that time, he had never published anything on that topic. In 1894, his disciple Cesare Lombroso, the founder of criminal anthropology and himself originating from a Jewish family, published a book entitled “Anti-Semitism and Modern Science” (Lʼantisemitismo e le scienze moderne), criticizing anti-Semitism, albeit in a very cautious way.46 Compared to Lombroso’s publication, Moleschott’s foreword to the Antisemiten-Hammer (this was the name given to the anthology) was a much more strident condemnation of anti-Semitism and an appraisal of Jewish people, their 45 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2a sessione 1887-88, Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2643. 46 Cesare Lombroso, Lʼantisemitismo e le scienze moderne (Torino-Roma: Roux, 1894).

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culture and character in their whole, from the ancient past to his contemporaries. It was an invective against the growing anti-Semitic attitude of Christian citizens, politicians, and public figures (Moleschott addressed them with the second person plural “Ihr”; at the same time, he spoke about the Jews in the third person, which means that he did not directly identify with them either). Moleschott’s position vis-à-vis antiSemitism can be compared not only to Lombroso’s publication, but also to those of other intellectuals who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, expressed their opinions about the relationship between Jewish culture and the economy of the liberal nation-state; these are the political economist Werner Sombart, the bacteriologist Rudolf Virchow, and the historian Theodor Mommsen. For instance, Mommsen also spoke against the increasing hate of and discrimination against German Jews, and a letter in which Mommsen publicly denounced anti-Semitism was included in the anthology prefaced by Moleschott.47 Another personality who explicitly saw the Jews as a virtuous element in the political economy of the nation-state was the economist Werner Sombart: in his Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911), he maintained that the Jews had been a fundamental catalyzing factor in the development of the modern economy and capitalist organization. Like Moleschott, he believed psychological features and mental disposition to be racially determined and inherited characteristics, and that the Jews’ intellectual production, their mobility, and their enterprising spirit had been essential elements in the rise of modern capitalism.48 Moleschott had a similar opinion: on the one hand, he praised Jewish culture, including in it Jesus Christ and Spinoza and describing them as the two most important repre-

47 On Mommsen’s position in the letter published in the Antisemiten-Hammer and with regard to anti-Semitism in general, cf. Stefan Rebenich, Theodor Mommsen. Eine Biographie (München: Beck, 2002), 172-173. Rebenich reports that in Rome in 1893, Mommsen was also involved in the condemnation of anti-Semitism in tsarist Russia. In the letter published in the anthology, he suggested that the “humanization of the Germans” might be a solution to anti-Semitism in Germany: “Ich bin in der Judenfrage der Ansicht, dass die Kalamität des Antisemitismus ein organischer Schaden unserer Nation ist, der nicht eigentlich geheilt, sondern nur verwachsen werden kann durch die steigende Humanisierung der Deutschenˮ. 48 On Werner Sombart’s ideas about the role of the Jews in modern economic development, cf. Lenger, Werner Sombart, 188-194; on their role in the rise of capitalism, 194-197; on Sombart’s conviction of the existence of specific Jewish features and of a Jewish character, 210-212, as well as 197-201. As far as the conception of race is concerned, cf. Ivan Hannaford, Race. The History of an Idea in the West. Foreword by Barnard Crick (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996), on Sombart in particular, 340. For a broad overview on the concept of race, cf. Werner Conze and Antje Sommer, “Rasse”, in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 5 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984), 135-178.

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sentatives of “humanity” – as we will see, a central concept in his worldview, a synonym for civilization and progress at the same time. On the other hand, he praised bankers’ families such the Rothschilds for their contribution to economic progress (which he understood as being related to social progress, and therefore as a philanthropic activity). The consideration he had towards the Jews can be inferred from the following passage, in which he condemned the anti-Semitic attitude of the statesmen, priests and mighty people: “Die Schmach ist umso größer, weil Staatsmänner und Machthaber mitmachen, Priester, welche die Botschaft der Liebe bringen sollten, vergessen, dass Jesus ein Jude war, Lehrer des Rechts und der Bildung verläugnen [sic], dass wir den Juden wie den Griechen die reichsten Quellen unserer Menschlichkeit, den eigentlichen Menschenadel, verdanken.ˮ49

As we can see, Moleschott compared the contribution of Jewish people to culture and humanity to that of the ancient Greeks. In this passage, Moleschott’s complaint about the immoral and wrong-headed attitude of the clergy, despite its pretending to be a model for morality, becomes evident: as we will see, this was a recurrent motif in Moleschott’s speeches, especially starting in the 1880s (we will find it, for instance, in his speech on Giordano Bruno and in some speeches on penal law and its applicability to the clergy). Finally, Moleschott wished that the fight against anti-Semitism would continue, and that Jewish people would be recognized with a higher social appreciation, that they would not be discriminated against, and that everyone would follow what two Jews, Jesus and Spinoza, had been teaching: “Der Antisemitismus ist Undank, ist Neid, ist der rohe Ausbruch einer irregeleiteten communistischen Gesinnung, die sich mit Stammeshass, mit Glaubenseifer, mit Vaterlandsliebe bemäntelt. […] Aber man muss ausharren im Kampfe […]. Und wenn man ausdauert, so wird der Gedanke siegen, wie er gesiegt hat über die weltliche Macht der Kirche und über diejenigen, die dem Volke Unmündigkeit bereiten, um es in Fesseln zu schlagen. Als Zeichen dieser Ausdauer begrüsst der Unterzeichnete das vorliegende Buch, auch ohne es gesehen zu haben, mit Heilwunsch und Segen. Der Jude lebe unter uns nicht bloss mit der Freiheit, die ihm das Gesetzt verleiht, sondern in der Liebe der Gesellschaft, als stachelndes Vorbild. Wenn wir seine Vorzüge anerkennen und zu verwerthen trachten, wird er die unsrigen sich aneignen und dankbar schätzen. Wir werden einander lieben und segnen. Wir werden werkthätig erfüllen, was die zwei grössten Juden, welche vielleicht auch die zwei grössten Menschen waren, die je gelebt, was Jesus und Spinoza gepredigt haben.ˮ50

49 Moleschott, “Vorwort” (Preface) to Antisemiten-Hammer (Rome, June 25, 1892), 4-5. 50 Moleschott, “Vorwort” (Preface) to Antisemiten-Hammer (Rome, June 25, 1892), 5-6.

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As we can see, in this passage Moleschott defined anti-Semitism as an erroneous consequence of “communist spirit”; at the same time, however, he saw the victory over anti-Semitism as a victory over the temporal power of the Church, as well as over the enemies of democracy (“über diejenigen, die dem Volke Unmündigkeit bereiten, um es in Fesseln zu schlagen”). This is why he supported the book-project, even though he had not “seen it”. Indeed, he hoped that Jewish people, in the future, would be admired as model citizens by everyone in the society; as a consequence, the Jews would admire the qualities of the non-Jews, and all of the people would love and respect each other. Thus, he concluded with some sentences full of optimistic hope in universal conciliation.51 However, in the same period of time, in Germany, the bacteriologist and politician Rudolph Virchow had a different view: although opposing the discrimination against Jews, he regarded their fast assimilation and “Germanization” as being necessary to the functioning of the German nation-state.52 Whereas for Virchow liberalism went together with a cultural homogenization, that was not the case for Moleschott, who thought that Jewish culture was valuable and should be protected in its difference and particularity. In a similar way, Emil du Bois-Reymond had expressed his critique of anti-Semitism, joining in this way the group of intellectuals who, like Theodor Mommsen, had defended the Jewish from the anti-Semitic essay published by Heinrich Treitschke in November 1879. Apart from signing Mommsen’s text in defense of the Jews in 1880 – whom, however, he accused of indiscretion after the text was published – in 1882 Du Bois-Reymond was more directly involved in the debates about the “Jewish Question”, which had started when the historian Heinrich

51 In his Physiologisches Skizzenbuch, a popularizing book he had published in 1861, Moleschott had implicitly made the reader aware of anti-Semitic attitudes by reporting the case of the son of a converted Jew, who used to spend a long time in front of the mirror every morning in the attempt to make his hair straight, which probably meant that he did not want to be recognized and discriminated against as a Jew. Cf. Jörg Marquardt, “Germanophilie im deutschen Judentum im 19. Jahrhundertˮ. Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), ed. Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG), Mainz 2011-03-18. URL: http://www.iegego.eu/marquardtj-2011-de. URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2011020124 [2015-03-19], 2. Even though in this article the example is cited in connection with the attitude of Germanophile Jews, it can also be interpreted as Moleschott’s attempt to make his readers aware of antiSemitic and discriminating attitudes towards Jewish people. 52 Goschler, Rudolf Virchow, 333-336; on the “Schulkinderuntersuchung”, an inquiry in which being Jewish was explicitly understood as belonging not to a religious, but to a racial group, 336-345.

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Treitschke published the abovementioned anti-Semitic essay. In fact, Du Bois-Reymond condemned anti-Semitism in his speech “On the Contemporary Conditions of Science” in 1882, as well as in a memorial to Alexander von Humboldt in 1883.53 Yet another setting in which Moleschott expressed his opinion vis-à-vis Jewish people was when speaking in favor of his Jewish student and assistant Simone Fubini, whom he recommended to the Minister of Public Education in 1880. On that occasion, he explained that Fubini was “a productive young man, the son of a genus [ʽstirpeʼ] which distinguished itself for often having among its descendants sublime and excellent intelligent persons, and unfortunately also mean, astute and trivial heads, but seldom mediocrity. In one word, Simone Fubini belongs to a distinct Israelite family from Casale [Casale Monferrato, L.M.], which gave more than a cultivated son to the fatherland. […] This is enough to prove that he belongs to the elected part of his genus, which counts the most famous and the most cretin sons, but much less mediocre than other races among its spawns.ˮ54

There, it should be remarked that Moleschott used the word “race” (“razza”) in a neutral sense, without any implicit discriminatory meaning, in the same way as he used the term “Romanische Rasse” in one of his letters to Auerbach, when praising the qualities of the Italians, or in the sketches of his Anthropologie.55 He, as well as Lombroso, used the word “race” to distinguish physical and moral features of different peoples, and they applied it in order to describe the character of Jewish people, without necessarily implying any negative attitude towards them. As we have seen, Lombroso himself came from a Sephardic family; however, in his book about “Anti-

53 Finkelstein, Emil du Bois-Reymond, 219-220. Finkelstein reports that, on this occasion, Du Bois-Reymond asked: “How would we stand up to Humboldt now if he knew about the recent persecution of the Jews, he, a friend of the house of Mendelssohn, someone who used to correspond with Henriette Herz in Hebrew?”, and that, in October of the same year, “he praised the rabbi at the funeral of Peter Riess” (220). 54 Jacob Moleschott, Chi è il dottor Simone Fubini? (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1880), 3: “[…] è un giovine operoso, figlio di una stirpe che si distingue per avere fra i suoi discendenti sovente intelligenze elette e sublimi, e pur troppo eziandio teste meschine, astute e grette, ma di rado la mediocrità. In una parola, Simone Fubini appartiene ad una distinta famiglia israelita di Casale, che diede più di un figlio dotto alla patria. […] Ciò basta per provare che egli appartiene alla schiera eletta della sua stirpe, che conta più figli insigni e più cretini, ma assai meno mediocri che non altre razze fra i suoi rampolli”. 55 Jacob Moleschott, Anthropologie: BCABo, FSM, B V 7 (“Ubersicht [sic] der Rassen”), B II 14 (“Anthropologie VII. Rassen, III. Verrichtungen, Geistigesˮ), and B V 8 (“Anthropologie VIII. Rassen, IV. Lebensweise, Sitten, Geschlechtsverhältnisseˮ).

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Semitism and Modern Science” he was not as firm as Moleschott in praising the qualities of the Jews and in condemning anti-Semitism. First, he described the Jews as being sometimes talented, but never reaching the genius “of Wagner, Dante, or Darwin”. He explained that, on the one hand, as a consequence of their being persecuted, but, on the other hand, also, “perhaps”, of their “Semitic blood”, containing some “elements of inferiority” and thus making it more difficult for them to reach intellectual excellence.56 Then, he suggested that giving full political rights to the Jews and not persecuting them would lead to their mixing with the rest of the population.57 Above all, he proposed the rise of “a new religion”, a “socialist neo-Christianity”, which would replace both Catholicism and Judaism, and which would “respect the new scientific discoveries”.58 As we have just seen, Moleschott’s view was very different: he had a high opinion of the Jews and pled for their being respected and admired without losing their cultural identity. Summing up, we can say that Moleschott’s attitude was explicitly against anti-Semitism, albeit not being always outspokenly pro-Semitic: if, on the one hand, he praised many of what he considered to be typically Jewish qualities, on the other hand, on certain occasions, he listed certain negative qualities as well. As he expressed it in his speech in favor of Simone Fubini, he considered the Jews as being exemplary both in the positive and in the negative sense, without ever being mediocre.

M OLESCHOTT ’ S A CADEMIC A CTIVITY AND P OPULARIZATION OF S CIENTIFIC AND P OLITICAL I DEAS AT THE U NIVERSITY OF R OME During his time in Rome, Moleschott’s academic career reached its climax, and his engagement in national academic issues was not limited to the Senate debates on higher education: for instance, he was called to take part in the jury deciding who would occupy the Chair of Experimental Pharmacology at the University of Catania in 1885 and the Chair of Hygiene at the University of Palermo in 1886 (like in France, in Italy the appointment of professors functioned via a system of national competitions or “concorsi”, equivalent to the French “concours”).59 Moreover, he was an ordinary member of the Consiglio Superiore di Sanità (the higher national sanitary

56 Lombroso, Lʼantisemitismo e le scienze moderne, 66-67. 57 Lombroso, Lʼantisemitismo e le scienze moderne, 98; 106. 58 Lombroso, Lʼantisemitismo e le scienze moderne, 109-110. 59 On the “concorso della Cattedra di Materia medica e Farmacologia sperimentale nella Università di Catania”, cf. the letter from Moleschott to the Rector of the University of Rome (Rome, September 4, 1885); on the Chair of Hygiene in Palermo, the document sent by the

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council) from 1882 to 1884, having been appointed by the Minister of the Interior.60 Thus, in Rome Moleschott played the multiple roles of politician, member of academia, and scientific expert; if one adds his qualities as a moderator to all this, one can easily understand why he was given primary roles at important international scientific and political events such as the International Sanitary Conference and the International Congress on Criminal Anthropology. In Moleschott’s life, his careers as a scientist in academia and as a politician in the public sphere were never separated from each other, but developed together: the one is not imaginable without the other, and often his tasks as a scholar belonged to the public domain (e.g. when giving opening lectures), whereas in his Senate speeches, he often appealed to his expertise as a natural scientist. Moleschott himself was well aware of this synergy: the letter he sent to the Minister of Public Education (again, Francesco De Sanctis) after having been appointed in Rome clearly shows that he knew that his function was not limited to science and academia, but that he also had a decisive political role. In that letter, he thanked the Minister for his choice and declared his profound joy and gratitude for the appointment, accepting it and explaining that De Sanctis could not confirm the confidence he showed him when calling him to teach physiology in Turin in a better way than by now appointing him a professor in Rome. In this letter, Moleschott defined Italy as his “adoptive fatherland, preferred and admired”.61 Since this is an official letter addressed to De Sanctis, this might not be surprising. However, that he refused to teach Physiology in Amsterdam62 should be a clear sign of a complete identification with the new nation he felt he belonged to. Thus, Moleschott was aware that he was playing a key role in the process of nation-building: in Rome, he stated that “the liberated nation and free science” must cooperate in order to “neutralize some influences which tend to obstruct progress”.63 This shows that Moleschott understood his political function first of all as a secularizing function: the “influences” which should be “neutralized” in Rome were, clearly, those of the Catholic Church. Secularization Ministry to the University of Rome (Rome, August 20, 1886). Both in Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169. 60 The appointment was dated Rome, January 27, 1882: Archivio Storico Università di Roma La Sapienza, Fascicolo Moleschott Jacopo, AS 169. 61 Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, November 5, 1878): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 62 So far, this statement could not be verified: I could not find any other document concerning this issue. 63 Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, November 5, 1878): “[…] la nazione liberata e la libera scienza devono gareggiare per neutralizzare influenze che tendono ad inciampare il progresso.” ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396.

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was, indeed, one of the main aims and motives of his engagement in cultural politics and in the popularization of science, whereas his political positions were oriented towards liberal views. At the same time, secularization and anti-clericalism were also reasons why he was invited to cooperate with certain magazines: for instance, he was invited to contribute to a publication which had as its aim to “scandalize” the “small Christians” (where “cristianelli” had a diminutive and at the same time ironic and negative connotation).64 However, no earlier than at the beginning of 1878, when Moleschott asked the Minister whether it would be possible for him to get the vacant Chair at the Istituto di Studi Superiori in Florence (which had been occupied by Moritz Schiff), he declared that the reason why he would be interested in such a position, “which would not constitute a promotion but a transfer” from “one of the main universities of the Kingdom”, was the chance to dedicate more time to science.65 As we will see, the result of his transfer to Rome was exactly the contrary: he was more and more involved in the political life of the country, as well as in the cultural life of the new capital. There, he took part in the meetings in the Oratorio di Via Belsiana together with the most influential intellectuals of the city, such as Gabriele D’Annunzio and Giuseppe Verdi.66 Apparently, this society organized cultural events, and its members entertained themselves by speaking about issues related to music, philosophy, and culture in general. D’Annunzio described one of these meetings in his novel Il trionfo della morte (“The Triumph of Death”, published in 1894): here, Moleschott himself is described as one of the participants in these meetings, which the protagonist of the novel used to attend.67 But D’Annunzio also described Moleschott in one of his first newspaper articles, which he wrote at the beginning of his career as a journalist for La Tribuna. Reviewing Jacob Moleschott’s speech Per una festa della scienza (1887) 64 Cf. De Pascale and Savorelli, L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott, 230, who refer to a letter from Antonio Ghisleri in BCABo, FSM, A IV 16. 65 Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education (Turin, November 5, 1878): ACS, Cartella Numero 42, M.P.I., Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396. 66 Moleschott praised Verdi at the Senate. Cf. BSR, Indice alfabetico ed analitico delle materie contenute nei volumi delle discussioni del Senato del Regno, Legislatura XVIII, 1° sessione

1892-1894,

3935,

available

online:

http://notes9.senato.it/Web/sen

regno.NSF/2a9c00aad2bca710c125711400599e36/c395bbd08d11ff594125646f005d9474 /$FILE/1501_Moleschott_IndiciAP.pdf. In Rome, Moleschott lived in Via Volturno 58, in a bourgeois and central area close to today’s Termini train station. Cf. “Moleschott, Jacopo”, in Senatori dell’Italia liberale, Archivio del Senato della Repubblica, available online (both links last seen on November 30, 2015): http://notes9.senato.it/Web/sen regno.NSF/2a9c00aad2bca710c125711400599e36/c395bbd08d11ff594125646f005d9474 ?OpenDocument. 67 On this topic, cf. Gardenghi, L’oratorio di via Belsiana.

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in that newspaper, he wrote these words about that old and renowned scientist: “And while I was watching that great man of Science, I had in mind the verse pronounced by Demogorgon in the Prometheus Unbound by the divine Shelley: - This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory [...]!”68 One may be surprised to find Moleschott, one of the most important representatives of scientific materialism, being appreciated in a “decadent” environment (in the sense of the literary current of Decadentismo, to which D’Annunzio belonged) and having himself good contacts with it; however, he seemed to be perfectly at ease in such an environment. For instance, Moleschott wrote an article in German69 on the actress Eleonora Duse, D’Annunzio’s lover and one of the most important personalities in the Italian artistic scene at the turn of the twentieth century, whom he knew personally and who corresponded with his daughter Elsa.70 Even though Moleschott’s time in Rome implied a decrease in his scientific research, this should not be interpreted as a clear break with his career as a scientist, or even as an interruption of his scientific activity: first, he continued to publish scientific articles in both Italian and international journals (his Untersuchungen, as well as the Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift).71 Second, his time in Rome was the coronation, rather than the interruption, of his scientific activity: it was there that he could dedicate most of his time to the popularization of his research and of his ideas. Of course, it was another kind of popularization than the volumes published in Germany in the 1850s, and it was also different from the lectures he gave in Turin and published and translated into Italian and German: as a Senator, he had the chance to directly influence national policies concerning hygiene, education, and legislation. For him, this was the perfect occasion to apply his theories to society and shape the politics of the new nation. Moleschott’s activity as a scientific expert included, for instance, the editing of the official pharmacopeia of the Kingdom of Italy;72 thereby, he continued to play the role of expert at the service of the government, as he had done when he 68 The article by Gabriele D’Annunzio, “Una festa della scienza”, was published in La Tribuna on November 4, 1887. 69 Jacob Moleschott, manuscript of the article “Eleonora Duse”. BCABo, FSM, 107.6 (new). The article has probably been published; however, it is not known where and when. 70 Letter by Eleonora Duse to Elsa Moleschott (May 29, 1894), published in Marcel Desittere, “Un carteggio privato della famiglia Moleschott conservato a Bologna”. 71 Cf. the bibliography at the end of this book. 72 Jacob Moleschott, “Farmacopea Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia” [1892]: BCABo, FSM, not inventoried at the time of consultation, yet now with signature 2184 (busta 108, fascicolo 1). Copy with corrections of Moleschott for the printer; it contains a description of plants and their main characteristics, including how the substances can be extracted from the plant, their chemical formula, where those plants grow in Italy and when they blossom, as well as their derivative compounds used in pharmaceuticals. The work Farmacopea Ufficiale del regno d’Italia was published in 1892.

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had edited the report on the “progress of physiology in Italy” in 1867-1869. Moreover, he was involved in the political negotiations regarding the rules for the introduction in the Kingdom of new medicines coming from abroad, an issue concerning both public health and commercial law.73 Moleschott continued giving lectures with popularizing content at the University (though not as many as he did in Turin), and even on that occasion, science and nationalism were good allies. Those that we will analyze in the following pages are the most important lectures he gave in Rome: the first one is a commemoration of Darwin and the second one a plea for the “unity of science”, the “unity of method” and the cooperation of scientific disciplines. In the next chapters, instead, we will concentrate on his contribution in cultural politics, examining the speeches he gave at the Senate, as well as his engagement in international associations and international conferences (in particular, the Congress on Criminal Anthropology and the International Sanitary Conference in 1885). On the one hand, these will show how deep the entanglement of science and politics was in Moleschott’s late career. On the other hand, they will make clear that Moleschott’s understanding of popularization went well beyond publishing massive books (which, in that period, he did not do at all): his lectures, his speeches, and his pamphlets were all formats of popularization that fulfilled the requirements of that particular national context and its audience (a relatively restricted and educated one).

The Speech on Charles Darwin (1882) As an example of Moleschott’s political function, as well as of the entanglement of science and politics and, specifically, of nationalism and scientific popularization, we will deal with Moleschott’s speech on Charles Darwin, a commemoration he gave in 1882 “in the name of the students of the University of Rome”.74 In this speech, nationalism and popularization of Darwinism went hand in hand. However, the speech constituted a quite special form of popularization: its audience, the students, were apparently considered to be completely convinced of the validity of Darwin’s ideas already, but the speech was published as a pamphlet and distributed as a publication on its own, thus reaching a broader and possibly yet-to-be-convinced audience. From the beginning until the end, and throughout the whole speech, Moleschott presented the theory of evolution as having been anticipated by poets and philoso-

73 Cf. the notes handwritten by Jacob Moleschott, “Introduzione di medicinali nel Regno”, s.d. [post 1882]: BCABo, FSM, 115.5 (new). 74 Jacob Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin. Commemorazione pronunciata a nome degli studenti dell’Università di Roma nel giorno 25 giugno 1882 (Torino: Loescher, 1882).

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phers, from Homer to Shakespeare and from the Eleatics to Hegel; but he also mentioned several natural scientists, depicting them as representatives of Darwinism avant la lettre. Among these forerunners of Darwinism, he listed the Latin naturalist Lucretius (highly admired as a materialist), but also the Germans Schelling and Goethe, and finally Karl Ernst von Baer (with whom, as we have seen in the previous chapter, he had contact), underlining how poetry and the observation of nature merge in their work.75 However, Moleschott had quite an ambiguous opinion about Goethe and natural scientists inclined to the views of the philosophy of nature, such as Lorenz Oken and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (1776-1837), considered to be “rather poets” than scientists insofar as they did not pay enough attention to analysis.76 Then, after this long introductory section (about half of the speech) on Darwin’s forerunners, Moleschott introduced Darwin’s ideas and their differences from and similarities with Lamarck’s.77 After explaining the struggle for life as deriving from natural selection and referring to Malthus’s theories,78 he presented Darwin as the one who “translated natural History into natural History [the emphasis of the author put the accent on the word “history”, intended as natural evolution, L.M.], classification into genealogy, the form into fieri” [becoming, L.M.].79 The only scientist who could be compared to Darwin, according to Moleschott, was Robert Mayer, the author of the law of energy conservation, and he was convinced that the nineteenth century “owed its scientific character to Mayer and Darwin”.80 However, he then compared both of them to what he considered the great men of science, Galileo Galilei and Baruch Spinoza (whose first name he translated as “Benedetto”).81

75 Cf. Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, [9]-11. 76 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 22. 77 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 23-24. 78 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 27. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an English economist, famous above all for his demographic theories: in his An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), he maintained that a continuous growth of the population would necessarily lead to lower wages, insufficient resources, and poverty; he thought that this would cause periodic famine and the subsequent decrease of the population, thus suggesting a principle very similar to the theory of natural selection in biology, which Darwin developed. 79 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 32. 80 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 32-33. As a member of the Academy of Science in Turin, in 1867 Moleschott supported the membership of Robert Mayer. In the same year, Robert Mayer addressed to him a letter in which he praised him for his engagement in keeping scientific research separated from religious dogmas. Cf. Hagelgans, Jakob Moleschott als Physiologe, 16-17. 81 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 34.

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The speech ended with Moleschott defining it as a kind of tribute of the Italian nation, “the country of Giordano Bruno, of Galileo Galilei and of Dante”, and to Britain, “the country of Bacon, of Newton and of Shakespeare”.82 However, Moleschott immediately specified that Italy was itself the heir of the progress to which British scientists and literati had contributed: in fact, he explained, Italy not only admired the work of such British innovators, but was itself an example of the continuation and actualization of their progressive thinking. In this context, Moleschott presented Italy’s poets and philosophers, but also its “patriots from Piero Capponi to Cavour” and even “its heroes up to Victor Emmanuel and Giuseppe Garibaldi”, as nothing other than the true representatives of evolutionary theory – which he, just like Lombroso, mostly called “atavism”.83 In this way, Moleschott was contributing to the program of political education of the Italians not through the sacralization of certain figures, but by declaring them either the predecessors or the followers of Darwin – in other words, through their Darwinization. In fact, he solemnly declared that the same “struggle for life” that England undertook in the sea was being and would be undertaken by Italy “against the darkness of ignorance”, an ignorance giving itself “absolute authority”, clearly referring to the authority of the Church. Not by chance, Moleschott had just mentioned Giordano Bruno, who was a symbol of the enlightened opposition to and the fight against the intolerance of the Catholic Church.84 In this way, Moleschott’s speech on Darwin was also a glorification of Italy’s national unity and of its victories – on the political, ideological, and cultural levels. Indeed, Moleschott interpreted the “struggle for life” as a political and military struggle: in this sense, he embraced social Darwinism and Robert Spencer’s theories, whom he cited at length in the sketches for his Anthropologie.85 Moreover, he justified the struggle against the Vatican (and celebrated Italy’s victory) by saying that the Vatican 82 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 40: “Il paese di Giordano Bruno, di Galileo Galilei e di Dante profferisce il suo omaggio al paese di Bacone, di Newton e di Shakespeare.” 83 Ibidem. Piero Capponi (1447-1496) was a warrior and statesman, chief of the republic of Florence after having taken the place of Piero De’ Medici (cf. Michael Mallett, “Capponi, Piero”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 19 (1976), online version http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/piero-capponi_%28Dizionario_Biografico%29/ (last consulted on September 23, 2015). 84 On Giordano Bruno’s statue as manifestation of anti-clericalism and of power against the Vatican, cf.: Oliver Janz, “Konflikt, Koexistenz und Symbiose: Nationale und religiöse Symbolik in Italien vom Risorgimento bis zum Faschismusˮ, in Nation und Religion in Europa: Mehrkonfessionelle Gesellschaften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. HeinzGerhard Haupt and Dieter Langewiesche (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2004), 231252, especially 238-239. 85 Jacob Moleschott, “Quaderni” (notes on “Darwin”, December 9 and December 14, 1882): BCABo, FSM, B I 6 d.

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had “proved to base on the rejection of science”, and concluded: “Italy shall maintain the victory, because the marriage of Italy is the marriage of liberty with knowledge.”86 Thus, Moleschott presented the Italian nation as being the result of nothing less than freedom and knowledge – scientific knowledge. In the abovementioned speech (dated Rome, May 12, 1880), in which he praised his assistant Simone Fubini as a scientist and scholar, recommending him to the Minister of Public Education, Moleschott had expressed a similar concept: “if scientific progress constitutes the force of all civil nations, for Italy it [scientific progress, L.M.] is the noblesse of its history, the true weapon of its future, the vital force of its existence”. Even in that case, he had hinted at victory as the result of scientific knowledge, concluding with the Latin phrase: “In hoc signo vincet”.87 A closer insight into Moleschott’s conception of evolution can be discerned from the opening lecture he gave when he started to teach physiology in Rome, in 1879. As we shall see, this lecture joined the popularization of concepts from the natural sciences with nationalist ideas and concrete suggestions for the organization of society, its higher education system, and national economy.

The Opening Lecture: La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle (1879) Let us then consider the first (and only) opening lecture Moleschott gave in Rome, on January 11, 1879, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, whose main topic was the cooperation between physiology and other disciplines in the fields of medicine and the natural sciences.88 As we have seen in the previous chapter, Moleschott had already addressed the issue of the relationship between physiology and pathology, as well as of the role of physiology in scientific research in his opening lectures in Turin. At the same time, the cooperation among scientists and scientific disciplines was one of the central points of his contribution to the debates on higher education in the Senate. In fact, this lecture is a wonderful introduction to the main issues of Moleschott’s Senate speeches, which we will deal with in the next sections. As he had 86 Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin, 40. 87 Moleschott, Chi è il dottor Simone Fubini?, 16: “Ora se il progresso scientifico costituisce la forza di tutte le nazioni civili, per lʼItalia è la nobiltà della sua storia, la vera arma del suo avvenire, la forza vitale della sua esistenza. In hoc signo vincet.” 88 Jacob Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle: prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella Sapienza di Roma, pronunziata il dì 11 gennaio 1879 da Jac. Moleschott (Torino: Loescher, 1879). Translated into German as: Jacob Moleschott, Die Einheit der Wissenschaft aus dem Gesichtspunkt der Lehre vom Leben: Antrittsrede zur Eröffnung seiner Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Sapienza in Rom, gehalten am 11. Januar 1879 (Giessen: Roth, 1879).

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already done in L’unità della vita in 1864, Moleschott started this lecture with the Hegelian repartition into three scientific eras: he called the first one naïve and immediate, he defined the second one as being characterized by division and analysis (and also by struggle), and the third one, the contemporary era, as characterized by synthesis.89 Identifying the three eras with the three parts of the day, Moleschott called “evening” the current epoch, the epoch of mediated synthesis and of the full comprehension of the fact that human beings originate from nature and are necessarily part of it. He identified the epoch of spontaneity and innocence with the “dawn” of humankind and described it as a kind of paradise, with no worries and no consciousness of limits. He then explained that it was work, and the division of labor, which had led to the necessity of specialization, and therefore of separation and individuality: the corresponding stage was the stage of analysis. This implied a rupture with the “ideal and immediate unity, the harmony the Greeks had sublimated with their beautiful and good” (a clear reference to the Greek concept of καλοκἀγαθία, a synthesis of ethics and aesthetics). However, there was no “clear and precise research method” yet, and “everyone searched in his own way”.90 Then, Moleschott introduced the metaphor of the tree of knowledge, the central image of his conception of science: in the tree of knowledge, which he compared to the zoological tree – thus, making clear that the image he was using to represent science derived itself from methods of visualization in the natural sciences – there is a “common trunk” (another expression that we will find in the debates on higher education), from which the “different branches grow”, and their “tops full of leaves intermingle”, being “nourished by the lymph of method”.91 Method was, indeed, what characterized the third era: “progress is due to methodical research”, Moleschott explained, being convinced that the results achieved through correct methodology would become confirmed facts.92 Moleschott also underlined the central role of the experiment (here, the term he used was “cimento”), which, as he would explain also in his Senate speeches, was necessary to the progress of science and mankind, being the only way to overcome both naïve legend and abstract speculation: “The experiment is the true spark of Prometheus stolen from the sky. Little by little, it makes legends pale […] just like a superior human race, in the struggle for life, conquers and exterminates the inferior races that inhabit the continent they arrive to with the aureole of a discovery.”93 89 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 3. 90 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 4. 91 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 7. 92 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 10: “[…] il progresso è dovuto a metodica ricerca, ed il fatto compreso non può più sfuggirci dalle mani.” 93 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 7: “Il cimento è la vera scintilla di Prométeo rapita dal cielo. È dessa che poco per volta fa impallidire le fantasmagorie della leggenda,

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This sentence summarizes the kind of social Darwinism Moleschott stuck to and the prejudices related to it. Prometheus, as in the Senate speech on higher education, stands for the ever-becoming activity of science, which brings the light of knowledge and defeats ignorance and false beliefs. As one can easily notice, the imagery of warfare and a racist idea of superiority inform the whole phrase, which is at the same time a justification of colonialism. In this lecture, the three eras of the development of humanity and of scientific progress are also compared to the stages of human life: the immediate is compared with youth, and the Delphic oracle, “know thyself”, is called “principle and aim of wisdom”.94 However, Moleschott explained that analysis was a necessary step when studying human nature: as he had already pointed out in his lectures in Turin, one should examine the relations of the organs, both with each other and with the external world.95 Then, he remembered the motto of Protagoras, that man is the measure of all things, a motto which, as we will see, he would quote at the beginning of the Congress on Criminal Anthropology in 1884 as a source of inspiration for its participants. Then, Moleschott explained how the method of the natural sciences, based on induction (“metodo positivo”), had progressively become the method of more and more disciplines, so that physics had entered the domain of the psyche and of the nervous system. Physiology had become physics and chemistry of the organism, he explained, pathology was finally physiology applied to the particular circumstance of the ill organism (as we have seen, this was the main topic of his lecture Fisiologia e patologia), agriculture was “applied chemistry”, and engineering “applied physics”.96 In addition, with reference to contemporary research by the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), Moleschott explained that psychology had also become a

i fuochi fatui dell’aprioristica speculazione, come una razza superiore d’uomini, nella lotta per la vita, vince e stermina le stirpi ignobili che abitano il continente cui accede coll’aureola di una scoperta.” 94 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 11. 95 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 12. Moleschott also explained the psychophysical law of Fechner and Weber, which, as we will see, would play a role in his argument against the grist tax. This time, he did not mention the names of the two scientists (mostly unknown to the broad public), but illustrated his meaning through a comparison with the proportionality of monetary value, an issue which was easily understandable by most, clarifying in this way the content of the law, namely that when there are two stimuli, they must proportionally increase in order to be distinguished (Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 14-15). 96 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 15.

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branch of the natural sciences,97 and that “moral, historical, juridical, social, political sciences all recognize the necessity of applying to their research the same positivist method (‘metodo positivo’), which made the natural sciences powerful, the Novum organum of adult humanity”.98 He believed that this method would allow pedagogy to teach the classical ideal of perfection, an ideal that, as we will see, would be central to Moleschott’s contributions to the debates on physical education as a school subject. Pedagogy should, according to him, educate both men and women, and make out of them “complete” individuals, shaping their physical aspect, as well as their “intellect”, their “love for beauty” and “truth”, their “prudence”, “energy”, their sense of “justice” and morality.99 At the same time, Moleschott’s positivist understanding of history emerges from this speech, one that was typical, for instance, for the British historian Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862). Moleschott explained that “history has ceased to be almost exclusively military and political, from the moment in which it was certified that man is the product of nature and culture”.100 According to him, history should examine the “evolution of religious ideas, of morals, arts, sciences, social relationships”;101 yet, he also believed that history should prove that “there is nothing absolute”, albeit at the same time discovering the “law of evolution” (“legge di sviluppo”), emanating from the entanglement or “reciprocal influence [literally, “fecundation”] of nature and culture, and yet being subject to numbers and measure”.102 Moleschott further explained that precisely “these numbers, illuminated by qualitative experiments” (“qualitativa sperienza”), should guide “the legislator in his studies on penalties, on property, on the limits between state and society, between family and individual”, and they should also inform “penal law” (here called “diritto criminale”).103 As we will see, this would be a central argument in the speech on criminal anthropology that he gave at the international conference in 1885. The rate of crimes,

97

Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 16. On Wilhelm Wundt, cf. Paul Ziche, “Neuroscience in its context. Neuroscience and psychology in the work of Wilhelm Wundtˮ. Physis, rivista internazionale di storia della scienza, 36 (1999), 2: 407-429.

98

Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 17. This is a reference to Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum Scientiarum (1620), which introduced the inductive method as scientific method.

99

Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 17.

100 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 17. On Buckle’s conception of history, cf. Jürgen Osterhammel and Fritz Stern (eds.), Moderne Historiker. Klassische Texte von Voltaire bis zur Gegenwart (München: Beck, 2011), 175-176. 101 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 17. 102 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 18. 103 Ibidem.

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he explained, was determined by the level of culture and economic and political conditions, and most of the criminals acted because of “hunger, alcohol, ambition, ignorance, not enough confidence in the others and in one’s own force, and unfortunately even because of the lack of charity” – a typically Christian virtue – of the other members of society.104 But Moleschott went further in applying the laws of physics to society, considering the law of energy conservation by Robert Mayer as the basis of “political economy”: since “nothing derives from nothing”, it is necessary that workers get a sufficient amount of food (which he here called “combustible”, making an analogy with machines), otherwise, not only would they not produce as much as they could, but they would become ill and even revolt.105 As we have already seen when dealing with the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, Moleschott understood sufficient and correct nutrition for the people as a primary means to achieve economic wealth and social stability. Coherently with his statement that numbers should be at the basis not only of the natural sciences, but also of social sciences and legislation, Moleschott had a great respect for statistics, which he considered as having the opposite function as mathematics: the latter derived one formula from many numbers, the former had to discover the multiple meanings and facts behind the cyphers.106 Moleschott concluded his speech with a plea for the unity of science, which he considered to be the result of the “unity of method”, and which had its concretization in the collaboration of scientists coming from different disciplines. This is why he pled for cooperation in academic research, being a strenuous defender of the university as opposed to professional schools, which he considered an obstacle to interdisciplinary collaboration; at the university, instead, specialized research would always be capable of relating to other subjects because they would be based on one common method.107 As we will see in the next chapter, in the Senate debates on higher education, Moleschott expressed the idea that the physicist could learn from the philosopher and vice versa; in this lecture, which he gave at the end of the 1870s, he anticipated this and many other issues which were or would be at the center of his political involvement in those years. Similarly to his speech about Charles Robert Darwin, in La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle he also praised Goethe as the forerunner of evolutionary theory in the world of plants with his metamorphosis of plants,108 and presented Schelling and Hegel as 104 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 18-19. 105 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 19. 106 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 19-20. 107 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 24-25. 108 On Goethe’s conception of metamorphosis and its influence in the science of man and of nature, cf. for instance Matthew Bell, Goetheʼs Naturalistic Anthropology: Man and Other Plants (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).

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the philosophers who paved the way for the theory of evolution as it was developed by the physiologist Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1733-1794) in his embryological studies.109 Mentioning this concrete example of fruitful influence from the domain of philosophy to the domain of the natural sciences, Moleschott stated that the time of separation had finished: analysis was, according to him, a “necessity” and a “means” of scientific research, but could never constitute its “goal” or its “ideal”.110 After analysis, science needed synthesis, in order to “collect the fruits of the tree of knowledge”, and precisely “from the unity of method” in the disparate disciplines, the universitas studiorum had, according to him, “gloriously resurged”: “The unity of science victoriously protests against every project to take apart higher education in separated schools, because it proves that we are all collaborators in the solution of one great problem. Each of us puts his own little stone on the building, none of us can build up alone, and everyone for his own contributes with the fruits of his studies, some methodological advice, the power of integration.ˮ111

This is why he was against any other kind of institution for higher education, and he strongly defended the necessity of the unity of research and teaching, since higher education teaching would be fruitless without reference to one’s own research. Moleschott’s speech ended, also in this case, with a hint towards the function of knowledge in the service of national independence as a powerful means against the obscurantism of the Church, “an invincible phalanx against whoever wants to enchain free thought”. With a terminology which would be typical for his speech on Giordano Bruno ten years later, in 1889, he explained to his audience that “[u]nited we are the custodians of the eternal flame against obscurity”.112 However, at the same time he also declared that one should “fight continuously, but without hate”, and not forget

109 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 22-24. 110 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 22. 111 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 24-25: “L’unità della scienza protesta vittoriosamente contro ogni progetto di sparpagliare l’insegnamento superiore in scuole isolate, perché dessa dimostra che siamo tutti collaboratori alla soluzione di un unico e grande problema. Ognuno di noi mette la sua pietruzza nell’edifizio, niuno di noi può fabbricare da solo, e tutti a cadauno impartisco i frutti dei loro studi, i consigli del metodo, il nerbo del complemento.” 112 Moleschott, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, 25: “Uniti siamo i veri custodi della fiamma eterna contro le tenebre, una falange invincibile per chiunque voglia incatenare il libero pensiero.”

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that Galilei himself did his experiments in the cathedral of Pisa.113 As we will see, such a tendency towards conciliation and tolerance vis-à-vis Catholicism would be typical for Moleschott’s speeches in the 1880s. Altogether, Moleschott’s lecture La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle is a wonderful synthesis of his concerns as a politician and a scholar in Rome: it summarizes the central topics of the previous university lectures he gave in Turin, and at the same time it constitutes a clear overview of his own ideas in the 1880s. In fact, as we will see in the next chapters, in that decade Moleschott engaged in debates on the principles of criminal anthropology and its value for the reform of Italian penal law, and he participated in international associations whose aim was to spread and realize the concepts of hygiene and the social sciences in society. Moreover, he had an active role in the debates on the abolition of the grist tax, to which he brought, as the only scientist among the politicians, arguments from nutritional science and physiology. At the same time, however, he also argued that the abolition of the grist tax would constitute progress for the efficiency of the national economy and for social stability, implying increased production and the prevention of revolts. As we have just read, both points were listed in the lecture La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, whose central theme, scientific cooperation, was also one of the central political issues in Moleschott’s career as a Senator. Not only did he plead, on the theoretical level, for the collaboration of scientific disciplines with each other and the integration of methods (the “unity of method”, “unità del metodo”), but, on the practical level, he also defended the institution of the university as the only place where truly scientific research could take place, precisely because of the completeness granted by the presence of all Faculties and, therefore, of multiple perspectives, yet united by the “common trunk” offered by the Philosophical Faculty. In the next section, we will focus on Moleschott’s arguments in favor of the Philosophical Faculty at the Senate: in his view, such a Faculty included, on the model of the German Philosophical Faculty, both the natural and mathematical sciences and the humanities and would constitute a common theoretical and cultural base, a common ground upon which the most disparate scientific disciplines could flourish in their own special field, but also cooperate with each other and learn from each other.

113 Ibidem: “Combattiamo indefessi, ma senza odio. Non dimentichiamo che il più celebre laboratorio di fisica si fu il duomo di Pisa, quando Galileo, valendosi del suo polso calmo e regolare come cronometro, vi sentiva il palpito dell’umanità progredente.”

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M OLESCHOTT ’ S C ONCEPTION OF S CIENCE IN THE D EBATES ON THE R EFORM OF H IGHER E DUCATION IN I TALY (1886-1887) The main theme of Moleschott’s opening lecture at the University of Rome, namely the cooperation between physiology and other branches of the medical and natural sciences, introduces us to the issue of the longest Senate debates Moleschott was involved in: the debates about the reform of higher education in Italy. In the following pages, we will deal with Moleschott’s position in these debates: as we will see, his arguments will prove essential in order to reconstruct his conception of science on the one hand, and his role as expert and transcultural mediator on the other hand. In fact, Moleschott was an ardent supporter of the German institution of the philosophical Faculty. On the one hand, I will show that Moleschott argued that the philosophical Faculty should provide a solid, common methodological and cultural background for both the natural sciences and the humanities. On the other hand, I will highlight the function he played in the transfer of knowledge about other European (in particular German, but also Dutch and Swiss) institutional and educational settings. Thus, Moleschott used the transnational “capital” he had accumulated in the course of his career in order to increase his political “capital”, that is, his capacity of justifying his own position and convincing the other members of the Senate.114 The debates Moleschott engaged in took place from the end of November 1886 until the beginning of February 1887, in eight hearings of the Senate altogether (on November 29, December 14, 15, 16 and 17, January 20 and 21, and February 5). Although the period of time when they took place was relatively late in Moleschott’s career as a member of the Senate, they are actually the result of years-long reflections

114 The reference to the German system was not a particularity of Moleschott’s contribution in the debates about secondary education in Italy around 1885-1887: in fact, the comparison with Germany recurred very often in the speeches given by other politicians as well, and the German university system was, indeed, a reference and model for the reform of higher education in liberal Italy. On the transfer of the German university model in the reform of Italian higher education in the nineteenth century, cf. Francesco Marin, Die “deutsche Minervaˮ in Italien. Die Rezeption eines Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsmodells 1861-1923 (Köln: SH-Verlag, 2010). However, Marin does not deal with the debates on the natural sciences, nor with Moleschott’s role in the discussions. Appealing to a “German university model” was not typical for the Italian debates: cf. Dieter Langewiesche, “State – Nation – University: The Nineteenth-Century ‘German University Model’ as a Strategy for National Legitimacy in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland”, in Legitimizing Science: National and Global Public (1800-2010), ed. Andreas Franzmann, Axel Jansen, and Peter Münte (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2015), 51-80.

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on the tasks of scientific research, as well as on the system of knowledge. The longest and most significant of Moleschott’s contributions on the reform of higher education were collected and published by the Senate as a pamphlet, and therefore reached an audience which, albeit pretty restricted, was surely broader than the one represented by the members of the Senate who were present at each session.115 Moleschott was not the only scientist who contributed in these debates at the Senate: in fact, there were several Senators involved in the discussions about the reform of the university, and many of them were themselves scholars, such as the chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro (1826-1910), the philologist Tommaso Vallauri (1805-1897), the historian Pasquale Villari (1827-1917), and the mathematician Luigi Cremona. Moreover, I will consider another speech Moleschott gave at the Senate on June 21, 1884, which concerned the procedure for appointing new professors, and compare the Senate speeches with his lecture Per una festa della scienza, given in Rome in 1892. First, I will deal with Moleschott’s role as transnational expert and as one of the actors in the transfer of knowledge about higher education from Germany to Italy. Then, I will focus on the conception of science emerging from Moleschott’s speeches on the reform of the Italian university.

The German Model and the Italian System of Higher Education: Moleschott as Mediator and as Expert Let us then turn to Moleschott’s contribution in the debates on the reform of the university and of technical higher education and consider his role as mediator in the process of knowledge transfer from the German and other European educational systems.116 On November 29, 1886, Moleschott started with a comparison between the

115 Jacob Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, e commemorazione del senatore Francesco Magni: Discorsi del senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziati in Senato nelle tornate del 29 novembre, 14, 15, 16 e 17 dicembre 1886, 20 e 21 gennaio e 5 febbraio 1887 (Roma: Tip. Forzani e C., 1887). In the Senate reports, the debates are spread through several books, and the discussions Moleschott took part in occupy a significant part. 116 The two main laws regulating the school system were the legge Casati and the legge Coppino: the legge Casati (Legge 13 Novembre 1859 n. 3725), approved in Piedmont (Kingdom of Sardinia) in 1859 and extended to the whole Italian State after the unification and annexation of other regions, made primary education obligatory and free of charge, thus reducing analphabetism from 78% to 74% from 1861 to 1866. In 1877 the legge Coppino (Legge 15 Luglio 1877 n. 3725), which made primary education obligatory up to the age of nine, caused a reduction of the rate of analphabetism from 74% to

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levels of Italian and German high schools, complaining about the lower level of the Italian if compared to German high schools: this lack of preparation, he explained, had consequences on the overall level of students entering universities, and even though, in his opinion, Italian students were able to reach the level of German students after attending the university for “two or three years”, he argued that the level of Italian high schools (“licei”) should be improved. He explained that the main features of German students were a “mature character” (“maturità di carattere”) and “deep knowledge”, and that these were lacking in students in Italy, at least at the beginning of their studies; however, he had noticed that the intelligence (“ingegno”) of the students usually allowed them to compensate for these shortcomings within a short time.117 It was precisely in order to provide all students with a common background that Moleschott pled for the introduction of a “Philosophical Faculty”, which would include not only the natural sciences and the humanities, but even the “Technical Faculty”.118 In order to understand the context of Moleschott’s proposal, one should keep in mind that the “Legge Casati” ruled higher education in section II, “Dell’Istruzione Superiore”, and maintained the ancient medieval scheme of the three Faculties: Jurisprudence, Medicine and Theology (Theology was eventually abolished in 1873, and the abolition of the Theological Faculties and its implications was often debated in 1886-1887). Moreover, the law added two new Faculties, which play 62% by 1881. This law was explicitly informed by positivist thought: in fact, the positivist pedagogue Aristide Gabelli (1830-1891) tried to apply positivist theory to the practice of the national educational system. Gabelli’s main works on positivism and education are: Lʼuomo e le scienze morali (1869), Sul riordinamento dellʼistruzione elementare (1888), Il positivismo naturalistico in filosofia (1891), Lʼistruzione e lʼeducazione in Italia (1891). Cf. Gaetano Bonetta (ed.), Aristide Gabelli e il metodo critico in educazione (LʼAquila: Japadre, 1994). These laws reflected the strong centralization of education, as well as secularization and the increasing importance of the natural sciences. Cf. Fabio Targhetta, “Uno sguardo allʼEuropa. Modelli scolastici, viaggi pedagogici ed importazioni didattiche nei primi cinquantʼanni di scuola italianaˮ, in Storia comparata dellʼeducazione. Problemi ed esperienze tra Otto e Novecento, ed. Mirella Chiaranda (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2010), 155-176. 117 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 15. In the Senate reports, the discussion is reported in: BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 20 Novembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 219-226. 118 In order to explain this, Moleschott quoted a “German motto”, where the teacher is defined as “he, who was able to create” (“ideare”); the motto reads like this: “Who will be the master? He who was able to ideate. Who will be [his] helper? He who was able to make. And who then the pupil? Anyone who would like to learn.” Cf. Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 22.

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a central role in Moleschott’s speech, namely “scienze fisiche, matematiche e naturali” (Faculty of physical, mathematical and natural sciences) and “lettere e filosofia” (the literary and philosophical Faculty, roughly corresponding to the study of the humanities). Moleschott’s suggested institution of a “Philosophical Faculty” on the German model would include both of these Faculties, and should not be confused with the Italian literary and philosophical Faculty. Also, technical education, dealing with applied science, was added to the trivium-scheme: after having attended the first two years of university, one could attend a “scuola di applicazione” for three years and become an engineer; as we will see, the status of technical education was also a central point in the discussions and in Moleschott’s speeches at the Senate.119 Then, Moleschott dealt with the question of the “liberi docenti”, where the German setting was, once more, a central reference. The function of the liberi docenti, the equivalent of the German Privatdozent, was regulated in the “Legge Casati” (Capo V, “Degli insegnanti a titolo privato”, art. 93 to 104). In the old Savoy State, i.e. in the universities that had belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia, the institution of “dottore aggregato” (deriving from the French “agrégée”) was still in use; however, the legge Casati did not extend this institution to the whole country, and Moleschott himself strongly supported the “libera docenza” as a substitute for the “aggregazione” in all universities of the Kingdom. He often cited the German model with regard to this: in Italy, he explained, the libero docente had to make great efforts and “sacrifices” to progress in his career, while having to content himself with an insufficient salary.120 German Privatdozenten, instead, were not “proletarians of science” like their Italian colleagues:121 Moleschott explained that, first of all, they received 119 The art. 53 of the Legge Casati legislated the relation between scuole di applicazione and University; however, the position of technical and applied sciences was not well defined. The management of technical secondary education was soon transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade (“Ministero dell’Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio”), showing the tendency to separate what Moleschott called “science for the sake of science” from “applied science”. Starting from 1860, technical schools were foreseen with a specialization in physical, mathematical and natural science, which gave access to the University. The law implied a standardization of higher education for the future ruling class. Nationalizing education also meant secularizing it, appropriating a field which had largely been managed by the Church. The literature on the history of higher education in liberal Italy is not abundant: cf. Ilaria Porciani (ed.), LʼUniversità tra Otto e Novecento: i modelli Europei e il caso italiano (Napoli: Jovene, 1994); Mario Di Domizio, Lʼuniversità in Italia: lineamenti storici (Milano: A.V.E., 1952); Massimo Miozzi, Lo sviluppo storico dellʼuniversità Italiana (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1993); Tina Tomasi and Luciana Bellatalla, Lʼuniversità italiana nellʼetà liberale (1861-1923) (Napoli: Liguori, 1988). 120 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 23-24. 121 Ibidem.

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fair payment for teaching, and, secondly, they had the opportunity to increase their income through their publications.122 On this occasion, Moleschott justified his position through his own experience as a Privatdozent at a German university, thus using his international experience as a scholar as a source of authority. He explained that, when he was a Privatdozent of Physiology at the University of Heidelberg, each one of his students had to pay the equivalent of 50 Lire for attending his course; thus, for the teachers who had enough students, the fees alone provided a fair income. At least another half of the income came from his publications;123 however, he explained that in Italy, the situation was different and that, unfortunately, writing “scientific works” was not convenient at all, since here “most of the people writing about science must pay [for having their works published, L.M.] instead of earning money out of it”.124 Also with regard to the role of academies in the national development of scientific research, Moleschott referred to the regulations of other European countries, especially Germany. In his opinion, academies did not constitute the roots or the trunk of the “tree of knowledge”, but rather its “leaves” and “foliage”.125 Thus, he supported the decision made by the Minister of Public Education Francesco De Sanctis, who had refused state financing for the foundation of a new academy; in general, he criticized the priority mostly given to academies in Italian educational policies and compared them with the policies of other European countries such as “Western Germany [the former territories of Baden, Hesse and Westphalia, L.M.] and the whole of Switzerland”, where there is “not a single academy”.126 Whereas in Italy, academies had always been considered to be more important than universities, in Germany, he maintained, academies were institutions of the second order compared to universities.127 Curiously, precisely when he and his colleagues continuously referred to Germany as their model, Moleschott remarked that, in his opinion, the German system was too often taken as being perfectly regulated.128 This could represent an attempt to give

122 Probably, Moleschott knew about the debates on the status of the Privatdozent at German universities: cf. Alexander Busch, Die Geschichte des Privatdozenten – Eine soziologische Studie zur großbetrieblichen Entwicklung der deutschen Universitäten (Stuttgart: Enke, 1959), as well as Rüdiger vom Bruch, “Universitätsreform als soziale Bewegung. Zur Nicht-Ordinarienfrage im späten deutschen Kaiserreichˮ. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 10 (1984), 1: 72-91. 123 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 23-24. 124 Ibidem. 125 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 26-28. 126 Ibidem. 127 Ibidem. 128 Ibidem: “Io credo che sia un grande male. Né crediate che io voglia soddisfarmi della mia propria convinzione: lasciate che io vi dica innanzi tutto che in quella Germania che,

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the German model less importance than it was getting, speech after speech, in the whole Senate debate about education. In fact, also on another occasion, when speaking about the “division of labor” within the university, Moleschott said that one should not always consider as something good the manner in which higher education was administered in Germany, and always as something bad the way it was administered in Italy.129 Referring once more to his own experience, he stated that, at the time of his appointment, the University of Turin was organized according to a “wise division of labor” which “Germany, at that time, could not even dream of – not even in Berlin”.130 He reported that Johannes Müller, at the time of his death in 1861, still held the Chair for both Human Anatomy and Compared Physiology, whereas in Italy in the same year (i.e. at the time in which Moleschott started his career at the University of Turin), the separation between Anatomy and Physiology was already rooted in the academic division of labor.131 This remark might sound odd if we think about Moleschott’s commitment to a cooperation between the sciences: in fact, he himself pointed out that “the Senate knows that I am not one of those who want to divide [scientific disciplines] in compartments having no communicating doors between each other”, but he explained also that the ones who had “real talent” for morphology usually cannot be as talented with regard to the study of the functions of organs.132 In the same way, he believed that “pathologic anatomy” and “general pathology” (identified with “physiology of pathology”, i.e. “physiology of the ill organism”), as well as “descriptive anatomy” and “physiology”, hygiene (i.e. “the root of everything biological in the ruling of human public and private life”) and legal medicine (i.e. “the application according to the law of the knowledge that medicine has been collecting in all of its branches”) should not be confused and assembled under one Chair.133 But the most important reason why Moleschott considered the Italian system as being superior to that of other countries was exactly the “Legge Casati”: the law on public education, he explained, was a law “which foreign people should be envious about, it reveals high scientific and practical wisdom”, and was designed in such a way that it could be “adapted to the progress of time with just a few smaller changes”.134 According to Moleschott, by sticking to the “Legge Casati”, the Senate would “honor liberty and liberality conceived in the right way, and make its tribute to a document

secondo la mia convinzione, troppo sovente s’invoca ad esempio, noi vediamo inversamente le accademie venire dopo le istituzioni universitarie.” 129 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 30. 130 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 30-31. 131 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 31. 132 Ibidem. 133 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 31-32. 134 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 29-30.

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of Italian civility”.135 In this way, Moleschott ended by praising the Italian institutions as being the product of liberalism and civilization. In fact, liberal values play an essential role in Moleschott’s contributions in the debate about research institutions: for instance, Moleschott stated that another great defect of academies was that they impeded “librarians’ free initiative, who do not dare to print a great deal of books, because academies have appropriated this industry and made concurrence impossible”.136 Thus, for him, free trade and competition were essential values: monopoly should be avoided also in the domain of education. Again, Moleschott referred to Germany as a successful model for the cooperation of the commercial and academic worlds with reference to publications: “Western Germany and Switzerland have printed wonderful works with awesome illustrations by Kölliker, Tiedemann, Carl Vogt and others, and no academy has given its support for these publications. Apart from a few exceptions, which our illustrious and beloved colleague Amari [Michele Amari (1803-1877), Senator and scholar in Arabic literature, L.M.] would remind me of – I suppose, for example, the publication of some Arabic texts – I might say: everything which cannot subsist without academies, well, that can lie on their writers’ desks, since most of the times it will not be worth publishing.ˮ137

Finally, according to Moleschott one should take Germany as a model not only with regard to publishing, but even concerning the closing of academies: he explained that “the University of Heidelberg, which, as you know, celebrated its fifth centenary with solemn satisfaction some time ago”138 (as we will see, the Italian delegation for that celebration was constituted by Moleschott himself), was in a precarious economic state at the beginning of the century. Since there were, at that time, two academies of the sciences, one in Heidelberg and one in Mannheim, “the Government of the coun-

135 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 30. 136 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 20 Novembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 225: “Quello che fanno in questo riguardo le nostre accademie è molto grave ancora sotto un altro punto di vista: esse paralizzano la libera iniziativa dei librai, che di una quantità di libri non osano intraprendere la stampa, perché le accademie si sono impadronite di questa industria ed hanno reso la concorrenza impossibile.” 137 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 20 Novembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 225; also in Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 29. 138 Ibidem.

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try and he who directed the academy” decided to close one of them, so that the University of Heidelberg could prosper and flourish as an institution of research.139 As a conclusion, Moleschott suggested that, if he were the Italian Minister of Public Education, he would gather the amount of money which was meant to finance the academies of the country, and would suggest that they “give four fifths of it to the universities, for their laboratories, for the expenses of their scientific materials, in order to produce work instead of luxury, being certain that good fruits would be spread, even without the luxury of academies”.140 This sentence is quite telling with regard to Moleschott’s conception of the university: for him, the university was the place where scientific research should take place and, as he had already explained in his opening lecture in Rome in 1879, at universities, teaching and research cannot be separated from one another. In this way, he was sticking to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s principle of the unity of research and teaching.141 However, according to Moleschott, research must have priority over teaching: in fact, in the framework of the debate about the obligatory number of hours which should be taught by each professor for his courses, he submitted a proposal, signed by him and other colleagues, where he asked for the suppression of the second paragraph of the art. 13 of the law on secondary education (“Legge Casati”). That paragraph aimed at introducing an obligatory number of lecturing hours for professors, and this was justified as a loan from the German system.142 Once again, on January 20, 1887, Moleschott argued against this paragraph on the basis of his personal experience as a scholar in Germany: whereas in Germany, he explained, the schedules were “overloaded with lectures”, when he had come to Turin, he had observed that lectures were more concise than in Germany, and at the same time, that they were dealing with the same subject in a more profound way (as an example, he mentioned

139 Ibidem. 140 Ibidem. Partly paraphrased rather than literally translated. 141 Cf. Wilhelm von Humboldt, “Über die innere und äußere Organisation der höheren wissenschaftlichen Anstalten in Berlin (1810)ˮ, in Von der Französischen Revolution bis zum Wiener Kongreß 1789-1815, ed. Walter Demel and Uwe Puschner, vol. 6 of Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995), 382-391, as well as Turner, “Universitätenˮ, in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte, vol. 3, 221249. 142 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 57-60; In the Senate reports, the following discussions are reported in: BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 20 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 507-536; Moleschott’s speech is on pages 521-527.

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the lectures by his colleagues, the two professors of medicine Raffaele Piria and Filippo de Filippi).143 According to him, it would be better to have three lectures per week than five, if during these five hours “the bread of science” is cut into small pieces and it is impossible to reach deep in its essence.144 Presenting himself as the only expert on these matters, or at least as the only one who really knew the German education system through his own personal experience, Moleschott maintained that, in this case, it did not make any sense to model the Italian law on the German system. In fact, he explained that, in Germany, each course lasted one semester, the summer semester lasted three or four months, the winter semester four or four-and-a-half months, and in one semester, the program of each fundamental discipline had to be completely expounded.145 Instead, he suggested comparing the Italian system with other countries, such as the Netherlands, where the courses lasted one year and all fundamental courses consisted of three hours per week; in Holland, some lectures lasted three quarters of an hour, and in Italy they “often last five quarters of an hour and even one-and-a-half hours”.146 If one really wanted to refer to Germany, Moleschott stated, even there one could find “famous men who lecture twice instead of three times, and sometimes even only one, and with that single weekly lecture they contribute so much to the glory of their respective athenaeum, that no one has ever thought about giving regulations, and in fact there are no such regulations in Germany”.147 Finally, Moleschott once more referred to liberalism in order to justify his own position on these matters: obligating professors to lecture for a certain number of hours, “evaluating their scientific work by counting the number of hours in which they teach”, would mean, in his opinion, “introducing a dissonance in the law proposal (‘progetto di legge’)”, which was itself “inspired by liberal concepts”.148 His arguments must have been convincing for the rest of the Senate, since the proposal was accepted, and the second paragraph of the art. 13 was emendated. Instead, the issue of the liberi docenti necessitated a longer period in order to be defined, and the Senators had to discuss more extensively in order to come to an agreement on related issues.149 In general, concepts such as the “freedom” of re-

143 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 59. 144 Ibidem. 145 Ibidem. 146 Ibidem. 147 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 59-60. 148 Ibidem. 149 The philologist Tommaso Vallauri proposed an emendation to the art. 14 of the law on secondary education which prohibited any compensation for the liberi docenti and did not allow them to intervene in the examinations of students attending “official courses” (those given by ordinary professors). In his opinion, the Italian liberi docenti and the

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search, of studying and of teaching, as well as the idea of a university based on “liberal” positions, played a key role in the debate. The discussion on the Privatdozentur / libera docenza continued on January 21, 1887.150 On that occasion, Moleschott suggested adding a paragraph to the art. 18, which further regulated the libera docenza at universities: his proposal was to eliminate the figure of the “dottori aggregati” (present only at the universities of Turin, Genoa and Sardinia), who had the same functions of the liberi docenti, but they received their positions through winning a competition (the liberi docenti, instead, just had to present their work to the Faculty). Even though Moleschott’s proposal of transforming all “dottori aggregati” still existing in the Kingdom into liberi docenti (implying that they would lose their rights and position if they had not been teaching for more than two years) was rejected, nevertheless, the libera docenza completely substituted for the aggregation for the times to come: there would be no more public competition for getting the title of

German Privatdozenten were two different and juxtaposed categories. However, the mathematician Luigi Cremona questioned Vallauri’s view of the libera docenza as an institution that had been imported from Germany: in fact, he argued that it was already present in Italian medieval universities; however, he admitted that, as far as “modern times” were concerned, Germany “serves as a model”. He also rejected Vallauri’s view of the liberi docenti as “new men” (“uomini nuovi”, italics in the original), who had not published any interesting work and had not engaged in important research, as well as his idea that the liberi docenti should work without receiving any form of compensation. According to Cremona, their salary should not be paid by the State, but through the fees paid by students for each course they attended. This was exactly the German mode, and Moleschott referred to it and suggested adopting it as well. The system of student fees was defined by Cremona as a necessary precondition (“conditio sine qua non”) for the “privata docenza”, fundamental to “freedom of teaching and of studying”. The Minister of Public Education Michele Coppino asked Vallauri to withdraw his proposal, which, in his opinion, could hardly be judged as “liberal”. At the end of the discussion, Vallauri’s emendation was rejected, but the art. 14, instituting and regulating “free courses” and libera docenza, was approved. As we can see, the ideals of “liberalism” and “freedom of teaching” were central to the debates in general, not only to Moleschott’s contributions. Cf. BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 20 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 528-532. 150 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 21 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 537-560.

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dottore aggregato.151 On the level of university administration, Moleschott suggested that rectors must be elected every year, and referred to the regulations in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, where rectors were in charge for one year only.152 However, his proposal was refused, and the art. 18 was approved as it had been originally suggested: rectors had to be elected (this was the great innovation of the article) every two years. Moleschott had also advised that the rector should come every year from a different Faculty, but even this point had not been accepted; in this way, he had attempted to transfer his ideas on the cooperation of scientific disciplines to the institutional and administrative levels. The order in which he mentioned the Faculties mirrored his conception of the system of science and of education: in fact, the Philosophical Faculty (which, in his view, had a propaedeutic function), was supposed to be the first to have the Rector elected, whereas the “facoltà politecnica”, i.e. of technology and applied science, was supposed to be the last one. Moreover, Moleschott suggested that the Dean (“Preside”) of each Faculty should also be elected every year, instead of every second year as the original, and subsequently approved, text of the law proposal read. When his colleagues tried to persuade him to withdraw his emendation, it was exactly by referring to his experience in other European countries that Moleschott justified his “profound commitment” and his will that the “seeds” he “disseminated be at least covered with a little earth”, and “therefore” he asked the Senate to vote upon (for or against) his emendation.153 Thus, Moleschott presented himself as an expert on international comparisons with other systems of public education: he was aware of his role in transferring knowledge and practices from other countries to Italy, mediating between different national contexts. In his speeches, theoretical considerations on the ideal principles of the university mingled with practical considerations on the applicability and adaptability of the German system of higher education to the Italian context.

151 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 21 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 544. 152 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 21 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 549. 153 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 21 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 548: “Quello che io ho detto risulta da un profondo convincimento e dalla esperienza fatta in parecchi paesi che ho potuto vedere da vicino; in Germania, in Isvizzera, in Olanda, la cosa va come io aveva proposto. Io desidero soltanto che quella semenza che ho sparso sia coperta di un poco di terra, e perciò io chieggo che venga messo ai voti il mio emendamento.”

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Moleschott made comparisons with Germany and presented himself as an expert on German regulations and habits elsewhere in the Senate debates, too. In the debate about literacy as a precondition for obtaining the right to vote, on November 26, 1888, Moleschott referred to the attitude of German peasants who could read and write, and who precisely therefore proudly read newspapers every day, but, in his opinion, were lacking critical thinking. Therefore, Moleschott thought that literacy was not a sufficient condition to obtain political rights, and not a necessary condition, either. In his opinion, paradoxically, it was the opportunity to vote, together with the inability to do that, that would increase the number of literate people: people would learn how to read and write out of shame for having to delegate the concrete act of voting to someone else who was able to read the names of the candidates. He thought that literacy did not make anyone automatically worthy of acquiring political rights, and that “being able to read and write is not a question of capacity, but simply of guarantee”.154 Moleschott’s position was quite a singular one in this respect, and literacy, together with the census, remained the fundamental condition for taking part in the political life of liberal Italy. However, it was on that occasion that Moleschott explicitly started to make use of his authority as an “international man” in order to convince the Senate of his idea: “Many times I found myself in the position of having to confess myself as an international man, and almost even of having to pose as such, and [now] I take this position, I appropriate it in this moment, because it gives me the advantage of telling the Senate that, having been able to observe life in different countries for a long time, I think I have an opinion about this question, an outlook, which is based upon the secure basis of experience.ˮ155

Thus, “experience” was a keyword not only for Moleschott’s conception of science (in its meaning of experiment), but also for the foundation of his authority at the Senate. Knowing the reality of different European universities allowed Moleschott to criticize inappropriate references to other systems. For example, on June 23, 1887, he illustrated his opinion about the institution of a Chair for Dante Studies at the University of Rome by first mentioning a German Dante scholar, Friedrich Schlosser, at the University of Heidelberg (as we have seen, Moleschott had met Schlosser during the time of his studies).156 Whereas his colleague Stanislao Cannizzaro remarked 154 The discussions are reported in BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 26 Novembre 1888 (Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2587-2618; the quote is on page 2617. 155 Ibidem. 156 Cf. Jacob Moleschott, Relazione e discorso del senatore Jac. Moleschott sulla istituzione di una cattedra dantesca (15 e 23 giugno 1887) (Roma: Forzani e c., tipografi del Senato,

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that in other European countries, such as Germany and France, Dante’s work was considered very important and special attention was paid to its teaching,157 Moleschott specified that lectures about Dante, which had been held in Italy as well as elsewhere, were not based on the institution of a special Dante Chair, but rather on “individual initiative” (for example, Schlosser in Heidelberg excellently lectured on Dante “for a small circle of selected ladies”).158 However, the issue which interested Moleschott most was the ruling of the Faculties of Medicine and Natural Sciences: together with the chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro, he became the main interlocutor on this topic.159

Labs in the “Century of Experiment” On June 19, 1877, Moleschott had already given a speech about the significance of laboratories in what he called the “century of the experiment”. The debates about this issue were also characterized by the reference to the German educational system. In fact, Germany was given a key role in the history of experimental science, mainly because of the institution of the first laboratories in Europe. However, Moleschott seemed to be afraid to give too great a prominence to the German archetype of scientific education, and he stated that Germany “is perhaps even too often referred to as a model for scientific development”.160 In this speech, which was not printed and published (apart from becoming part of the Senate reports), and therefore did not reach a broader audience than the Senators, Moleschott traced the main lines of the 1887), and BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 23 giugno 1887, Discussione del progetto di legge N. 51, “Istituzione di cattedre dantesche”, 1233-1253. 157 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 23 giugno 1887, Discussione del progetto di legge N. 51, “Istituzione di cattedre dantesche”, 1243: Cannizzaro maintained that Dante’s work was an object of studies in many German universities, such as Heidelberg, Basel, and Halle (where the first Dante-lexicon was published in 1852). 158 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 23 giugno 1887, Discussione del progetto di legge N. 51, “Istituzione di cattedre dantesche”, 1250. 159 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 21 Gennaio 1887 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7), 548-552. 160 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877 (Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione), 1549-1557. The quote is on page 1554.

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history of laboratories in Europe. He argued that there was a lack of laboratories in Italian universities, but he was optimistic that the situation would improve, since even in Germany the first laboratories were founded no earlier than 1840, and nevertheless, Germany was at the forefront of laboratory research. He explained that new laboratories had also just been built in Switzerland and in Holland, and that these “were no longer exclusively meant to make it possible for the professors of each subject to accomplish their research, progress with their studies, demonstrate what they needed to demonstrate during their lessons, but also to be available for young scholars”, who were at the best age for “acquiring such attitudes and habits, from which one will later see that a true experimenter, a true investigator is born”.161 Moleschott was thus aware of the fact that what made a good scientist were certain techniques, habits, and attitudes, and that these could be learned only in the restricted environment of the laboratory, just like historians and philologists learned their techniques and their methods in the face-to-face milieu of the seminar.162 As examples of scientists who had founded labs no earlier than 1840-1850, he mentioned Justus Liebig in Giessen, Johannes Mulder in Utrecht, and the chemist and physicist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) in Marburg. In particular, he told that Bunsen, after having founded the laboratory in Marburg, was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Breslau, “one of the most famous universities in Prussia”.163 There, he established a laboratory that was the most advanced one could desire at that time; in 1852, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Heidelberg, in the GrandDuchy of Baden. When he visited the Prussian Kultusminister before his departure from the University of Breslau, he was not exactly received very warmly: the Minister wondered why, after Bunsen had been given all of the means he needed to found a laboratory as he had wished it to be, he still wanted to quit Prussia. Bunsen’s answer was, according to Moleschott: “Do not regret; now Prussia (please note, Sirs, that he was speaking about the whole Prussia) has got at least one laboratory of chemistry where it can collect young scholars who would like to engage in the experimental 161 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877 (Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione), 1554. 162 On objectivity as a learned set of ethical virtues in the humanities, cf. the brilliant essay by Lorraine Daston, “Objectivity and Impartiality: Epistemic Virtues in the Humanities”, in The Modern Humanities, vol. 3 of The Making of the Humanities, ed. Rens Bod, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014), 27-42. On objectivity in the natural sciences, cf. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007). 163 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877 (Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione), 1554.

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study of this science”.164 Telling this anecdote, Moleschott wanted to show that Italy still had time to keep up with laboratory research, since most of the best laboratories had been established during the previous fifteen years.165 It was now up to Italy, he remarked, to foster the institution and development of new modern laboratories in its universities.166 He was sure that through providing Italian universities with good laboratories, “the country would be enriched both morally and materially”; moreover, the initial expenses would pay for themselves soon, since the State would not have to provide young scholars with scholarships to study abroad, and one could even expect that young scholars from abroad would come to Italy to study in its new laboratories.167 As he had done in his university lectures, Moleschott underlined that Italian history and culture had played a very significant role in the development of experimental science, belonging to a long tradition that had started with Archimedes and continued through Galilei and Volta.168 Referring to ancient (Italian) tradition and history was a typical feature of Moleschott’s discourse about science: in fact, he legitimized and fostered modernity (i.e. laboratories and experimental science) by connecting it to the past. Moreover, Moleschott presented laboratories as the location for disinterested research: establishing laboratories at the university, he explained, was necessary for “cultivating science for the sake of science”.169 On the one hand, he admitted that laboratories were everywhere in “the century of experiment” and “experiment has invaded almost all spheres of modern life”: “we find it in technical and industrial schools”, “industry and agriculture”, “in the railway industry and in arsenals”, “at the Ministry of Finance, at the customs and behind the stage of theatres”. On the other hand, he considered these places as belonging to the application of research, not to its essence: they produced more strength for “limbs and members”, not for the “brain” of scientific research, because “science for the sake of science” was not cultivated there. The importance of the ideal of “science for the sake of science” for Moleschott is evident from his statement that “everywhere, if science is cultivated just for its applications, it must become sterile”.170 Moleschott also described “love for science” 164 Ibidem. 165 Ibidem. 166 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877 (Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione), 1556. 167 Ibidem. 168 Ibidem. 169 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877 (Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione), 1553. 170 Ibidem.

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as the main motivation for undertaking scientific research in his speech in favor of Simone Fubini (his assistant at the University of Turin since 1866).171 Thus, Moleschott was deeply persuaded about the importance of laboratories for both research and teaching, but at the same time, he conceived of laboratories not as the place for application of scientific research, but as the home of pure science. However, he also invested laboratories with a political value for the progress of the nation: in fact, not only in his Senate speeches and in his university lectures, but also in his correspondence, Moleschott praised laboratories as fostering both the progress of science and the “glory” of the nation. For instance, in the copy of a letter he sent to the mathematician and politician Francesco Brioschi (1824-1897; he was the founder of the Istituto Tecnico Superiore, later “Politecnico”, in Milan) regarding the funding of laboratories, he wrote: “Pushed by the wish to promote as much as possible the study of physiology at this University […] some time ago I have asked the Minister of Public Education that the laboratory of phys[iology] be enlarged conveniently so as to allow students to participate in the works on physiology as well as to let them exercise in those observations which are most valuable to educate physicians and scientists, and to stimulate young distinct students to do innovative research, which has made the glory of Italy for such a long time.ˮ172

For Moleschott, laboratories were necessary not only for the progress of science and for the education of students and young scientists, but also for the teacher himself, whose research would “become sterile” without active experimentation, as he explained in a letter to the Minister of Public Education in 1886.173 As we have seen in 171 Moleschott, Chi è il dottor Simone Fubini?, 4: “Il puro amore della scienza lo indusse ad occuparsi di istologia e vivisezione, di chimica fisiologica e tossicologia, di studî sulla influenza degli agenti fisici nellʼorganismo, e sugli effetti fisiologici dei più importanti medicamenti.” 172 Cf. the draft of a letter from Moleschott to Francesco Brioschi (s.l., s.d.): “Spinto da desiderio di promuovere quanto più possa gli studj [sic] di fisiologia in questa Università […] ho richiesto già qualche tempo fa dal Ministro dellʼistruzione pubblica che il laboratorio di fis[iologia] fosse ingrandito convenevolmente per potere partecipare gli studenti dei lavori fisiologici si[a] per esercitarli in quel genere di osservazioni che valgono più ad educare medici scienziati, e si[a] per allettare dei giovani distinti a nuove ricerche [che per tanto tempo hanno aumentato] la gloria dʼItalia.” BCABo, FSM, 7.24 (new). 173 Cf. the draft of the letter from Moleschott to the Minister of Public Education, asking him for some financial aid for the university lab (Rome, September 24, 1886): “In vista di questa ineluttabile necessità e facendo modestamente ma con intima convinzione valere pure il proprio desiderio di progredire, sia nellʼadempiere i doveri del professore, sia nel soddisfare la legittima curiosità dellʼinvestigatore senza la q[uale] lo stesso insegnante

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the previous chapters, Moleschott struggled for the adequate financing of laboratories at the micro-level of the university during his whole career; in the Senate speech he gave in 1887, he attempted to influence the policy of laboratory funding at the macrolevel of the legislation of a centralized educational system.

The Philosophical Faculty and Transnational Transfer of Knowledge However, Moleschott not only fought for the establishment and equipment of labs: together with the mathematician Luigi Cremona, he was a strong supporter of the introduction of the Philosophical Faculty as propaedeutic to higher education. In the Italian parliamentary debates on higher education, the German model with its “Humboldtian” idea of education was a constant reference and German terminology was adopted (not only words signifying typically German institutions, such as Privatdozent, but more general terms such as Forscher are also often mentioned in the debate). The politicians intervening in the discussion were mostly intellectuals and, interestingly, it was rather representatives of the natural sciences and mathematics, such as Moleschott and Cremona, who were in favor of an all-embracing Philosophical Faculty as propaedeutic to further studies. While a mathematician (Cremona) and a physiologist (Moleschott) were the two most enthusiastic and engaged supporters of the Philosophical Faculty as it was represented by the German model, on December 15, 1886, Pasquale Villari (a historian) had criticized the transfer of that model to Italy as an illusion, arguing that the conditions of Italian universities were extremely different from those of German universities.174 In fact, Villari was one of the harshest critics of the possibility of transferring the German model to the Italian context, as is clear from the discussion on November 27, 1886.175 Although being certain that this was not the intention of Moleschott’s proposal, he had the impression that his speech suggested that one could institute the Philosophical Faculty in the German mode just by “joining professors of literature isterilisce […].” BCABo, FSM, 40.1 (new) (at the time when I viewed it, the item was categorized as a letter to Francesco De Sanctis; however, Francesco De Sanctis is only mentioned in the text of the letter and was not Minister of Public Education when the letter was written: the minister was Michele Coppino). 174 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 306-307. 175 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 29 Novembre 1886 (Ripresa della discussione del progetto di legge n. 7), 200-209.

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and of [natural] sciences in one single Faculty”, and that just by joining them, one could improve the quantity and quality of their work and produce “the great scientific movement of the German Philosophical Faculties”.176 Villari thought that the question might not be so simple. In fact, the institution of the Philosophical Faculty would imply changes both in method and organization: merely joining the Chairs, he explained, would not imply that science would be taught “for the sake of science, in the way Professor Moleschott illustrated to us with such eloquence”, and in his opinion, one would have to introduce all of the changes that characterized the German system in order for the transfer to work.177 Villari did not completely reject the idea of establishing a “great Philosophical Faculty”, but made the following proposal, suggesting a more cautious attitude vis-à-vis a reform of secondary education. Firstly, he recommended creating, at the beginning, just one Philosophical Faculty in Italy, and not “seven or eight”, so that there could be enough students; secondly, he demanded that the article be modified in such a way that, should the Philosophical Faculty really be instituted, this would not be limited to a unification of the two previously existing Faculties.178 In a similar way, the chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro and the Minister of Public Education Michele Coppino expressed their doubts about the possibility of applying the model of the Philosophical Faculty to the Italian system of higher education.179

176 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 307. 177 Ibidem. 178 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 310-313. 179 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 307-312, 322-323. Coppino thought that exchange among scholars (cooperation among disciplines was indeed meant to be one of the goals of the Philosophical Faculty) would be granted anyway. He suggested that one could try first with establishing two or three Philosophical Faculties in the whole country, since they implied high costs in instruments and laboratories (the Philosophical Faculty was meant to be not only “classical”, but scientific, the union of the philosophico-literary Faculty and the physico-mathematical Faculty). Coppino recognized that the Philosophical Faculty was an “honor of German Universities”, but he pointed out that, if it was really responsible for “all the progress of science”, then it was not clear why, at the University of Strasburg, a recently founded and important new German university, there was not a propaedeutic Philosophical Faculty, but the division between natural sciences and

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The mathematician Luigi Cremona, the main supporter of the Philosophical Faculty besides Moleschott, started his speech by saying that “a colleague and dearest friend” of his, Moleschott, had proposed again (after it had been rejected the first time), in the form of an emendation, the ministerial project about the Philosophical Faculty.180 Basically, both Cremona and Moleschott pled for the institution of a Philosophical Faculty on the model of the German Philosophical Faculty. However, his reasons were partly different from Moleschott’s: first of all, he believed the Philosophical Faculty would allow young students a trial period before having to definitively choose their future field of study and their profession. He lamented that, in Italy, a young man who has just terminated his studies at a “liceo” had just two possibilities: either registering for some professionalizing studies in order to become a medical doctor (Faculty of Medicine), a lawyer (Faculty of Jurisprudence) or an engineer (technical Faculty); or attending the Philosophical Faculty, “the only one in Italy where, at the present state of affairs, pure science can be cultivated”. However, the latter opportunity only suited those who would start careers as scholars in literature (“letterati”), whereas there was no valid option for those who had not yet decided which kind of studies would suit them best and which kind of career they would like to pursue in the future. Exactly in these cases, a Philosophical Faculty such as the German one would be needed, so that students could study pure science in the form of different subjects belonging to different fields (natural science, mathematics, philosophy, literature).181 In other words, the Philosophical Faculty would allow for the study of pure science as propaedeutic to further studies as a way to cultivate one’s own scientific interests and eventually become mature enough for the choice of one’s own most appropriate scientific field and future professional life. Luigi Cremona was himself a scholar and, like Moleschott, he often referred to his own experience as a professor in mathematics, for instance with young students at the beginning of their literary-philosophical Faculty. His answer to the question was that relations between science cannot be established artificially, joining or dividing disciplines through rules and laws, but that once “a high ideal” (“un alto ideale”) has been posed, then “the tendencies of the intellect” (“le tendenze dello spirito”) would follow their natural path. 180 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 313. 181 Ibidem. However, this option was considered to be, at the time, practically impossible, since: a) on the one hand, attending a course of study implied, in the Italian system, a whole series of compulsory courses and exams, in practice not allowing the students to attend other courses in which they might be interested; and b) on the other hand, being registered as a free auditor (the only way to attend whichever courses one liked) implied higher tuition fees, so that students would not choose this option, even if they were not yet ready to make a definitive decision about their field of study and future career.

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studies. Cremona remarked that the Philosophical Faculty was, at the time, the only Faculty that was not essentially professionalizing; however, it was also “the poorest of all Faculties, the one with the least students”, for which scholarships and awards had to be instituted, “so that it will not remain deserted”.182 This was exactly the opposite of what happened in Germany,183 where “a huge number of young people finishing high school go to university and enter the great Philosophical Faculty and attend there a course in philosophy, a course in history, a course in philology, one or more courses in the natural sciences; and they do this for some time, during one or more semesters. Later on, some of them determine their path more precisely, in the one or the other direction.ˮ184

Like Moleschott, he considered this setting as representing that “freedom of studies” (“libertà di studio”) that was lacking in Italian universities, and that, he believed, could only be obtained by “establishing the great philosophical Faculty, or an equivalent institution”.185 The presence of such concepts as the freedom of teaching and studying and the freedom of research show the high impact of what is known as the Humboldtian notion of the university both in Moleschott’s speeches and in the whole debate in general. Similarly to what happened in the United States, the ideals of German Romanticism, idealism and the “Humboldtian university”, together with the practice of empirical research, played an important role in the debates about higher education in Italy.186 Both in the United States and in Italy, the transfer of knowledge about the German system involved the following ideals of education: first, the conception of 182 Ibidem. 183 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 313-314. 184 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore), 314. 185 Ibidem. 186 On the transfer of the model to the U.S., cf. Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965). Sylvia Paletschek, “Verbreitete sich ein ‘Humboldtsches Modell’ an den deutschen Universitäten im 19. Jahrhundert?”, in Humboldt International: der Export des deutschen Universitätsmodells im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Rainer Christoph Schwinges, Nicole Staub, and Kathrin Jost (Basel: Schwabe, 2001), 75-104, convincingly argues that the “Humboldtian model” was defined as such and thereby “invented” only at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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“non-utilitarian learning” (implying also the conception of freedom of teaching, Lehrfreiheit); second, the “idea of studying science for its own sake”, the core of the conception of Wissenschaft as pure investigation; and third, the influence of idealism on the “rhetoric about academic purposes” in the natural sciences.187 In Italy, neoidealism informed both policies on the purpose and form of education and the very rhetoric of the discourses on the meaning of scientific research. As we have seen, the natural sciences were not immune to this feature: on the contrary, it was especially natural scientists and mathematicians who emphasized the importance of pure research and of classical humanistic culture. Scientists like Moleschott and Cremona supported the ideal of science for the sake of science, and even Moleschott’s speech in defense of laboratory funding was, as we have seen, based on the idea that laboratories served pure research, not applied science. At the same time, in Italy as well as in the United States, what was considered the most important aspect of the German model for the shaping of the new national system of higher education was the nationalist character of Neuhumanismus, whereby the scholar was understood as “moral reformer” and education was an effective way of constructing a national sense of citizenship.188 This “cultural nationalism” was appropriated both in Italy and in the United States: as we have seen, the history of science was “nationalized” and contributed in the making of Italian culture, whereas scientific experimentation was understood within a nationalist context and justified as a way to increase the wealth of the country “both morally and materially”.189 Both in the U.S. and in Italy, the German educational system, “partly real and partly imaginary, became the symbol for all scientific claims upon […] education”;190 however, in the United States, the “German model” was soon considered “too abstract and theoretical”, as well as “far from practical needs”, and its influence underwent a decline around 1900.191 Conversely, in Italy the idea of Bildung in the sense of highest general education enjoyed great popularity among the elites, and the study of ancient culture and languages was a necessary prerequisite for entering the university: as we have seen, both Moleschott and the mathematician Luigi Cremona were supporters of the central role of classical studies as propaedeutic to scientific research, and learning Latin and Greek was understood as the precursor for engaging in scientific research. 187 Veysey, The emergence of the American University, 124-126. 188 Veysey, The emergence of the American University, 152. 189 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI, 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877 (Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione), 1556: “procurando dei buoni laboratorî alle nostre Università […] si arricchirà il paese e moralmente e materialmente”. For the concept of “cultural nationalism”, cf. Veysey, The emergence of the American University, 152. 190 Veysey, The emergence of the American University, 128. 191 Veysey, The emergence of the American University, 180.

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Finally, we can conclude that, along with the idealistic and neo-humanist tradition, the natural sciences presented themselves as fitting within the traditional order of disciplines. Even new institutions that were typical for research and for learning and teaching practices in the natural sciences, such as laboratories, were presented as valuable because of their pedagogical and ethical aspects, e.g. fostering human contact and study under the guidance of a “great master”.192 As we have seen, Moleschott also underlined the importance of the professor as an important figure for students and young scholars in the lab and pointed out the indispensable role of cooperation among scholars and disciplines. Moleschott’s position in the debates might seem a curious phenomenon, if one expected from him a one-sided defense of the priority of natural sciences over humanities, or of applied sciences over theoretical reflection, or of modernity and technology over classical studies. On the contrary – and in conformity with his conception of scientific research – Moleschott fostered cooperation between different disciplines; he even wished that boundaries be overcome, and that “the physicist could absorb a great part of metaphysics”.193 Moreover, he pled for the centrality of the humanities as a basis for education, not only for classical scholars, but also, above all, for future scientists. As we will see in the next section, in which we will concentrate on Moleschott’s conception of science as it becomes clear from the debates on higher education, even the rhetoric of his speeches at the Senate was centered on images from ancient myths and classical humanistic culture.

The “Unity of Science”: The Philosophical Faculty and Moleschott’s Conception of Science As we have seen, Moleschott was an active supporter of the German model of the Philosophical Faculty as including both the natural sciences and the humanities, and as propaedeutic to further studies, including the natural sciences and technical subjects. It would also have among its tasks a serious examination and discussion of religious issues, “intended in the broadest sense and not as dogmatism”, which constituted an important mission for the government after the suppression of theological faculties, as Moleschott himself observed.194 Moleschott understood the Philosophical Faculty as the “ground” unifying all disciplines, where the word “ground” should

192 Cf. Veysey, The emergence of the American University, 156-157. 193 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 38-39 (speech given on December 14, 1886). 194 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 39-40 (speech given on December 14, 1886): “History, which should be taught in those Faculties in the broadest

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be understood as part of the metaphor of the tree, which Moleschott used to symbolize the system of knowledge.195 For instance, in a speech on the selection of professors he gave at the Senate on June 21, 1884, he stated that the juries for a competition in higher education, as well as their respective disciplines, could not be pigeonholed (literally, “closed in a box”), since the branches of knowledge are connected and interwoven with each other, and all disciplines, all branches, have a common “trunk”.196 The image of the tree here stands for the unity in the complexity that characterizes the “unity of science”.197 In the following pages of that speech, Moleschott explained that a physiologist, in order to fulfill the tasks of his research, must also take into consideration physics, chemistry, natural history, anatomy, as well as pathology (including clinical pathology) and, last but not least, philosophy: in fact, according to him, a physiologist “would cease to be a physiologist from that day, in which he forgot that he must be an anthropologist”.198 This sentence gives us some hints about why Moleschott decided to write a work entitled “Anthropologie.” In fact, Moleschott’s Anthropologie represented exactly the all-encompassing sphere described above, in which all disciplines are bound together and put into relation with each other – gaining universality, but not losing their own specificity. This is evident not only from its structure, but also from its programmatic introduction, which underlines

sense, will be required to examine religious issues minutely and conscientiously. According to me, as the Senate knows, this does not mean dogmatic issues, but religion as it is present in the human heart, which everyone wants, in one’s own way, to be seriously examined and discussed, according to one’s own beliefs or philosophical opinions.” 195 The following pages contain passages from an article I have published as: Laura Meneghello, “The Interaction between the Sciences and the Humanities in NineteenthCentury Scientific Materialism: A Case Study on Jacob Moleschott’s Popularizing Work and Political Activity”, in The Modern Humanities, vol. 3 of The Making of the Humanities, ed. Rens Bod, Jaap Maat, and Thijs Weststeijn (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014), 53-64. 196 Jacob Moleschott, Sulla scelta dei professori. Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato in Senato nella tornata del 21 giugno 1884 (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1884), 6: “Knowledge becomes fertile through all disciplines, it develops branches through them, it is interwoven with all of them; every discipline needs the other disciplines in order to refer to them, to develop, to be applied to and through them; in conclusion all disciplines, all branches of the knowable have a common trunk.” 197 On the representation of science around 1900, including the image of science as a tree, cf. Paul Ziche, Wissenschaftslandschaften um 1900: Philosophie, die Wissenschaften und der nichtreduktive Szientismus (Zürich: Chronos, 2008). 198 Moleschott, Sulla scelta dei professori, 6–7.

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the continuity between organic and inorganic substances.199 In this respect, a continuity with Schelling’s idea of unity200 is noticeable: Moleschott did not give up the ideal of unification and of the creation of a system of science; on the contrary, he conceived establishing relations between disciplines as one of the core tasks of science. However, the interrelation between domains was no longer derived from abstract thought, as in idealism, but it was presented as a result of the most recent scientific research in the fields of biology, physiology and psychology. The “unity of science” was conceived as an interconnected structure providing every scientist with a “general view,” a broad perspective on the whole field of knowledge. According to Moleschott’s speech, all of the “masters from whom knowledge and power derive”, including Wilhelm von Helmholtz, Camillo Golgi, Wilhelm Wundt, and his disciple Angelo Mosso, contributed to this project.201 Significantly, the work of all of these scientists aimed at establishing relations between the physical and the psychical. Golgi’s studies on the nervous system, Helmholtz’s experiments on sense-perception, and Wundt as experimental psychologist proposing an integrative approach between mind and body: they all allowed for physical and psychical interactions to emerge and therefore also for connection between disciplines, especially physiology with psychology. Moleschott also described the aim of research as setting phenomena in relation with each other in the speech for the celebrations held in his honor at the University of Rome in 1892. The “ideal” of scientific research was represented through the metaphor of a ship, which was impossible to reach, but which the scientist should nevertheless follow, since she would lead in the connecting task and give the motivation for progress, while her mast indicated the nobility of the scientists’ aspirations.202 This image suggests that research has no limits, and yet that it follows a determined path, i.e. that there is a method it must conform to. Moreover, in that speech, Moleschott defined the “unity of science” as characterizing scientific research at German universities, as the essence of “rigorous science, not the one or the other discipline,

199 Jacob Moleschott, Einleitung in Das Wesen des Menschen, [49]-[50] (manuscript B V 3: BCABo, FSM, B V 3). Now also in D’Alfonso, “L’antropologia chimica di Jakob Moleschott”, 628. 200 Cf. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Einleitung zu seinem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie. Oder: Ueber den Begriff der speculativen Physik und die innere Organisation eines Systems dieser Wissenschaft (Jena, Leipzig: Gabler, 1799), 80-82. 201 Moleschott, Sulla scelta dei professori, 7. 202 Jacob Moleschott, “Allocuzione di Jacopo Moleschott pronunciata alla Sapienza di Roma il 16 dicembre 1892 per le feste giubilari in onore di luiˮ, in Moleschott, Per gli amici miei. Ricordi autobiografici, translated by Elsa Patrizi-Moleschott (Palermo, Milano: Remo Sandron, 1902), 302-312, here 304.

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but the general science which makes us feel the unity of science”203. As the initiator of that “methodical research” from which new discoveries originate, he indicated Justus Liebig and his laboratory, where continuous and systematic research made science progress.204 Besides Liebig, he also mentioned Goethe and Beethoven, and then praised Italy as the country where the arts and the sciences were “two good daughters of the same mother, living like sisters, the one near the other, without envy, without any need to fight for supremacy, knowing that it is art which illustrates science as the latter one illuminates art”.205 In fact, not only modern physiology and psychology, but also ancient classical culture played an important role in Moleschott’s Senate speeches about higher education. For instance, he complained about a lack of “style” in the writings of students (in the Italian language and, even more, in Latin and ancient Greek), as well as about the fact that students (at high school, as well as at the university) did not study for the sake of science, but just because they were afraid of not passing the examinations.206 According to Moleschott, if students were not educated according to what one would call a “classical” model, they would never be mature enough for science (the military metaphor literally meaning that they will never be “general officers” but just “soldiers” or in the best case “corporals”).207 Even technical Faculties were explicitly included in this setting of higher education at the university level, with the Philosophical Faculty as their background, since only contact with pure science could foster the progress of all disciplines, including the applied sciences.208 However, Moleschott explained that the study of classical culture should not be confused with dogmatism or with the absence of experimental method: on the contrary, more time should be dedicated to experimentation in the laboratories and there should be space for self-reflection and critical thinking: “Constantly worried about the nightmare of examinations, the student does not even keep a short half of an hour, during the lecture-period, for his favorite studies, or – which would be 203 Moleschott, “Allocuzioneˮ, 306. 204 On Liebig’s engagement in educational politics, cf. Eva-Marie Felschow, “Über das Labor hinaus – Liebig als Wissenschaftspolitikerˮ, in Justus Liebig (1803-1873). Der streitbare Gelehrte. Ausstellung vom 9. mai bis 30. August 2003, ed. by Präsident der JustusLiebig-Universität Giessen (Gießen: Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, 2003), 69-95. 205 Moleschott, “Allocuzioneˮ, 310. 206 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 14-17 (speech given on November 29, 1886). 207 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 16 (speech given on November 29, 1886). 208 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 20-22 (speech given on November 29, 1886).

284 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY even better – to reflect by himself and take some research initiative. It is not just about the psychological harm the student has to undergo because he has to think the whole year long about the examinations he will have to go through at the end of the course. We oblige him to a sterile and servile study, with which, apart from few and rare exceptions, he makes nothing of his own [ideas]. He cannot find any time to go to the laboratories, he cannot find any time to learn how to do research. And yet it is one’s own research, carried out under the direction of a good teacher, with a rigorous method, during the time of university studies, which will be valuable his whole life long.ˮ209

The “rigorous method” of scientific research, according to Moleschott, could only be taught and learned in the Philosophical Faculty, which, as was typical for German Philosophical Faculties in the nineteenth century,210 was not conceived as a domain of the humanities in opposition to the natural sciences, but rather as literally “embracing” all the subjects and giving them a basis, including “moral sciences, history, literature in its broadest sense, philosophy, including also speculative philosophy, mathematics, all positive sciences, [and] all natural sciences”.211 Thus, for Moleschott, the Philosophical Faculty represented a place where the habits and methods of scientific research should be transmitted, in the same way as certain techniques could only be learned in the lab. During another discussion at the Senate a couple of weeks later (December 14, 1886), Moleschott explained that progress depended on the disinterestedness of scientific research: he maintained that only if one did not aim at any direct application did great discoveries occur.212 He first mentioned a few scientific discoveries, such as the telegraph and electricity, which he presented not as products of goal-oriented specific research, but rather as results of profound, general, pure research, and then he counted among the discoveries led by disinterested research even “the discovery of the human being”, which he attributed to Socrates as initiator, followed by Spi-

209 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 17 (speech given on November 29, 1886). 210 On the Philosophical Faculty at German universities in the nineteenth century and its international transfer, cf. the volume by Schwinges, Staub, and Jost (eds.), Humboldt international. For a history of the university in Europe – although not transnationally oriented, but still structured according to singular national approaches – cf. Walter Rüegg (ed.), Geschichte der Universität in Europa, vol 3: Vom 19. Jahrhundert zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (1800-1945) (München: Beck, 2004). 211 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 18-19 (speech given on November 29, 1886). 212 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 35-36 (speech given on December 14, 1886).

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noza, and finally Renan. Finally, he presented the Philosophical Faculty as the necessary condition for such “deep studies,” for “the purest, most general, most profound of scientific studies” leading to important discoveries, such as that of the mechanical equivalent of heat.213 Moleschott thought that, on the basis provided by the Philosophical Faculty, “the most complete, broadest, richest and widest University in the world”214 could originate and grow, and would have as a result the establishment of a secure ground for science to develop in contact with the arts, for technical faculties to be in relation with “beauty”.215 What Aeschylus’s Prometheus calls the “pan-technic” flame (“παντέχνου πυρός σέλας”, a quote from line 7 of Aeschylus’s tragedy) is what would embrace the whole of science, knowing how to reach its source and how to spread it throughout the world.216 Although some of his colleagues, including the Minister of Public Education Michele Coppino (1822-1901) and the historian Pasquale Villari, disagreed with the manner in which the Philosophical Faculty should be comprised of so many different disciplines, Moleschott presented this as an advantage, suggesting that it made it possible for each discipline to recognize their own limits. He went on to write about a physicist and a metaphysician, where he argued that the physicist would “absorb” a great part of metaphysics and that this would likely lead to positive results for both sciences.217 According to Moleschott, the institution of the Philosophical Faculty was the only way to guarantee the cooperation between different disciplines. In fact, through the tree metaphor, he underlined the function of the Philosophical Faculty as “roots” for all disciplines: “Now, I will briefly tell you my intention. If you have such a Philosophical Faculty joining all pure science one can find in higher education, then you will have what is usually called alma mater [studiorum]. In such a Faculty, all roots of knowledge would be accessible to everyone who seriously wanted to deepen their field of study. The one who found his first lymph there is prepared to choose to go in the direction of law or medicine, or to become an engineer; but 213 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 38 (speech given on December 14, 1886). 214 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 44 (speech given on December 14, 1886). 215 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 44 (speech given on December 14, 1886). 216 Ibidem. 217 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 38-39 (speech given on December 14, 1886): “A seconda della forza dei due [“il fisico ed il metafisico”, L.M.], gioverà al fisico di vedere dove cominci la metafisica, o al metafisico di vedere dove il suo campo finisce. E potrà anche succedere, come è successo, che il fisico assorba larga parte della metafisica, e potrà fare un bene a tutte e due le scienze.”

286 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY all three of them will continuously have to think, again and again, of the root they found in that great Philosophical Faculty.ˮ218

Whereas the roots of the tree representing the system of knowledge were contained in the Philosophical Faculty, Moleschott identified its “ripest fruit” with nothing less than “ethical progress”, which was “not less worthy than scientific progress”: “Gentlemen of the Senate, I see many “complete men” in Italy, who join deep knowledge with artistic feeling; scientific meditation has not destroyed the energy of action in them, and there is a discrete number of people who have not left apart the “cult of the ideal” within their “positive studies.” Without this, there cannot be any high aspiration, nor guarantee of ethical progress, which is no less worthy than scientific progress, being in fact its ripest and most delicious fruit.ˮ219

Thus, Moleschott was convinced that the most prominent task of science was the achievement of “ethical progress”: as we will see in the next chapter, Moleschott, as a scientist himself, fought for what he believed to be social progress, for a society and a legislation informed by the natural sciences. Among the ethical values that played a central role in Moleschott’s representation of the scientist, there was the value of “humanity”, a central requirement for scientific research. In his correspondence with the Swiss geologist Edouard Desor, he defined the American theologian Theodore Parker as uniquely combining “science and humanity”, thereby unifying them.220 218 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 19 (speech given on November 29, 1886): the Italian word “succhiˮ (meaning “juiceˮ, but also “lymphˮ, especially in nineteenth-century Italian) should be understood as a continuation of the tree metaphor. 219 Moleschott, Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, 32-33 (speech given on November 29, 1886). 220 Jacob Moleschott to Édouard Desor (Zürich, September 21, 1859 and May 21, 1860): AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D55. In his speech Die Gebietsgrenze der Naturwissenschaft (1855), where he tried to conciliate the opposing positions expressed by Carl Vogt and Rudolf Wagner at the “Naturforscherversammlung” in Göttingen in 1854, the physician Salomon Friedrich Stiebel used “humanity” (“Humanität”) as a conciliating, pacifying element in the debate between the two natural scientists (and the two perspectives about natural science): “die Liebe und die Duldsamkeit, welche wir in dem edlen Begriffe der Humanität fassen, sind der Wissenschaft mehr förderlich als selbstsüchtiger Hader” (quoted after Vidoni, Ignorabimus! Emil du Bois-Reymond und die Debatte über die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis im 19. Jahrhundert, 83). It becomes clear then which keyrole the concept of humanity played in the debate about the scope and limits of

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Summing up, Moleschott conceived of both the university and laboratories as the institutions giving structure and method to scientific research, as well as discipline to the researcher. Just like, as we will see in the next section, physical education was understood as fostering national discipline and a sense of cohesion, the university system was meant to provide a common methodological background for scientists, and a shared cultural background for the new ruling class of the nation. The Philosophical Faculty was the expression of Moleschott’s idea of science as a collective, collaborative enterprise, where all scientists and all disciplines contributed to its progress. Moleschott’s speeches on higher education represent a clear example of the intertwinement between science and politics in Moleschott’s activity and show how his concept of scientific research shaped his proposals for the institutional reform of the educational system.

S HAPING THE B ODY OF THE N ATION : M OLESCHOTT AND THE D EBATE ON P HYSICAL E DUCATION IN N INETEENTH -C ENTURY I TALY (1878) At the University of Berkeley, California, the philologist and archaeologist Benjamin Ide Wheeler, an “enthusiastic evolutionist”,221 elevated physical health to the status of a major concern of university education. That is, what many scientists and politicians considered to be a healthy practice to be taught at schools and a basic national concern became an educational purpose and was transformed into one of the goals of the American university by the beginning of the twentieth century. Wheeler argued that the “real purpose” “of all this elaborate mechanism of education […] must be after all … to create men in good health, to make red blood flush the veins and fill life to the full with knowing, enjoying, being, and doing”. He even suggested rating “academic courses according to their relative ‘food-value’”, and in 1904 he “directed

natural science around 1850: “humanity” worked as a unifying concept between antagonistic positions, and it was moreover qualified as a requirement for scientific research. The same function is accorded to “humanity” in Naturforschung und Humanität. Versöhnungswort und Parteistimme eines Mediciners, which was published anonymously in 1861: here, it is again “Humanität”, which constitutes the common ground on which both materialists (also called “realists”) and idealist scientists meet. The concept of “Humanität” was also explained by Kant in his Kritik der Urteilskraft as granting communicability and “universal participation”: cf. Reinhard Brandt, Universität zwischen Selbst- und Fremdbestimmung. Kants “Streit der Fakultätenˮ (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003), 91. 221 Veysey, The Emergence of the American university, 362.

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the students to bathe daily” and “outlined a whole series of hygienic measures”.222 Whereas an archeologist and philologist like Wheeler spoke about a “food-value” of education, a physiologist like Moleschott argued for compulsory physical education classes at school by using images taken from ancient classical culture. Having analyzed the debates on higher education, in this section I will deal with the discussion of the law regarding the teaching of physical education at school (1878), and the next section will focus on Moleschott’s role in the debates on the abolition of the grist tax (1880). Through his political engagement, Moleschott contributed to the shaping of the Italian national educational and public health systems. The engagement of natural scientists in political matters was not unusual in the nineteenth century: as far as the specific issue of physical education was concerned, both Rudolph Virchow and Emil Du Bois-Reymond played an active role in the debates on physical education and gymnastics in Prussia.223 Just like in the debates on public education, Moleschott’s ideas in the debates concerning physical education were also inspired by liberal and, at the same time, nationalist views. In this case, too, he presented himself as an expert, this time not so much due to his international career, but rather to his work as a scientist; however, not only scientific, but also economic and political considerations, as well as ethical values, philosophical concepts, and references to ancient and classical culture played key roles in his argument. First, I will briefly introduce the context of the debate and describe its result, i.e. the law as it was approved; then, I will focus on the arguments in the debate, especially on Moleschott’s arguments and their relation to those of the Minister of Public Education Francesco De Sanctis and of another medical doctor and Senator, Diomede Pantaleoni (1810-1885). Moleschott participated in the debate on July 2, 1878, and his speech was published not only in the Senate reports, but also separately as a pamphlet, thus reaching a relatively broad audience.224 The background of the debates was a law proposal by the Minister of Public Education, which would make physical education a compulsory subject at all schools (both primary and secondary schools, for both male and female pupils). The Minister of Public Education was, once more, Francesco De Sanctis (1817-1883), the Italian literary scholar and nationalist whom Moleschott had met in Zürich at the end of the 1850s and who, as we have seen, was responsible for Moleschott’s appointment as a Professor of Physiology at the University of Turin in 222 Veysey, The Eemergence of the American university, 362, in particular footnotes 72-74. 223 Cf. Michael Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung (Schorndorf: Hofmann, 1996), 202 ff. and 400 ff. 224 Jacob Moleschott, Sullʼinsegnamento della ginnastica nelle scuole: Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato al Senato del Regno nella tornata del 2. luglio 1878 (Roma: Tipografia del Senato, 1878).

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1861. De Sanctis was a follower of Hegelian philosophy, which he applied and adapted both to his literary theory and to his conception of the nation-state. In particular, he considered the idea of freedom to be central to nationalist ideology; however, it was not the idea of freedom of the French revolution, which implied the ideal of equality and could represent a threat for the status quo and a possible source of instability. Instead, De Sanctis appealed to the Hegelian concept of freedom as an expression of the affirmation of the subject in the objective world (and thus of his domination upon it) through his action. Educating the will to action was considered by De Sanctis to be exactly the central concept of his law proposal for the introduction of physical education at school.225 As a Minister, De Sanctis, as well as the other politicians who supported and voted for the law, argued that physical education would strengthen the physical and moral constitution of the population. Almost everyone agreed upon that, apart from a politician of the extreme left, who claimed that a better way to improve the physical health of the population would have been by means of better nutrition and lower taxes.226 In fact, the primary reasons for making physical education at school obligatory were not so philanthropic: first of all, physical education constituted (at least with regard to the male population) a preparation for military service. Secondly, it was a powerful means to unite the nation: in a similar way as through conscription, during the obligatory hours of physical education, the young male as well as female citizens had to learn to be in close contact with other young male or female citizens coming from different social classes and sometimes (although less frequently than in the army) from disparate regions of the country (which also implied possible difficulties in communication). The law had not been approved in its first form, but was modified by the Senate: in fact, the Senator Maffeo Pantaleoni (a physician, like Moleschott) proposed a third version of the law, then presenting it as being practically identical with the first version.227 The following debate originates from the discussion of the modifications he proposed, which, however, were rejected, so that the version of the law which was approved was in substance the original form as proposed by the Minister of Public Education, Francesco De Sanctis. In the following, I will first describe the outcome of the debate, i.e. the final version of the law on physical education as it was approved at the end of the discussion, focusing above all on the diversity of the actors and institutions that were involved. The first article stated that “educational gymnastics” was obligatory at secondary schools (“scuole secondarie”), normal schools (“scuole 225 Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796 (London: Penguin, 2007), 274-297. 226 Duggan, The Force of Destiny, 274. 227 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 681 ff.; with regard to Pantaleoni’s concerns and critiques towards the law, 681-685.

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normali”), the schools for future teachers (“scuole magistrali”) and primary schools (“scuole elementari”); moreover, “the precepts on which it bases”228 were included among the subjects of the examination for aspirant primary school teachers. Thus, in its first article, the law already concerned both the education of pupils and the education of teachers. Moreover, it not only concerned the Ministry of Public Education, for the second article already states that the purpose of the physical education classes at secondary schools for males (“secondarie, normali e magistrali maschili”) is “to prepare young boys for the military service”.229 Therefore, it was specified, the Minister of Public Education and the Minister of War should decide together what kind of exercises must be taught and how the classes should be structured. In this way, the Ministry of War entered into the decisions about school programs in a direct and obvious way. The third article regarded the character of physical education for girls: in all schools for females, “gymnastics will have an exclusively educational character”, and the teaching of physical education in these schools would be subject to special regulations.230 In the fourth article, another actor enters the scene, since the formation of teachers of physical education was partly delegated to “gymnastics Societies and institutions”, where the government was given the faculty – but not the obligation – to institute and finance courses for teachers also through these external societies and institutions.231 Art. 5 regulated the time within which the teaching of “educational gymnastics” should be introduced in all primary schools of the kingdom:232 this period was five years, and before that, all primary school teachers (except for those who were impaired by their age or physical constitution) had to attend courses on the teaching of physical education during the autumn (for those in poor economic conditions, stipends were to be made available by the government in order to enable them to attend these courses). Art. 6 regarded once more the cooperation with the army, but this time not the goal of the exercises on physical education: in fact, exsoldiers were allowed to attend the abovementioned courses and become teachers of physical education – which necessarily implied input from military discipline and

228 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 697. 229 Ibidem. 230 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 697-698. 231 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 698-699. 232 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 699-702.

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attitude on the subject of physical education as it was to be taught at schools.233 Financial matters were regulated in art. 7 and 8.234 Therefore, physical education concerned several issues that were central to the constitution of the body of the State. First of all, physical education served to shape that “complete man” (a recurrent expression in the debates on education), the citizen of the State, but at the same time it shaped that greater body: not the individual body, but the national population’s and its character, since its aim was primarily that its members be able to conceive of themselves as belonging to the same community and to cooperate with each other. Apart from this integrative function, gymnastics also had, similarly to the Körperbewegung in Prussia, the practical function of preparing for military training. Finally, the definition of gender roles was also involved (art. 3 regulated the function and form of physical education for girls): on the one hand, everyone agreed that physical education should be taught not only to boys, but to girls as well; on the other hand, it was debated whether one single adverb in the article could be interpreted as though girls were to be educated in the same gymnastics as men and enter the army, “which would sound ridiculous”.235 In fact, it was contended that ladies should not be educated in the same exercises as the male population because they did not have to be prepared for military practice, and also because the exercises which were thought to be suitable for men were not considered to be suitable for women’s “nature” and constitution. Moleschott began his speech by defending the Ministerial proposal and disagreeing with his colleague Pantaleoni. It should be noted that both Moleschott and Pantaleoni appealed to their particular status as medical doctors236 to make their statements more valuable within the debate; but, in addition to this, Moleschott adopted the rhetorical strategy of the quotation of classical sources at the very beginning. Pantaleoni distinguished between gymnastics “for the body” (“somatica o corporea”)237 and “educational gymnastics” (“ginnastica educativa”):238 in his opinion, the former was a reaction to the excess of “spirit”, that is, to the predominance given to classical studies in educational curricula. Indeed, Pantaleoni mentioned the case of 233 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 702. 234 Ibidem. 235 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 697-698. 236 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 684. 237 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 682. 238 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 682, 683.

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the famous poet Giacomo Leopardi, who, because of his weak constitution, “would have surely died, had he been obliged to participate in classes of physical education”. This hint was immediately taken up by the Minister, who stated that “he [Leopardi] would have never been so sick, if he had practiced some gymnastics”.239 In Pantaleoni’s opinion, however, this “excess of spirit” had led to the opposite excess (i.e. too much attention to the body and too much physical exercise). The second kind of gymnastics, that is, some moderate exercise fostering “education” (including moral education and promoting national feelings) was defended by Pantaleoni as useful and recommended. In fact, Pantaleoni did not oppose the teaching of gymnastics in itself: he just suggested a softer regulation and underlined that gymnastics should be promoted as having an “educational” and not a “somatic” character.

Gymnastics Between Science and Nation-State Contrarily to Pantaleoni, Moleschott was definitely in favor of compulsory physical education classes in schools; his speech was not only the most favorable to gymnastics in the whole debate, but also the one containing the greatest number of references to the ancient world and classical culture. In fact, Moleschott argued in favor of the institution of obligatory physical education classes at school precisely by referring to that classical culture which was cited by his colleague Pantaleoni as being opposed to gymnastics (or, better, to its excess). In the next paragraphs, I will focus on Moleschott’s speech on the benefits of physical education as a compulsory part of the school curriculum. I will put it into relation with the arguments of his colleagues, in particular with the speeches of the Minister of Public Education, Francesco De Sanctis, as well as with his own worldview as he expressed it in other speeches, and especially in his popularizing books. Finally, I will analyze his references to ancient and modern classical culture and specific philosophical concepts. Moleschott understood physical education as a way to foster not only physical health, but also moral virtues and national consciousness. In this, he was opposing the view of his colleague, the medical doctor and Senator Maffeo Pantaleoni, who perceived gymnastics as a potentially corrupting activity (at least, certain kinds of gymnastics). Moleschott started arguing against Pantaleoni by first quoting Goethe: as we have seen in the previous section, he often used the classics for the justification of new institutions, such as the labs. Second, he opposed Pantaleoni by pleading for less reference to foreign nations and more independence in shaping the national educational system (the comparison with other countries was a central aspect of the whole discourse on public education in the Italian Senate around 1880): the quotation 239 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 684.

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from Goethe, with which Moleschott started his speech, did not refer to physical education at all, but was a plea for independence of action in the pursuit of one’s country benefit. Moleschott grouped the advantages of the teaching of gymnastics under two aspects: the “physical” aspect and the “moral, intellectual and affective” one.240 The explanation of the “physical aspect” of gymnastics directly and explicitly links to Moleschott’s conception of nature, especially to what, in his German publications, he had called “Stoffwechsel” and “Kreislauf” (in this speech, literally translated as “il ricambio della materia”). As we have seen, these were the central concepts of Moleschott’s worldview as it was expressed in his popularizing books on nutrition,241 illustrating the ever-becoming and yet always identical character of matter that, always transforming but never perishing in the cycle of life, constitutes the whole universe. We shall recall that, in Moleschott’s view, organisms undergo processes of transformation and oxidization, and with their final oxidization they return to be part of the inorganic sphere, which will be nourishment for plants, and thereby they will become, again, part of the organic world. In this never-ending process, the organic and the inorganic were thought of not as being rigidly separated, but rather as a continuum. In the speech on physical education in 1878, Moleschott still argued in terms of the worldview he had sketched in his scientific popularization in the 1850s, explaining about the constant transformation and change of matter. In fact, he argued that it was proper for every moment of human life and, more generally, of organic life – including so-called intellectual activity and what is considered to be complete rest – to produce an amount of “waste”, i.e. the product of oxidization, which has to be expelled from the body. According to Moleschott, the task of physical exercise was to foster and accelerate this process; as we can infer from the following passage, physical education was meant to be a “catalyzer” of the Kreislauf itself: “Now, as far as the physical aspect is concerned, I would like you to keep in mind that gymnastics implies stimulating the activity of life in general, which resides in the transformation of matter. – Even in the apparently most complete rest, as it would be present in an assembly of people who are benevolently listening to an orator, in every function of our body a certain quantity of waste is produced, which mainly resides and accumulates in the muscular system.ˮ242 240 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 686. 241 Cf. his German popularizing volumes, Der Kreislauf des Lebens (1852), the Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel (1850) and the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel (1850). 242 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 686: “Ora, per quanto riguarda il punto di vista fisico, io vorrei che non si dimenticasse che favorire la ginnastica, vuole dire destare in

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Not only in Moleschott’s speech, but also in the Prussian debates on physical education in 1863, physical exercise was presented as fostering blood circulation (“Blutkreislauf”), contributing to the maintenance of a healthy bodily constitution: physicians and natural scientists, including Emil Du Bois-Reymond, argued that gymnastics would have a positive influence on the health of the citizens because it stimulated blood circulation and respiration and strengthened the muscular and nervous systems.243 But this is just the most obvious part of the whole question; most interestingly, Moleschott explained that gymnastics should serve as a catalyzer not only for the human body, but for the body of the nation, too. Moleschott literally presented physical education as a means to obtain not only healthy citizens, but also productive workers – in other words, as a way to foster national economic growth. Therefore, gymnastics was understood not only as an educational matter, nor just as a matter of public health, but as a matter of political economy. Let us turn to the following passage, where working is claimed to be the necessary condition for having the right to food and even to life, and physical exercise is understood as a way to stimulate the will to work: “Well, through muscular exercises, as they are required to be done by educational gymnastics, that is, well and with moderation, we will lead the pupils to look themselves for the sacred breast of work, which I would like to be considered as an absolutely indispensable condition both for sustenance and for life.”244 Here, Moleschott not only utilized arguments from the natural sciences in order to explain the benefits of physical education, but also showed the affinity of his argument with both liberal ideology and neo-idealism, insofar as he considered work to be a precondition for the fulfillment of human life (and for one’s very existence as a worthy citizen). In his opinion, “life is the more efficient, the more valuable”, “the faster the movement of matter in it”, that is, “the greater the quantity of oxygen introduced in the body”, since oxygen is “the indispensable condition for latent energy to become a lively force in the organism”. Therefore, physical education had a double task: through the “contraction of muscles”, it both facilitated the expulsion of “waste” (toxins) from the body, and provided it with modo generale l’attività della vita che si svolge nel ricambio della materia. – Anche nel riposo in apparenza più completo, come potrebbe presentarsi in un’adunanza di uomini che con benevolenza ascoltano un oratore, in ogni funzione del nostro corpo si produce una quantità di scoria, la quale principalmente si svolge e si accumula nel sistema muscolare.” 243 Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 202. 244 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 686: “Ebbene, cogli esercizi muscolari, quali con moderazione e bene condotti la ginnastica educativa richiede, noi condurremo gli stessi fanciulli a cercare la santa mammella del lavoro, il quale vorrei che fosse considerato per tutti come condizione assolutamente impreteribile e per il vitto e per la vita.”

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oxygen, “one of the most important elements” to obtain new energy, to renew and reinvigorate the constitution of the organism.245

Physical Education as Moral and Political Education However, the role of gymnastics was not only presented as a physiological one, and not just an economical one either: physical education was conceived as being at the same time moral and political education, for it playfully conveyed and fostered social skills,246 making integration and cooperation possible between individuals coming from highly different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. At the same time, gymnastics was said to be a catalyzer for both “internal” and “external” “cleanliness”: “Gymnastics not only frees the body from internal waste, for it also heavily contributes to cultivate external cleanliness”, explained Moleschott.247 Internal cleanliness entailed the expulsion of the products of oxidization, whereas external cleanliness, cleanliness in the most common sense of the word was, according to Moleschott, fostered by close contact with other people and, especially, by the fear of their contempt. Being motivated to avoid contempt, the pupils would take care about their external appearance and the cleanliness of their body, and, in this sense, physical education would also be a way of making the population acquainted with the new hygienic measures which were being introduced everywhere in the Kingdom (as we will see in the next chapters, Moleschott himself was one of the experts in this field, e.g. being himself the president of the technical commission at the International Sanitary Conference in 1885). Moreover, according to Moleschott, physical education as a school subject would foster self-confidence in young gymnasts: it would be a way to awaken both their self-awareness and the feeling of belonging to one and the same nation. In fact, Moleschott proved to be a very attentive observer of mechanisms of social integration and their rules: the way gymnastics would foster hygiene and cleanliness would be the social pressure occurring when one exercises under the “scrutinizing gaze of one’s master” (the physical education teacher), one’s schoolmates, one’s parents and, occasionally, the public present at sports competitions.248 Less ambitious pupils, who would not conform to the hygienic standards by themselves, would feel compelled to adopt the correct hygienic measures by the exhortations of their teacher and the mockery of their classmates. The precise content of 245 Ibidem. 246 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 687. 247 Ibidem: “La ginnastica non spoglia soltanto il corpo della scoria interna, dessa contribuisce potentemente a coltivare la pulizia esterna.” 248 Ibidem.

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these hygienic standards is not mentioned in this speech, apart from a quite vague “cleanliness”. From these references, indicating the importance of the social context for the development of a certain behavior, which was considered a sign of civilization, it becomes clear that Moleschott himself connected the function of physical education in diffusing hygienic standards to its function in favoring ethical values and social integration (via conformation and normalization to certain standards, thus standardization). The following passage confirms this view, connecting physical education both to morality and to beauty: “Now, who does not see that already here the healthy hygienic effects of gymnastics meet the moral advantages it can produce? […] Grace, confidence, prudence, courage, are enriched by the docility born from struggling to execute a given command with promptness, ease, graciousness, and the development of that resoluteness of the will, which elevates every human virtue and quality, cannot be separated from such docility. Now prudence, docility, courage, resoluteness, self-confidence, sentiment of beauty resulting from active grace, seem to me to contain the germs of all virtues.ˮ249

Thereby, a certain aesthetic ideal was immediately associated with the practice of gymnastics, not clearly separated from its “moral advantages” and hygienic implications. But what “enriched” all these moral qualities and aesthetic values was precisely the ability to promptly obey and “execute a given command” all together and with harmonic coordination. In the Prussian Leitfaden für den Turn-Unterricht in den preußischen Volksschulen (1868, 2nd edition), we can read the following lines about the goal of physical education at school: “Diese Übungen sollen den Schüler gewöhnen, als Teil eines größeren Ganzen seine Stelle in demselben, wie sie jedesmal der dem Ganzen aufgegebenen Übung nötig ist, sicher einzuhalten (bzw. zu finden) und den gegebenen Befehlt pünktlich auszuführenˮ.250

249 Ibidem: “Ora, chi non vede che già s’incontrano qui gli effetti salutari igienici della ginnastica coi vantaggi morali che dessa può generare? […] Ma alla grazia, alla fiducia, alla prudenza, al coraggio si aggiunge quella docilità, che nasce dalla gara di obbedire con prontezza, con facilità, con buona grazia ad un comando dato, e da siffatta docilità non può scompagnarsi lo sviluppo di quella risolutezza della volontà che innalza ogni virtù ed ogni pregio umano. Ora prudenza, docilità, coraggio, risolutezza, fiducia di se stesso, sentimento del bello che risulta dalla grazia attiva, mi sembrano contenere i germi di tutte le virtù.” 250 From the Leitfaden für den Turn-Unterricht in den preußischen Volksschulen (2. Aufl., 1868), 43, quoted after Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 401.

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Thus, in Italy just like in Prussia, the main task of physical education was strongly connected to military discipline: in fact, it was the control over one’s movements rather than the exercise of bodily activity in itself that constituted the most interesting aspect of gymnastics for the nation-state and its army. Physical education was a way to teach how to control one’s bodily attitude, and at the same time a way to convey a determinate idea of order:251 gymnastics and its exercises represented the control over the body by the “superior spiritual or State-power”, which was meant to preside over the individual physical movement, as well as over the “way of thinking, feeling and acting in general”.252 Such a conception of gymnastics as physical and moral education was not typical for nineteenth-century debates, but was central to twentieth-century discourses on physical education as well, for instance in the period of World War I.253 However, Moleschott underlined the advantages of physical education for the development of balanced social skills, rather than for military purposes: he went on by arguing that physical education would foster sociability and that it mitigated the rivalry that could originate when pupils compete for being the best in each school subject. In the gymnastic hall, he maintained, rivalry became joyful play, where victory would always be understood as common victory, i.e. the victory of the whole team, so that “the successes of one of its members are the successes of everyone”.254 In this way, physical education was praised as fostering the esprit de corps (“spirito di corpo”), an essential element for the constitution of the society of the nation-state. From these statements, it clearly emerges that the introduction of physical education as a compulsory school subject (which constituted part of the examination program for pupils of all ages and both genders, as well as for primary school teachers) was more than just a minor change in the national system of education. As the Minister himself explained, his law proposal was meant to be a central element in the reform of public education, as well as an important step towards the formation of a common national consciousness.255 Physical education was at the same time a way to spread hygienic concepts and practices, being part of a greater program of hygienic education, which involved both popularization (for instance, the publishing house Loescher regularly published popularizing booklets in the series La scienza per il

251 Cf. Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 404. 252 Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 399. My translation. 253 Cf. Noyan Dinçkal, Sportlandschaften: Sport, Raum und (Massen-)Kultur in Deutschland, 1880-1930 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2013), 189-193. 254 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 687. 255 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 689.

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popolo) and regulations.256 Finally, both these hygienic standards and the military discipline we mentioned above were powerful means for promoting a certain attitude: an attitude which tended to regulate and standardize people’s behavior, and which was part of the strategy for the formation of a “national character”. According to the ruling elite, the lack of a “national character” in Italy was the main obstacle to the socalled “real unification” of the country – that is, it hindered the creation of a common national culture. Indeed, twenty years after the political unification, the greater part of the population still had the most heterogeneous backgrounds, cultures, idioms, and, with the exception of high-culture, a unifying element was still missing.257 This is why politicians and intellectuals looked at Prussia as a model not only regarding conscription and the organization of the military service at a national level, but also concerning the role of gymnastics (in particular, of physical education as a compulsory school subject) as an essential step in the process of nation-building and in the formation of a “national character”.258 In fact, the German legislation and the Prussian model for the teaching of physical education at schools served as references in the discussions of the Italian Senate.259 Whereas in Prussia, Rudolph Virchow feared a militarization of education,260 neither Moleschott nor any of his Italian colleagues were concerned about it: as we have seen, the preparation for military service was an explicit aim of the law. However, the rhetoric of his arguments was referring to ancient Greek culture and its conception of education (or better, its nineteenth-century representation), as well as to neo-humanistic ideals of harmony. In fact, at the end of Moleschott’s speech on physical education, not only Greece and the classical ideal of education, but also neo-humanistic and neo-idealistic ideas were used to justify gymnastics as a unifying factor in the process of nation-building.

256 On the popularizing strategies and the law-like character of discourses about hygiene in the nineteenth century, cf. Philipp Sarasin, Reizbare Maschinen: eine Geschichte des Körpers 1765-1914 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001), in particular 118-146. 257 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, chapters 11 and 13. 258 For the role of physical education (of “Turnenˮ and of “Turnvereineˮ) in German nationbuilding, cf. Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung. 259 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 697.On the Left’s admiration for Germany and, in particular, on the admiration for Germany’s monarchy, the “loyal” and “self-confident” character of German people, and German culture which, “with strong strain of idealism, offered a far more inspiring model to emulate than French culture, whose corrupting materialism had only served to weaken Italy’s moral fibre and destroy its national character”, cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 321 and 337. Both discussions on higher education and gymnastics were informed by admiration for the “German model”. 260 Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 401.

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In the following passage, Moleschott summarized the essence of his speech, identifying gymnastics as the harbinger of a society of “complete men”, balancing the tendency toward separation (analysis as opposed to synthesis, as he himself explained a couple of lines later) caused by the division of labor. This was a typical theme for Romantic and Post-Romantic poetry and philosophy, but also a motif of Moleschott’s opening lectures, especially L’unità della vita (1864):261 “Harmony between strength and wisdom, this is the promise of physical education; its aim is to make man a complete man, at least in his youth, that man whom, unfortunately, the necessary division of labor nowadays tends to divide more and more […] paralyzing synthesis, not allowing him to cultivate that general development, which makes ancient Greece the paradise of harmonic culture, Socrates the model of man for all times; the Minister of Education apparently admires this ideal not only in a platonic way, but, as a true follower of Plato, he wants to realize and concretize it.ˮ262

In accordance with the Romantic interpretation of ancient Greece, Moleschott considered Greek culture as embodying the ideal of “harmony of strength and wisdom”, which physical education should bring back to modern Western culture, which was characterized by separation and disintegration. Thus, the introduction of physical education as a school subject had the same goal as the reform of higher education: shaping the “complete man” was the aim not only of physical education, but also of the whole program of reform of the university. After having referred to Socrates as the perfect embodiment of the harmonic coexistence of strength and wisdom, Moleschott continued his speech with a play on words, hoping that the Minister of Education would follow Plato’s ideas not just in a platonic way. As we will see in the next paragraphs, De Sanctis took this seriously, demonstrating that the law he proposed was inspired by exactly the ideals Moleschott referred to. Other references to Platonism and to Hegelian aesthetics in the Minister’s rhetoric had been made by Moleschott above in the same speech, where he declared that De Sanctis’ critical attitude 261 Cf. for instance Friedrich Hölderlin, Hyperion (1797-1799), and Friedrich Schiller, Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1795). 262 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 688: “Armonia fra la forza e la saviezza è quel che promette la ginnastica educativa; dessa mira a far l’uomo completo almeno nella sua gioventù, quell’uomo che pur troppo la necessaria divisione del lavoro nei nostri giorni tende a dimezzare ognora di più, a sterilizzare, paralizzando la sintesi, non concedendogli di coltivare quello sviluppo generale, che fa dell’antica Grecia il paradiso della cultura armonica, di Socrate il modello dell’uomo per tutti i tempi, un ideale che il Ministro dell’Istruzione mostra ammirare non solo platonicamente, ma da vero seguace di Platone vuol attuare e realizzare.”

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was not a destructive, but a constructive one, deeply displaying “the harmony of truth and beauty”.263 Then, Moleschott encouraged the Senate to vote in favor of the Minister’s law proposal. The reference to ancient Greece and its all-encompassing models for gymnastics as shaping body and soul were not a novelty in the construction of the image of modern gymnastics and physical education in the context of nationalist ideologies: this was already a common practice in the Prussian debates on physical education fifteen years earlier.264 For instance, Rudolph Virchow had argued for physical education as a guarantee for the defense of the State against its enemies by citing a dialogue between Solon and the Scythian Anacharsis as reported by Lucian:265 “In diesen Übungen, Anacharsis, unterrichten wir unsere Jünglinge, in der Hoffnung, an ihnen gute Wächter des Staates zu erhalten und durch ihren Schutz im Genusse der Freiheit fortzuleben, Sieger jedes Feindes, der unser Land bedroht, und gefürchtet von unseren Nachbarn. Dadurch werden sie aber auch für das Leben im Frieden besser, weil sie nicht Gemeinem nachhängen und nicht durch Müßiggang zu schlechtem Treiben verleitet werden, sondern ihre freie Zeit in Wettkämpfen zubringen. Zum höchsten Glück und Gemeingut für den Staat aber wird eine für den Frieden wie für den Krieg wohl vorbereitete Jugend, deren Streben nur nach dem Edelsten gerichtet ist.ˮ

Not only did the quoted passage underline the advantages of a population strengthened by physical exercises and well-prepared for war, but also the positive influence of sports and sport competitions as a way to pass one’s free time, thereby preventing deviant social behaviors. Emil Du Bois-Reymond had also referred to the ideal of the “complete man” (or “whole human being”) when arguing that the task of gymnastics was “to shape the human being in its whole” through balanced exercise involving all of its muscles.266 Indeed, Moleschott’s engagement in the defense of the law was particularly appreciated by the Minister of Public Education Francesco De Sanctis.267 The Minister publicly thanked and praised Moleschott: not only did his profession of physician 263 Ibidem. 264 Cf. Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 198-199, as well as Michael Krüger, “Wehrturnen und griechische Gymnastik. Zur Griechen-Rezeption deutscher Turnlehrer im 19. Jahrhundertˮ. Sportwissenschaft, 20 (1990): 125-145. 265 From the Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen im Haus der Abgeordneten, vol. 1, Berlin 1862, 13. Sitzung am 20. Juni 1862, 333, quoted after Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 207. 266 Krüger, Körperkultur und Nationsbildung, 203. 267 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, 689.

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confer authority to his speech, but also and above all, his speech was a unique example of a physician speaking in favor of physical education, whereas, surprisingly, other physicians (such as Pantaleoni) had expressed critical opinions with regard to at least certain aspects of the introduction of physical education. Let us then turn to De Sanctis’ speech: as we will see, the images and the rhetorical strategies are pretty much the same as those found in Moleschott’s speeches. De Sanctis took up Moleschott’s representation of gymnastics as an essential part of that all-encompassing education which would lead to the formation of “complete men”. His speech did not mainly focus on the practical implications of the law, but rather on the highly ideal level of the meaning of education: lamenting that, in Italy, no one had understood what education meant, De Sanctis took up Moleschott’s idea of physical education as the quintessence of an all-encompassing education, which would not be limited to “treatises, grammars, dissertations, compendia”, which only “fill the memory and the intellect of young [students]”, but would “educate the whole man, reinvigorate the intellect, purify the heart, caress imagination, harmonize all the forces nature has given to us, which are so well-correlated with each other that a welldeveloped force serves to the development and the harmony of the other forces”.268 Again, we can note the strong presence of the classical ideal of beauty as harmony, whereas the “education of the whole man” should be pursued through a balanced development of his three faculties: the intellectual, emotional (“the heart”) and imaginative, in a very similar way to Schiller’s ideal of beauty and of the pursuit of an “education of mankind” through beauty, as he expressed it in his letters on the “aesthetic education of mankind” (Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, 1795). In the following part of the speech, De Sanctis also took up the idea of physical education as moral education, complaining that young students finishing university had their “heads full of Latin, Greek and mathematics”, but were cynical and lacked “esteem for respectable people”. Thus, De Sanctis admitted without hesitation that physical education had mainly a disciplinary function, namely obtaining a population which, despite the huge dissimilarities, would demonstrate cohesion and discipline, moral and physical strength; it should be loyal to its governors and, finally, have the same unifying ideals, above all those regarding the national ideology. The law proposal was thus meant to be an important step in the development and reform of public education. De Sanctis confirmed that the law on physical education was a key step in 268 Ibidem: “[…] in Italia si comprende un po’ l’istruzione, ma non si comprende ancora l’educazione. Noi abbiamo trattati, grammatiche, dissertazioni, compendî, noi cerchiamo di dare un certo numero di cognizioni per riempire la memoria e lo intelletto de’ giovani; ma noi non comprendiamo in che modo si educhi tutto l’uomo, si rinvigorisca l’intelletto, si purifichi il cuore, si carezzi l’immaginazione, si mettano in armonia tutte le forze che la natura ci ha dato, le quali sono così corrispondenti tra loro che una forza bene sviluppata serve allo sviluppo e all’armonia delle altre.”

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the program of reform of national public education; moreover, he clearly identified physical education with ethical and civic education, which was supposed to fill in the gaps “in the moral and intellectual education of our young men”.269 It turns out that not only the profession of medical doctor (and, of course, the fact that he was a Professor of Physiology at the university, whereas Pantaleoni was just a physician) gave authority and additional value to Moleschott’s speech, but also the form in which he expressed his ideas. In fact, the Minister praised him because “he has spoken perfect Italian”. It is quite unlikely that the Minister only meant to praise him for his ability to speak correct Italian, referring just to correct grammar and syntax, or pronunciation, because at that time Moleschott had been a Senator for two years and an Italian professor for almost seventeen years and had already given numerous speeches on official occasions. Probably, De Sanctis also appreciated the rhetoric of the speech, especially Molechott’s continuous references to neo-idealist ideas, which were typical of the most prominent intellectual and philosophical environments at that time.270

Conclusion Both De Sanctis and Moleschott conceived of the teaching of physical education as an important step for the construction of “complete men” and citizens: physical education was embedded in that greater process of “political education of the Italians” which envisaged the formation of a national consciousness and of an elite of “uomini completi” (a concept which had also been central to the Prussian debates on physical education). In this way, gymnastics was seen as a tool for the pursuit of an educational aim which had classical ideals of beauty and perfection as its constant references. In his speech, Moleschott described physical education as having educational, military, and hygienic aims; his ideas on education and on hygiene merged with ideas about biology, hygiene, politics, and the economy of the nation-state. Not only did he speak in his capacity as a scientific expert, but he also justified his position through quotes and references to ancient and classical culture and as being inspired by liberal ideas, in the same way as he would do in the debates on the reform of the university almost ten years later. As we will see in the next chapter, his contribution in the debate on the abolition of the grist tax in 1880 was also characterized by the entanglement of scientific, political, and economic arguments, whereas his rhetorical strategies mainly consisted of quotes from ancient Greek and Latin phrases.

269 Ibidem. 270 Cf. Alesandro Savorelli, “Jakob Moleschott e la cultura italiana del suo tempo”. Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 543-553.

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T AXATION AND N UTRITION : T HE D EBATE ON THE A BOLITION OF THE G RIST T AX (M ACINATO ) BETWEEN N UTRITIONAL T HEORY , P OLITICAL E CONOMY AND S OCIAL P OLICY (1880) In the previous section, we have seen how the introduction of physical education as a compulsory school subject was meant to be a powerful means for creating a common cultural background and thereby unite the population. Moreover, towards the end of the nineteenth century Italian politicians had become aware that reducing, at least in part, the huge disparities in economic and social status was a necessary condition in order to begin to shape social cohesion in a unified Italy. The law on the abolition of the macinato (grist tax), the tax on flour that represented a great burden for the lower classes, should be read as an attempt in this direction. Significantly, the keyword of Moleschott’s speech271 in defense of the abolition of the infamous grist tax was concordia: this term is used in opposition to the possible cause of discord between the Parliament and the Senate (in the case that the Senate should not approve the law), but, in a more general sense, Moleschott pointed – especially in the Latin and Greek expressions he used – to the harmonious and stable society the law would contribute to constructing. As Christopher Duggan has noticed, to “heal the rift between government and governed” was becoming the great hope and main goal of certain members of the ruling class in the 1870’s.272 In the debate on the abolition of the grist tax, Moleschott’s argument developed on several levels, intermingling scientific and political domains, national economic policies, and ancient culture. If we already learned in the debate on the law on physical education that scientific, political, educational, economic, and military domains were strongly associated, this time we can even notice that a physiological-psychological law is translated into economic-financial terms and used as an argument in the political discourse. Another similarity with the debate on gymnastics at school is the broad usage, above all by Moleschott, of classical culture, Greek expressions, and Latin terms, as well as sententiae from Roman law. Whereas the law on physical education was meant to create a new common discipline and impose a precise con-

271 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, Seguito della discussione generale del progetto di legge per l’abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano, 2809-2827. 272 Cf. Duggan, The Force of Destiny, 290. Here, Duggan writes also that it was a widespread idea among the politicians that this should be reached through “a great military victory”.

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ception of order upon the population, through the abolition of the grist tax, the politicians aimed at a more basic level of equalization: that is, at a more equal distribution of wealth among social classes.

The Macinato and its Economic and Political Significance The macinato had been introduced in 1868 by the Minister of Finances, Luigi Cambray-Digny, after the suggestion of Quintino Sella (who became himself Minister of Finances for the third time one year later).273 In 1867, an attempt to approve the same bill had already failed after a quite polemical debate in which the Left and the Right wing of the Parliament opposed each other.274 One should keep in mind that the Right (Destra storica) and the Left (Sinistra storica) by no means corresponded to the Left and Right of the twentieth century: rather, they represented specific groups and their interests. The Right, for example, represented the interests of landowners and industrialists and aimed at nationalizing railways and other public services. Quintino Sella, a right-wing politician, considered it to be most important to repair the financial situation of the Italian State: reducing the debt to foreign countries was seen as a precursor for the economic growth of the nation, and therefore both for its financial and political independence. The aim of this kind of policy was known as “pareggio del bilancio” (balanced state finances, i.e. the extinction of public debt); as we will see, Moleschott also referred to it in the speech he gave at the Senate at the beginning of 1880. The financial independence of the State from foreign capitals, together with 273 Quintino Sella (1827-1884) was himself a scientist (a mineralogist) and politician (he was three times Minister of Finances). He had studied engineering in Turin and mineralogy in Paris and engaged in politics from 1860 to 1874. He was Professor of Applied Geometry and Mineralogy at the Regio Istituto Tecnico in Turin, and then of Mathematics at the University of Turin. He was the founder of the Italian Alpine Club. For his biography as a scientist and politician, cf. Guido Quazza, L’utopia di Quintino Sella. La politica della scienza (Torino: Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento Italiano, 1992). Moleschott had a conflict with Quintino Sella concerning membership at the Accademia dei Lincei: in fact, Moleschott was accepted by the academy only as “socio corrispondente” and not as “socio ordinario”; as is clear from a letter he sent to Filippo Pacini, he attributed the blame to the president of the academy, Quintino Sella, and accused the members of the academy of being completely dependent upon their president. For this reason, on March 2, 1881, Moleschott left the academy. Cf. De Pascale and Savorelli, “L’archivio di Jakob Moleschott”, 231-232. 274 Cf. Atti parlamentari Camera, tornata del 27 marzo 1868, in Giampiero Carocci (ed.), Il Parlamento nella storia d’Italia. Antologia storica della classe politica (Laterza: Bari, 1964), 64-77.

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the so-called “efficiency” of the State (which was pursued by means of higher taxation, including the grist tax) were, according to Sella, the only way to increase the economic and industrial development of the country.275 Although being a right-wing politician, Quintino Sella had, in more than one matter, ideas that were close to the Left; being himself a scientist, he held science in high regard for the national economic and cultural growth, and the “Roman question” (the annexation of Rome to Italy) was of central importance to him.276 However, on matters of taxation he opposed the ideas of the Left democrats: he had already pled for higher tributes in 1863, and in 1864 the Minister of Finances Marco Minghetti had introduced, also after a suggestion by Sella, a new kind of tax, the personal property tax (“tassa sulla ricchezza mobile”). And yet Minghetti was among the politicians who wanted to limit taxation, being confident that economic growth would have led to a natural increase in state finances.277 As one can easily imagine, the macinato was very unpopular and provoked many insurrections, which were all bloodily repressed, especially in the North, where wheat and corn flour were the main means of subsistence. Moreover, one of the consequences of the bill had been the closure of small mills, whose owners could not afford to buy the necessary instruments to measure the quantity of flour they produced. The abolition of the grist tax was proposed first in 1878 by Francesco Seismit-Doda, the Minister of Finances in the left-wing government of Francesco Cairoli. In his speech, Seismit-Doda had spoken in favor of the abolition of the tax because he considered it to be a cause of social disequilibrium: it is exactly the same argument which we will find in Moleschott’s speech, where Moleschott put the accent on conciliation (“concordia”, thus balance, equilibrium) of social forces as the highest good, in opposition to the balance (“pareggio”) of state finances, which was often invoked by the supporters of the grist tax.278 The profound uncertainty and at the same time the sudden change which were implied in the abolition of the grist tax were expressed through the metaphor of the “leap” (“salto”), first employed by Quintino Sella, who had said that the change in the financial situation would have been a “leap into darkness” (“salto nel buio”).279 This metaphor was then taken up by Seismit-Doda, who affirmed that he and his party proposed the abolition of the law, precisely because keeping the law as it was would signify a “leap into darkness”. A similar expression is also present in Moleschott’s 275 Cf. Carocci (ed.), Il Parlamento nella storia d’Italia, 61. 276 Ibidem. 277 Ibidem. 278 Cf. the speech by Francesco Seismit-Doda, Atti parlamentari Camera, tornata del 7 luglio 1878, in Carocci (ed.), Il parlamento nella storia d’Italia, 164-169. 279 Cf. the parliamentary speech by Federico Seismit-Doda, Atti parlamentari Camera, tornata del 7 luglio 1878, in Carocci (ed.), Il parlamento nella storia d’Italia, 166.

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Senate speech, where he underlined that the true “leap” would have been the “leap into discord” caused by too much fiscal pressure (having as its cause, among other factors, the tax on flour) on most of the constituencies of the population, and that, in comparison with this perspective, financial unbalance (“leap into deficit”) would be more than tolerable. In the next paragraphs, I will go into greater detail on Moleschott’s argument. I will thereby focus on the connections between his scientific theories and their social implications. Moreover, I will show that Moleschott’s Senate speech stood on a line of continuity with his earlier popularizing writings, and I will draw some conclusions on the role of rhetoric and the use of the classics in his arguments.

Moleschott’s Arguments for the Abolition of the Macinato and their Context In his speech in favor of the abolition of the grist tax, Moleschott concentrated on the nutritional value of wheat flour. Originally, the tax was not due for wheat flour only, but for all sorts of flour; however, wheat was the cereal on which the highest tax applied (2 Lire per 100 kg), whereas the tax on corn flour amounted to half that (1 Lira), and the tax on flour deriving from other cereals and legumes was the lowest, i.e. 50 cents/100 kg (“Legge colla quale è imposta una tassa sulla macinazione dei cereali”, July 7, 1868). The tax on other cereals had been abolished in 1878, which explains why Moleschott specifically dealt with wheat flour in his discourse. Moreover, wheat flour was considered to be the most important nutrient for the people not only because it was easily available to the lower classes, but also because of its relatively high amount of proteins. Moleschott, however, did not make it just a question of nutrition: again, scientific and political arguments mingle in this speech. For instance, Moleschott justified his opposition to the grist tax not only through his knowledge of physiological and nutritional processes, but also by presenting a financial and a political argument. The financial argument was that the people would spend a greater amount of money, and this would improve the overall economic situation (having more money at their disposal, people would make more investments, buy more goods, and foster national industry). The political argument was – on a line of continuity with all parliamentary speeches on the grist tax and its relative legislation – that any conflict between Senate and Parliament, as well as between government and governed, should be avoided (therefore, the motif of conciliation was a central one in the whole speech), whereas keeping the tax would have doubtlessly worsened already existing conflicts and pro-

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voked new ones. In the following section, I will illustrate the reasons why Moleschott’s speech focused on the main themes of 1) the content of proteins in wheat flour and 2) the motif of concordia, or conciliation. On the one hand, the insistence in Moleschott’s speech on the nutritional value of wheat flour is easily explained by noticing that two years earlier it had already been agreed that so-called “inferior cereals” should not be subject to the tax anymore; now, the main question was whether the tax should be abolished for all sorts of cereals, or whether it should be maintained for wheat flour only while having been abolished for all other kinds of flours. For this reason, Moleschott feared that, should the tax be kept on wheat only, there would have been a significant decrease in wheat consumption. This is why he concentrated on the nutritional value of wheat, arguing that it was the most valuable among cereals. On the other hand, the grist tax had indeed been a major source of discord, not only in one, but in many respects: primarily, it had been a source of discontent, and even of desperation, rebellion, and hunger; in fact, it was also called “tax on misery”, or “the tax on the poor” (“la tassa sul povero”).280 From the very beginning, when the mills were closed because they could not afford to buy the instruments to measure the exact amount of milled flour they produced, there had been revolts, especially in Northern Italy and in particular in Romagna, where the anarchist movements were becoming more and more prominent. This did not result in the reconsideration of the bill: instead, the government preferred to declare martial law, and the riots were repressed by the army.281 Secondarily, the discussion on the grist tax had caused harsh clashes both within the Parliament and between the Parliament and the Senate. Within the Parliament, there had been clashes not only between the Left and the Right, but also within the Left; the disagreements about such a difficult and delicate matter had been the cause of the fall of the government six months before the period in which Moleschott gave his speech. As Duggan writes, in June 1879 “the issue of the grist tax returned to Parliament. The previous summer the Chamber had voted to abolish the macinato on ‘inferior’ cereals (maize, for example, the staple crop of the northern peasantry) and to reduce it by a quarter on wheat and other grains”.282 In his biography on Francesco Crispi, Duggan reports that Crispi “suspected that the Senate did not have the constitutional right to amend tax legislation”, which made the clash between the Parliament

280 Cf. the speech by Quintino Sella, Atti parlamentari Camera, tornata del 27 marzo 1868, in Carocci (ed.), Il parlamento nella storia d’Italia, 71. 281 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 306. 282 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 396.

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and the Senate even more acute; because of the discord within the Parliament regarding the abolition of the grist tax, Depretis’s government was brought down at the beginning of July 1879.283 The supporters of the tax, such as Quintino Sella, but also the Ministers of the Chamber of Deputies Giuseppe Zanardelli and Benedetto Cairoli, argued that it was the macinato that had allowed the repair of public finances and the nation’s rise from its huge public debt. Indeed, because of the difficulty in applying the law, in the first years the income deriving from it had almost no positive effects on state finances, but in the last years (from 1875) the state income originating from the grist tax started to be quite significant, so that the public debt was markedly reduced and bankruptcy avoided.284 The whole discourse on the macinato was thus shaped in a dualistic way: one should either keep the levy and its benefit for the State’s finances (and thus, in the arguments of the supporters of the tax, for the national economy as a whole, at least as a delayed effect of the law in some future time) and try to cope with the discontent of the people, or renounce the tax and alleviate the burden of the macinato for the population (the peasantry and the lower classes in particular). Moleschott’s speech is also influenced by this dualistic rhetorical scheme, which he applied especially when trying to show that the advantages that the income originating from the tax implied for the State’s finances were insignificant if compared with the disadvantages it caused to most of the population (and therefore also with the danger posed for national social stability). Of course, each party involved in the debate (not necessarily corresponding to a political party in this case, since sometimes there were dissimilar views within the same party) was trying to show that one or the other of the respective elements (financial income or social stability) was the most relevant for the well-being and the economic growth of the nation. What remained basically unquestioned from both sides was whether the grist tax (and higher taxation altogether) was really the only way to improve the financial situation, and, still more fundamental, where the deficit actually came from. While Crispi declared the macinato to be “worse even than the Sicilian grist tax of 1842” because “it proposed a levy on the grinding not just of wheat and barley, but also of rice, chestnuts, and vegetables, on which the poorest depended for their flour”,285 the King refused to reduce his huge military expenses, which made him “run up massive debts” despite receiving two percent of the entire national income per year, “about twice as much in absolute terms as Queen Victoria”.286

283 Ibidem. 284 Carocci, Il parlamento nella storia d’Italia, 161-164. 285 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 306. 286 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 305.

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Nutritional Theory and Politics: Johannes Mulder’s Popularization of Nutritional Science and Transnational Knowledge Circulation In the following section, I will attempt a comparison of Moleschott’s ideas about nutrition as they have been expressed in the context of the political debate in 1880 with those of the Dutch scientist Johannes Mulder. In fact, we can trace Moleschott’s position in the debate at the Senate back to the ideas expressed around 1850 by Justus Liebig, Johannes Mulder and by Moleschott himself (whose ideas developed in close contact with Johannes Mulder). Moleschott’s view that the nutrition that human beings consume directly affected their physical and intellectual faculties, as well as that the nutrition of the overall population directly influenced the cultural and political development of a nation, was defended and popularized in his Kreislauf des Lebens in 1852, but already had its presuppositions in his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel (1850). Here, food was categorized according to its amount of proteins: the food with the highest amount of proteins was considered to be the most valuable, i.e. in Moleschott’s and Mulder’s terms, that from which the human body (specifically human stomach, in their view) could obtain the greatest amount of energy in the easiest and fastest way. Although the Kreislauf was not primarily concerned with politics, Moleschott had already given some hints on how he thought the nutrition of the people should change in order for certain nations to “develop”: in his opinion, the Irish would never get rid of English subjugation if they went on cultivating and eating just potatoes; at least, they should replace them with beans and peas, which, although not comparable to meat, still contained a relatively high amount of proteins.287 Similar ideas are expressed in Johannes Mulder’s De voeding van den neger in Suriname (1847) and De voeding van Nederlanders (1854) (which had been preceded by De voeding in Nederland, in verband tot den volksgeest in 1847). De voeding van den neger in Suriname was not a parliamentary speech; however, it addressed what Mulder considered to be a political question and explicitly claimed to be the answer to a question posed by the Dutch Minister of Colonies, who had publicly asked whether the black workers (“Neger”) in Suriname had enough nutrients from the bananas and the fish they got every week.288 Here, Mulder’s concern with the nutrition of the inhabitants of the Dutch colonies was first presented as something that must become central to the movements for the rights of the colonized, as a philanthropic issue:

287 Cf. Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 9. Brief (9th letter); this passage was expounded from the English translation of the book. 288 Cf. Gerrit Jan [=Johannes] Mulder, De voeding van den neger in Suriname (Rotterdam: Kramers, 1847), 4-5.

310 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “I would like to ask the defenders of equal rights for all human beings in their relationship with each other, the fighters for the equality of everyone in front of the law, if they should not include in their plans of fostering these human rights also the human activities of eating and drinking; since as long as the one gets hefty food, the other much, but bad food, there is inequality of rights, of thought, of feelings […].ˮ289

Half a century later, in his book Sozialismus und Darwinismus which was published in 1894, Ludwig Büchner considered the inequality of nutrition to be a fundamental problem of modern society: he believed that the quantity and quality of food should be equal for every citizen – however, not exactly for everyone, but, as he further specified, only for those who honestly gained it through their work.290 Thus, the issue of nutrition as a factor of both material and intellectual development, one of the main themes of Moleschott’s thought in both scientific and political domains, was central in the discourse on European society at the end of the century. Later on in his publication, Mulder argued, instead, that better nutrition (in terms of more proteins) for the colonized implied that the work would be carried out better and faster. In other words, the whole colony would become more efficient: “The wild tropical vegetation makes you blind with its abundance; but you will not become blind if you can compare food and nutrition with each other and are convinced of the truth, that the material and intellectual prosperity of each folk is strictly connected with its nutrition”.291 Here, material well-being means economic growth, and thus increased production in the whole colony. The argument of efficiency was, as we have seen, also Moleschott’s argument for a better way of feeding the people: in the same amount of time, they would have worked better and produced more in the factories. Again, this is not precisely a socialist argument and, as was the case with the reasons for introducing the teaching of physical education at school, it clearly disproves the interpretation of Moleschott as holding radical political positions close to

289 Mulder, De voeding van den neger in Suriname, 4: “Ik zou de voorvechters van de gelijke regten der menschen onderling, de strijders van de gelijkheid van allen voor de wet, wel wenschen af te vragen, of zij in hunne plannen van bevordering dier regten van den mensch ook niet het eten en het drinken van de menschdom zouden opnemen; want zoolang de een stevig voedsel, de ander wel veel, maar slecht voedsel bekomt, is er ongelijkheid in regten, in denken, in gevoelen; […].” 290 Ludwig Büchner, Darwinismus und Sozialismus, oder der Kampf um das Dasein und die moderne Gesellschaft (Leipzig: Günthers, 1894), 3-4. 291 Mulder, De voeding van den neger in Suriname, 36: “De weelderige tropische vegetatie verblindt door hare overdaad; maar hij wordt daardoor niet verblind, die voedsel en voeding onderling vergelijken kan en van de waarheid is doordrongen, dat de stoffelijke en intellectueele welvaart van elk volk met zijne voeding naauw zamenhangt.”

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socialism or even communism: to the contrary, he always represented liberal views and stuck to them during his whole life. In order to have more efficient production in the colony, Mulder suggested introducing animal farming, which would have brought manure for cultivating plants other than banana trees, and at the same time would have provided animals, which would digest and transform vegetables into proteins, making them available for humans in the form of meat.292 Indeed, Mulder thought that someone who would be too busy digesting (like a ruminating cow) would not be able to think: “If the cow eats the whole day long, and thereby collects proteins for us, then be this precisely a sign, that beings, which think and eat, must have another kind of food, than the beast, which does not think. He, who walked through the earth as collector of proteins from the vegetable reign, for sure would have a big stomach like a cow, but thinking and being human will he do as much less, as his stomach has too much to do.ˮ293

In De voeding van Nederlanders, instead, Mulder had dealt with the more practical issue of how to keep meat prices low; he wrote this booklet after a proposal for a tax on meat had been refused by the Parliament, which Mulder regarded as a success, but only a partial success.294 Interestingly, he did not only address the governors, but first and foremost the population: in fact, he believed that policies of import and export, as well as economic policies in general, could be changed from below. Thus, he was convinced that precisely by the spreading information about the amount of nutrients of different sorts of food and their prices, the consumers would change their buying habits and the supply would be modified according to demand.295 At the beginning of this publication, Mulder quoted his two previous works (“De voeding in Nederland” and “De voeding van den Neger [in Suriname]”), as well as the works published by his “friend” Franciscus Cornelis Donders “over de voedingsbeginselen” (“on the principles of nutrition”), as well as by Moleschott, specifically his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel für das Volk.296 Therefore, he explicitly stated the tradition in which his work was situated: this shows that Mulder, Donders, and Moleschott understood 292 Mulder, De voeding van den neger in Suriname, 35. 293 Ibidem: “Eet de koe den ganschen dag door, en verzamelt zij daarbij voor ons de proteine, dan zij dit juist een teeken, dat wezens, die denken en eten, ander voedsel moeten hebben, dan het beest, dat niet denkt. Die als verzamelaar van proteine uit het plantenrijk de aarde bewandelt, hij heeft zeker eene groote maag als de koe, maar denken en mensch zijn zal hij zoo veel minder, als zijne maag te veel te doen heeft.” 294 Gerrit Jan [=Johannes] Mulder, De voeding van Nederlanders (Rotterdam: Kramers, 1854), 4-5. 295 These liberal ideas are expressed in Mulder, De voeding van Nederlanders, 4-6. 296 Mulder, De voeding van Nederlanders, 6.

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their thoughts on nutrition and physiology as belonging to the same school. However, while recognizing that his two friends had contributed to the subject of nutrition with works that “illustrate the matter from a perspective [which is] at the same time scientific and popularizing”, he maintained that there was a lack of works dealing with this topic from a more practical perspective, and for this reason he decided to publish such a popularizing booklet.297 Moleschott’s speech at the Italian Senate was, thirty years later, an affirmation of these ideas, as well as of the background assumption that nutrition is essential for the healthy development and political power of a nation, transferred and adapted to the Italian context. This once more confirms the idea that Moleschott’s political speeches were a continuation of his scientific popularization in another context and on a different level. On the one hand, Mulder could count on a broad diffusion of his writings, and therefore on a direct effect on public opinion (which, as he himself knew, could influence the mechanism of supply and demand and also exert a certain political pressure). On the other hand, in Italy, Moleschott had a much more restricted audience of readers (in relative terms, i.e. with respect to the total population of the Netherlands and of Italy), but he knew that he could, as a Senator, directly influence certain fiscal policies (and, therefore, social conditions). Both in Moleschott’s and in Mulder’s writings, the central idea was that nutrition directly influenced both the physical and moral conditions of the people and therefore of the overall national population. Nutrition was thus interpreted as one of the strategic issues for affirming national power: on the one hand, it strengthened the body of the nation – indeed, Moleschott wrote two publications on the alimentation of soldiers ready for war, and Mulder had dealt with the issue of the diet of Dutch soldiers as well.298 On the other hand, it was precisely through “balanced” nutrition (according to them both, “balanced” meant very rich in proteins, which were both for Mulder and for Moleschott the most important nutrient) of their people that nations could also strengthen their moral character, and thus make them better citizens, who, paraphrasing Mulder’s expression, could think better and more because they would not be busy transforming the food in their stomach: if they ate cows, the cow, as “transformer of vegetables into proteins”, would have already done this job for them during its life, and would now constitute a concentrate of ready proteins (the expression recalled, by the way, Liebig’s meat-extract). Cows were thus seen as “protein-collectors” for humans, and humans should therefore exploit them: “Therefore the human 297 Mulder, De voeding van Nederlanders, 6-7: “Eigenlijk is er, naar het schijnt, dus geene behoefte meer in deze dagen aan geschriften in ons vaderland, om het onderwerp toe te lichten uit een wetenschappelijk en tevens populair oogpunt. Is dit ook zo uit een praktisch oogpunt? In verband met de toekomst zeker niet; zelf niet in verband met onze tegenwoordige toestand.” 298 Mulder, De voeding van Nederlanders, 55.

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race will act in the right way, employing the animals as collectors of proteins from the vegetable reign, and for the cultivation of other plants, which could not grow strong without manure (ammonia, phosphoric acid, calcium, etc.)”.299 Although this may seem odd to some of us nowadays, Mulder presented these thoughts as morally valuable and justified them as philanthropic. As we will see in the next section, morality was in fact a central issue in the justification of Moleschott’s theories of nutrition and of his arguments against the grist tax.

Moleschott’s Speech on the Abolition of the Macinato: A Close Reading Let us now turn to a close reading of Moleschott’s own speech, which he gave at the Senate on January 17, 1880: even though this was the only occasion on which he dealt with the topic, the speech is quite long, for it occupies eighteen pages (each consisting of two columns) in the Senate reports. As with most of his Senate speeches, it was published separately as a small pamphlet, thus reaching a broader audience beyond the politicians.300 I would like to consider it not only as a political speech, but also as a form of scientific popularization: as I have argued, Moleschott continued his popularizing activity in Italy, but adapted its form to the new social and political context. First of all, then, this Senate speech is a clear example of how he managed to adapt his way of popularizing science (specifically, nutritional theories) by embedding it in an overtly political context. In this way, Moleschott’s Senate speech on the abolition of the grist tax can be interpreted as standing in a line of continuity with Mulder’s pamphlets, as well as with his own great popularizing books, first of all the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, which he had published in Germany thirty years earlier. Moleschott’s speech clearly shows how the interaction between science and politics, as well as the different social contexts, shaped the way of popularizing and spreading scientific ideas. 299 Mulder, De voeding van den neger in Suriname, 10: “Dus zal de menschelijk geslacht wel doen, de dieren tot verzamelaars van eiwitstoffen uit het plantenrijk te bezigen, en ten anderen planten te kweeken, die zonder mest (ammonia, phosphorzuur, kalk, enz.) niet krachtig groeijen kunnen.” Emphasis in the original. 300 The speech I am dealing with is reported in BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, Seguito della discussione generale del progetto di legge per l’abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano, 2809-2827. Like many of Moleschott’s Senate speeches, it was published separately as: Jacob Moleschott, Abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano: discorso pronunziato al Senato nella tornata del 17 gennaio 1880 (Rome: Tip. del Senato, 1880).

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Moreover, the same speech also shows how scientific arguments were transferred to the political domain. The fight for a healthy (national) body took place on several levels: in Moleschott’s case, this was not limited to scientific publications and to popularization, but also included parliamentary debates on physical education and on food levies. Having the power to contribute in the debates on taxation, Moleschott declared himself to be in favor of the abolition of the grist tax (macinato) and pled for a higher taxation of luxury products and of products that caused “vicious behaviors”, such as tobacco.301 Moleschott characterized his statements as the view of an expert on the subject of nutrition. Basically, his scientific argument in favor of the abolition of the grist tax was that such a tax provoked a decrease in the consumption of wheat flour and an increase in the consumption of corn. In fact, Moleschott believed, as Lombroso did, that bad corn flour was the cause of pellagra. But the most important reason why he believed that wheat was more valuable than corn was its higher protein content. In other words, wheat was considered to be more efficient in providing energy for “the most important and most precious machine” in war situations (Moleschott took up the expression from the speech of the Minister of War), “the one which is called man”.302 It was in this context that Moleschott applied his theory of nutrition to the social reality: the aim of his theory was, first and foremost, shaping an efficient society, with efficient workers, and above all efficient soldiers (in fact, Moleschott published two studies on the most appropriate diet for soldiers and for troops).303 The reference to proteins (and not to carbohydrates, although speaking about a kind of food which is not among the richest in proteins) is easily understandable in the context of the high nutritional value attributed by Moleschott to proteins, as he had theorized it e.g. in the fifth section of the first chapter of the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, or in the tenth letter of his Kreislauf des Lebens.304 In the 301 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, Seguito della discussione generale del progetto di legge per l’abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano, 2823. 302 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, Seguito della discussione generale del progetto di legge per l’abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano, 2824. 303 Jacob Moleschott, Sulla razione giornaliera di viveri ordinata per le truppe italiane sul piede di guerra: considerazioni (Torino: G. Favale, 1866). Jacob Moleschott, “Sulla razione del soldato italiano: relazione di Jac. Moleschott”. Rivista militare italiana (1883): 5-31. 304 Moleschott appealed to “statistical data” on page 2824 of the reports, when speaking about the daily amount of proteins necessary for an average man, having to carry out an average amount of work. Thus, he did not refer to experimental results in nutritional science, but to statistics. Interestingly, Ludwig Büchner also appealed to statistics when describing the problems of contemporary society in his Darwinismus und Sozialismus, 2-3.

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Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, Moleschott referred to Mulder, explaining that he assigned a high nutritional value to proteins, and that therefore the fact that Mulder called proteins “proteins” could be interpreted, on the one hand, as a reference to their capacity of being transformed into many different components of the human body, thus deriving from the Greek god Proteus, who was able to constantly change his aspect and form; on the other hand, the name is said to be related to their prominent place in human and animal metabolism, thus from the Greek word πρῶτος.305 Hence, Greek etymology and references to ancient Greek mythology played a significant role not only in his Italian speeches, but also in his German popularizing works. Moreover, Moleschott applied his scientific theories to the national economy, for instance through the parallelism between balanced State finances (“pareggio nel bilancio dello stato”) on the one hand, and balance between spent energy and introduced calories in the human organism (in this speech, he also called this process “pareggio del bilancio”) on the other hand.306 The parallelism between State and individual organism was a typical feature not only in Moleschott’s political speeches: in the programmatic first article of the popularizing journal Die Natur, which was entitled Die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaft and written by Otto Ule (Moleschott’s brother-in-law), human beings and their society are characterized as a microcosm, reproducing the structure of the whole of nature, of that greater macrocosm they are part of and depend on.307 Last but not least, this speech shows, once more, that Moleschott was not defending any radical political view, but that he rather tended toward conciliation and liberal views: the main motif of Moleschott’s speech on the abolition of the grist tax was the ancient Roman concept and value of concordia. Conciliation was a central ethical as well as epistemic value not only for Moleschott, but also for most of the natural scientists who were involved in scientific popularization in the middle of the nineteenth century. In Otto Ule’s article in Die Natur, for instance, one of the main tasks of natural science was said to be conciliation (“Versöhnung”) between human beings 305 Cf. Moleschott, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, 34. 306 The analogy between κόσμος and πόλις, between human organism and State organism, was a typical feature of Platonism and Neo-Platonism, which reinforces the hypothesis that neo-platonic thought was an important component of freethinking milieus, such as Ernst Haeckel’s “Monistenbund” or Ludwig Büchner’s “Freidenkerbund” (cf. Kockerbeck, Briefwechsel, 40, 60); or, in Moleschott’s specific case, the Dutch freethinkers’ association “De Dageraadˮ, of which he was a member, and, perhaps, the “Oratorio di Via Belsiana” in Rome, with its meetings of scientists, musicians, and literary scholars. 307 Cf. Otto Ule, “Die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaft”. Die Natur. Zeitung zur Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntniß und Naturanschauung für Leser aller Stände, 1 (January 3, 1852): 2-4. On Die Natur and Otto Ule’s programmatic first article in the context of scientific popularization in nineteenth-century Germany, cf. Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert, 337-358.

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and the natural world to which they belonged. Moleschott justified his position against the grist tax because it caused a clash between the government and the governed and, in his opinion, such a conflict must not be approached in any way: “I am well aware – he stated – that whoever dares to touch a flagrant question, touches fire, that he plays with fire, and that it could happen to him that he spreads a spark, which, should that ever happen, I wish it would be in order to enlighten not to burn, and should it become fire, certainly it will not inflame”.308 In this short passage, we can notice a climax related to the image of fire. This incipit can be interpreted as a sort of captatio benevolentiae, which was meant to announce from the very beginning the non-polemical character of his speech – coherently with its development and above all with the conclusion under the leading mark of concordia. Values were fundamental to the whole discourse about the taxation of wheat flour. Although the issue might seem of a very “material” kind, it was not only and not mainly on this level that the debates at the Senate concentrated, but rather on the intangible level of values such as “intelligence, virtue, love for truth, probity, patriotism”, as we can read in the following lines from the beginning of Moleschott’s speech: “I thus promise that I will do my best not to go out from the unfortunately too restricted limits of my personal competence. And yet I must start with a general declaration, I must affirm that the initiators of the billproposal do not pretend to be more liberal than their adversaries; but, Sirs, I must affirm, too, that it is my deep conviction and I dare say the deep conviction of my friends, that intelligence, virtue, love for truth, probity, patriotism, are not prerogatives of any opinion, and even less of any party.ˮ309

308 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2822: “Sono ben consapevole che chiunque osi toccare una questione flagrante, tocca il fuoco, maneggia il fuoco, e che potrà succedergli di spargere una scintilla, il che se mai dovesse succedere, voglio augurarmi che sia per illuminare non per ardere, e se mai dovesse infiammare, certamente non sarà per incendiare.” 309 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2823: “Prometto adunque di fare il mio meglio per non uscire dai purtroppo ristretti limiti della mia personale competenza. Eppure io devo esordire con una dichiarazione generale, io devo affermare che i fautori del progetto di legge non pretendono di essere più liberali degli avversari; ma, Signori, devo pure affermare ch’è mio profondo convincimento ed oso dire profondo convincimento de’ miei amici, che la sapienza, la virtù, l’amore del vero, la probità, il patriottismo, non sono prerogative di alcuna opinione, e tanto meno di alcun partito.”

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In this passage, Moleschott mentioned liberalism, as well as nationalist (“patriotism”), moral (“virtue”, “probity”) and epistemic (“love for truth”) values as motivating his position in favor of the abolition of the tax. However, when dealing with the amount of proteins in wheat and corn flour, Moleschott seems to reconvert the issue into a “material” one by underlining the dependency of behavior on nutrition on the one hand, and the consequences for the economic conditions of the lower classes on the other hand. As he declared: “By voting for the bill, not only will we favor the moral and physical prosperity of the people, but we will also bring benefit to the finances of the plebes.”310 Continuous exchange between the level of ideas and the level of matter, between values and science, between ethics and nutrition, was typical for Moleschott’s work and thought: on the one hand, the idea that behavior, ethics and thought depend on nutrition is typical for his popularizing works on nutrition from the beginning of his career, such as the Kreislauf and the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel; on the other hand, he identified ideals as being the basis of both the scientist’s and the politician’s work. This should not be understood as incoherence: it is rather typical for the processes of adaptation and translation taking place between different forms of practice and communication. Moleschott’s Senate speeches, especially, reflect that common idealist rhetoric which characterized the intellectual environment in Italy at that time, when neo-idealism was very popular and its conciliation with positivism had already been attempted by, among others, Salvatore Tommasi, a scientist and fellow Senator whom Moleschott admired.311 Moleschott thus conformed to the language and the philosophical and cultural background of these political discussions, which were dominated by Neo-Hegelianism (as we have seen, this perspective was not foreign to him, since he had absorbed Hegelian philosophy through Moritz Carrière in Heidelberg, and even earlier, at high school in Cleves). A common feature that is present both in this speech and in Moleschott’s opening lectures is the reference to history as justification of his own position: here, he recalled the decision of the economist and politician Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683)

310 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2824: “Votando la legge, noi non favoriremo soltanto la prosperità fisica e morale del popolo, noi porteremo un vantaggio ancora alle finanze del popolino.” 311 Moleschott commemorated Tommasi at the Senate after his death: Jacob Moleschott, Commemorazione del senatore Salvatore Tommasi: parole del senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziate nella tornata del 20 luglio 1888 (Roma: Forzani e C., tipografi del Senato, 1888). On Moleschott and the neo-idealist cultural milieu in Italy, cf. Savorelli, “Jakob Moleschott e la cultura italiana del suo tempo”.

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during the reign of Luis XIV, who decided to tax luxury goods and successfully repaired the State’s finances.312 Moreover, Moleschott argued that such a tax did not apply to objects absolutely necessary for life, and thus enabled a “truly democratic distribution” of the due amount of taxes (and therefore of wealth). Later on, he referred to his professional and ideological position of “physician” and “representative of the movement for hygiene” (“igienico”), as well as of “philanthropist” and “politician”, who desired that “air and light, water, salt and bread” be “free” for everyone.313 Here, it is not clear what “free” really meant: in the case of air and light, it is likely that it meant “completely free from any form of payment”, but in the case of salt and bread, it is more likely that it meant “free of taxation”; it is possible that Moleschott consciously left this ambiguity, since water is mentioned in the middle of the other two couples of concepts (“air and light” and “salt and bread”). Thus, the impression one gets from the speech is that the concepts appeared in a climax, starting with the goods that were most obviously free, and ending with the ones upon which there was no consensus yet: bread was mentioned on the last place, and the taxation of bread was exactly the topic of the discussion.314 Then, Moleschott proposed a progressive form of taxation (the current Italian denomination of the tax system described by Moleschott would be “più che progressivo”, “more than progressive”), and presented it as being “democratic”: instead of taxing goods that are essential to human survival, he argued, the government should vote for a more democratic and fair taxation, that is, for a tax on unnecessary, superfluous goods, which increases proportionally to the value of those goods. Moleschott justified his position in favor of the taxation of superfluous goods through a good deal of Latin and Greek expressions (five in six lines) – specifically, for an increase in the taxation of goods which were typical for the upper class and the abolition of the taxation on some basic products, favoring the lower classes, he would be in need of the consent of the upper class, which he obtained only through expressing his ideas in their own terms, and even exaggerating them:

312 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2823. 313 Ibidem: “Imperocché da medico ed igienista, da filantropo e politico desidero libere l’aria e la luce, l’acqua, il sale ed il pane.” 314 As we have just seen Moleschott claims to speak as an “igienico”, i.e. adhering to the movement of “hygiene”, and air, water, and light, were important elements in the theories of the German Hygieniker, and their lack or corruption was thought to be the real cause of illness: cf. Erwin H. Ackerknecht, “Antikontagionismus zwischen 1821 und 1867”, in Bakteriologie und Moderne. Studien zur Biopolitik des Unsichtbaren 1870-1920, ed. by Philipp Sarasin, Silvia Berger, Marianne Hänseler, and Myriam Spörri (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), 90.

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“And since we speak of a democratic tax, we should be brave enough to impose a tax which is proportional to the wealth of individuals, I would be about to say not proportionate to its simple value, but to an intermediate proportion, and even increasing within the limits of this average, [intermediate] between the first and the second degree, increasing, that is, from the first degree to the square of wealth. But please do not call democratic the tax imposed upon bread, about which each of us should recognize that the poorer someone is, the more he needs it. The ones using the word democratic for the grist tax, in my opinion, are not victims of a lapsus linguae, but of a lapsus verbi, a lapsus vocaboli [sic], a leap of word; since with the grist tax it is not the people who are governing, it is the people who are oppressed, not ὁ δῆμος κρατεῖ, but κρατεῖ τὸν δῆμον.”315

As we can see, Moleschott’s speech displays a quite sophisticated rhetorical structure: here, he underpinned his argument with a play on words based on the Greek origin of the term democracy, from δῆμος, people, and κράτος, force, meaning that, in the case of the macinato, κράτος (force) would not be exerted by the people, but upon them. This is coherent with what Moleschott himself declared to be the motto of the position he represented: “My position is very simple: one should not establish levies on hunger and health, but instead on luxury and vice.”316 However, Moleschott’s rhetorical strategy was not limited to quotations of ancient Greek phrases and Latin expressions: in fact, in his discourse, both the classics and modern experimental science are involved, as is evident from the use of an argument from physiology and experimental psychology (the Fechner-Weber law) as an economic-political argument.317 Its transfer from the scientific to the political context exemplifies the constant intermingling of science and politics in Moleschott’s speech: 315 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2823: “E poiché parliamo d’imposta democratica, abbiamo il coraggio d’imporre una tassa in proporzione della ricchezza degli individui, starei per dire non in ragione semplice del valore, ma in una ragione che possa essere intermedia, ed anche dentro i limiti dell’intermedio salire, fra la prima potenza e la seconda, salire cioè dalla prima potenza al quadrato della ricchezza. Ma non chiamiamo di grazia democratica la imposta che colpisce il pane, del quale dobbiamo pure tutti riconoscere che ne ha tanto più bisogno l’uomo, quanto più è povero. Chi adopera la parola democratica per la tassa del macinato, a mio avviso non è vittima di un lapsus linguae, egli cagiona un vero lapsus verbi, un lapsus vocaboli, un capitombolo della parola; imperocché colla tassa del macinato non è il popolo che regge, è il popolo che è oppresso, non ὁ δῆμος κρατεῖ, ma κρατεῖ τὸν δῆμον.” Moleschott’s own emphasis. 316 Ibidem: “Per me la divisa è assai semplice: non colpire la fame e la salute, colpire invece il lusso ed il vizio.” 317 Alessandra Gissi, in the art. “Jakob Moleschott”, Dizionario Biografico Treccani, vol. 75 (2011)

(http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/jacob-moleschott_%28Dizionario_Bio

320 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “All of them, who have been studying modern physiology and psychology, I should say experimental psychology, know that there is a field in which these two branches [again, Moleschott used the image of the tree of knowledge, ‘branch’ being anyway frequently used in this metaphorical sense in the Italian language, L.M.] of science kindheartedly and (vis unita fortior) victoriously join each other’s hands. It is a law, not a fact, an already well proved law, that, if we are subject to two impressions (the physiologist would call them two stimuli), or if we can distinguish, for instance, two impressions of a more or less similar degree, if we then considerably increase one of these values, in order to be still able to distinguish it from another value, also similar to it, one must not add always the same constant value, i.e. an absolute difference; instead, one must add an aliquot that is proportional to the original value.”318

In the following part of the speech, Moleschott applied the Fechner-Weber law to economic matters, thereby using it to show the relativity of numbers. In this way, he justified his own position in favor of a progressive taxation and therefore his vote for the abrogation of the grist tax. He wanted to demonstrate that measures, quantities, and numbers did not have an absolute value, but that instead they are always relative to those that they are compared to: “This is why, Gentlemen, I dare to say that figures are as rigorous as the law, but not as absolute as a tyrant.”319 Thus, Moleschott transferred his own expertise in the field of experimental science to the political field: he presented his main argument not as a mere argument but as “a law, not a fact, an already well proved law”,320 which corresponded to stating that his own position was not just an opinion, but a universal law with irrefutable proofs. However, this would

grafico%29/, last seen November 22, 2015) maintains that Moleschott, in his lecture “Dei limit della natura umana” (1862), explained the significance of the Fechner-Weber law for the first time in Italy. 318 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2825: “Tutti coloro che si sono alquanto occupati degli studi moderni della fisiologia e della psicologia, dovrei dire della psicologia sperimentale, sanno che vi è un campo in cui i due rami di scienza si danno affettuosamente e (vis unita fortior) vittoriosamente la mano. È una legge, non un fatto, una legge oramai bene accertata, che, se noi dobbiamo subire due impressioni (il fisiologo direbbe due eccitamenti), o se siamo capaci di distinguerne, per esempio, due di grado piò o meno vicino, se poi noi aumentiamo considerevolmente l’uno di quei valori, all’uopo di distinguerlo ancora da un altro valore pure ad esso vicino, non si tratta di aggiungere il medesimo valore costante, ossia una assoluta differenza; bisogna aggiungere invece un’aliquota proporzionale al valore primitivo.” 319 Ibidem: “Ecco perché, o Signori, io oso dire che le cifre sono rigorose come la legge, ma non sono assolute come un tiranno.” 320 Ibidem.

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probably not have been enough to convince his audience, who were mostly not acquainted with the Fechner-Weber law, and would have wondered how a physiologicpsychological law might apply to political economy. This is why Moleschott promptly explained that, in economic matters, the population had been acquainted with this law for a long time: “Nevertheless – he stated – here we are dealing with the same thing that has been repeating itself so many times in the presence of a satisfactory, exact, precise formula, which science could achieve. That fact which, academically speaking, has been proved in the field of experimental psychology, common sense has known for centuries, in the field of economics”.321 In other words, Moleschott stated that what science proved to be a law in experimental physiology was familiar to everyone as common sense and was long since accepted as being valid on the practical level. The speech ended with the keyword of “conciliation” (concordia) as the highly important reason why the Senate should approve the law on the abolition of the macinato: “I shall repeat it in another way, I do not believe that figures are inexorable; and to him, who wants to affirm that, I would answer that in my opinion there is something even more inexorable, and this more inexorable thing is for me the need for conciliation”.322 In this way, Moleschott highlighted the political meaning of the law and, above all, he remarked that its political value of conciliation and concord should be taken into much higher consideration than the possible financial deficit deriving from it. In his opinion, the Senate had to vote for the abolition of the tax on wheat flour because a vote against the abolition would have meant a clash of the Senate with the Parliament (in fact, financial matters were usually a prerogative of the Parliament).323 As we have already noticed, another typical rhetorical feature of Moleschott’s speeches was taking up a concept and transferring it to another field; in this case, the image of “leap” was transferred from “leap into darkness” and “leap into deficit” to “leap into discord”, where the latter was presented as much more dangerous than the former:

321 Ibidem: “Senonché abbiamo qui la medesima cosa che si è ripetuta tante volte di fronte a una felice, esatta, precisa formola, che la scienza ha potuto raggiungere. Quel fatto che, a parlare dottamente, venne accertato sul campo della psicologia sperimentale, il senso comune del popolo lo conosce da secoli, nel campo dell’economia.” 322 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2826: “Ve lo ripeto con altra formola, io non credo che le cifre siano inesorabili; ed a colui che volesse affermarlo, io risponderei che a mio avviso vi ha qualcosa di più inesorabile ancora, e questo qualcosa di più inesorabile è per me il bisogno di concordia.” 323 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 396.

322 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “Now I will tell you frankly, that if we want to speak about a leap into darkness that would occur with the abolition of the macinato, the true leap into darkness in my opinion would not be the leap into that small deficit, if it really exists; the leap into darkness would be the leap into discord. There is something much worse than the secessio plebis ad montem sacrum, and that worse thing would be the secessio Senatus ad comitiis. […] Concordia res parvae crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur.ˮ324

Contrarily to the secessio plebis ad montem sacrum, which has a place in Roman history as a political event, the secessio Senatus ad comitiis is an expression Moleschott used to continue the parallelism with ancient Roman institutions: this Latin expression indicated a withdrawal of the Senate from the comitia curiata (Curiate Assembly), and Moleschott described through it the possible clash between the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, should the grist tax not be abolished. Thus, the speech ended with an appeal to the Latin concept of concordia, which, as we have seen, referred to several instances: conciliation between Senate and Parliament, as well as conciliation between government and governed. In this way, the argument for the right to equally valuable nutrition as justified by Moleschott was explicitly connected with the task of the natural sciences: as we have seen, conciliation (Versöhnung) was at least since the 1850s the task of the natural sciences as it was understood by the scientists themselves and, above all, as it was popularized, e.g. in the popularizing periodical Die Natur. In a line of continuity with the liberal tradition he was so often referring to, Moleschott pointed at social inequalities, but also excluded every form of clear-cut break 324 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII, Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, 2826: “Ora vi dico con franchezza, se si vuol parlare di un salto nel buio che si farebbe colla abolizione del macinato, il vero salto nel buio per me non sarebbe il salto in quel piccolo deficit, se veramente esiste; il salto nel buio per me sarebbe il salto nella discordia. Vi è una cosa più grave della secessio plebis ad montem sacrum, e quella cosa più grave sarebbe la secessio Senatus ad comitiis. […] Concordia res parvae crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur.” The expression secessio plebis ad montem sacrum refers to the secessio of the Plebs to the Mons Sacer, or withdrawal of the commoners, a form of protest in Roman history which took place three to five times between 494 and 287 BC, when the populace of the Aventine went to the Mons Sacer as a sign of protest (a sort of general strike, which left the patricians alone and blocked most commercial activities as well as military conscription). Cf. Feliciano Serrao, “Secessione e giuramento della plebe al Monte Sacro”. Index. Quaderni camerti di studi romanistici, 35 (2007): 13-26. The event is narrated by Titus Livius, Ab Urbe condita, III, in particular 51-52. Concordia res parvae crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur means: “In harmony, small things grow, in discordance, the greatest things fall apart.” The expression comes from Sallust, Bellum Iugurthinum, 10.

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with current political systems and, coherently with Otto Ule’s idea that the natural sciences were meant to bear the task of conciliation in modern society, Moleschott’s political speeches were also explicitly set as conciliating, aiming not at ignoring social and political problems, but at solving them through reforms. However, in comparison with Ludwig Büchner’s political writings, which remained highly theoretical and failed to have any direct influence on reality,325 Moleschott’s speeches did indeed have a direct impact on the political decisions made within the Italian Parliament. As we have seen in the case of the debate on higher education and on the introduction of physical education in schools, their particularity is that they dealt with practical matters (even the most “material” ones, such as the grist tax) in the most idealistic way, including references to the classics, to Roman law and to Greek mythology.

C ONCLUSION : P OLITICS , N ATURAL S CIENCE , AND THE F UNCTION OF THE C LASSICS What does Moleschott’s speech teach us about the macinato debates? And what does it add to the understanding of Moleschott’s worldview? How does it illustrate the entanglement of science and politics? On the one hand, it fits with the rhetoric of the Left, insofar as Moleschott defended the abrogation of the bill and a complete abolition of the grist tax as a way to stabilize Italian politics; on the other hand, it introduced elements of novelty into it: for the first time, a politician was showing the injustice of the macinato from a physiological and nutritional point of view. As usual, however, Moleschott did not content himself with his scientific knowledge: instead, he embedded it in a network of references to high culture, especially Latin and Greek quotes, as he did in the debates about physical education and higher education.326 Through these references, Moleschott was inscribing his speech in the framework of that high culture which was binding together Italy’s upper classes and the ruling class in particular: before – as well as long after – the unification, high culture (including literature, music, figurative arts, and theatre) constituted the main boundary of the elites of the different pre-Unitarian states (as Raymond Grew has noted, it was even more important than common trade interests, since these were usually insignificant). In high culture journals and works of art, politics was one of the central themes (politics in a broad sense, since particular interests were different from state to state) and, after the formation of the new Italian State, political opinions were expressed and

325 Cf. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 212. 326 On the “importance of high culture” in nineteenth-century Italy, cf. Raymond Grew, “Culture and Society, 1796-1896”, in Italy in the Nineteenth Century (1796-1900), ed. John A. Davis (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2000), 206-234.

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spread through literary means and terminologies (very often, through artistic and literary works).327 Moleschott’s speeches are fully understandable only against this background: in fact, literature and culture were part of his worldview at least as much as physiology and natural science were, and his political speeches were a synthesis of scientific considerations, empirical observations, and images taken from that high culture which was shared by all of his colleagues and his readers. In this respect, Moleschott’s Senate speeches differ substantially from his German popularizing writings, which were written for a larger, middle-class public (the middleclass was essentially much broader and more important in the German states in the 1850s than in Italy in the 1880s).328 However, they do not differ from his opening lectures at the University which he gave starting from 1861: in fact, both his Senate speeches and his lectures are characterized by references to high culture, alternating references to literature and cultural history with references to the history of the natural sciences. His conception of science as the synthesis of the humanities and the natural sciences, where “naturalists” would collaborate with “poets” and “the physicist” would “absorb a great part of metaphysics” is exemplified in his own speeches, in which he integrated scientific arguments, the references to values, and rhetorical strategies based on the classics. A common feature of the debates we have been dealing with in this chapter is the constant and conscious reference to the classics. As we have seen, this feature was also present in Moleschott’s opening lectures, and, to a certain extent, also in his scientific popularization. What we can observe, however, is that the reference to classical culture became more and more important during Moleschott’s career: whereas in his German popularizing writings he addressed the middle class, references to high culture increased significantly during his Italian period, when he addressed the academic and political elite, or anyway, the upper class. Not only did references to high culture become more important in his Italian than in his early German writings, but it also seems that during his time in Rome (in the speeches at the Senate, as well as on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue to Giordano Bruno) they played an even more significant role than in his academic speeches. The references to the classics were not just a formality empty of meaning, but also substantially indicated a cluster of shared values: together with more general references to high culture, Moleschott always underlined the role of certain moral, political, or epistemic values.329 Specifically, the values Moleschott referred to were the values of classical humanism, which he presented as being fundamental to both 327 Ibidem. 328 On the middle class in liberal Italy, cf. Banti, Storia della borghesia italiana. 329 For “epistemic virtues” and “ethical values” in scientific practice and in the self-understanding of scientists, cf. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity.

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scientific research and politics: humanness,330 perfection of the form, moral and political education (in particular, the importance of teaching discipline was an integral part of his speech on gymnastics), the ideal of pure science (anti-utilitarianism), or science for the sake of science, and passion (enthusiasm) as a motivating force in scientific research and study. Thus, the debate on the macinato constitutes an interesting example of integration of arguments from the natural sciences with arguments from classical antiquity. In this sense, it also represents two different kinds of transfers, since both scientific arguments and classical culture were transferred to the political domain and adapted to its context. Moreover, I have shown that the debate supports the thesis according to which Moleschott’s political speeches were at the same time a continuation of his scientific popularization: as we have seen, this continuity is particularly evident if we consider Moleschott’s justification of the abolition of the grist tax in the context of his earlier German writings on nutrition, as well as of Johannes Mulder’s ideas on nutritional politics.

330 On the history of the concept of “humanness” cf. Hans Erich Bödeker, “Menschheit, Humanität, Humanismus”, in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1982), 1063-1128.

Cultural Politics: The Civilizing Mission of Science

As we have seen, ethical values such as the ideal of humanity were central elements of Moleschott’s conception of science, as well as of higher education and politics. In fact, it played an important role in many of the projects Moleschott engaged in: from public hygiene to the speech given on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno, from the commemoration of his fellow Senators and university colleagues, to the ideal of a developed and rationally organized society. In the following chapter, we will deal with the centrality of the ideal of humanity in the associations promoting the realization of such a “rational” society. As we will see, Moleschott himself engaged in several of these associations, which aimed at applying scientific theories to society. The sources I deal with are the documents regarding the Congrès International pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales, including the program and the correspondence; Moleschott’s speeches on Giordano Bruno in 1889 (both the Italian and the Dutch version) and the fragments of another public speech; a letter Moleschott sent to the publisher Emil Roth in Giessen; and the documents and reports of the Conférence Sanitaire Internationale de Rome (1885). Such diverse sources can be considered as instances of Moleschott’s engagement in cultural politics, whereas the letters he wrote help to understand the function popularization had for him in the shaping of cultural politics. There are many ways in which Moleschott contributed to the shaping of cultural politics in the Italian nation-state. One of them was his engagement in associations based on the idea of scientific progress and having as their main aim the improvement of society: their activities ranged from fostering the introduction of hygienic standards to supporting mutual help associations.1 These associations of scientists, a typi-

1

Moleschott was also a member of the Association française pour lʼavancement des sciences (cf. the invitation sent to Moleschott from the Association française pour lʼavancement des

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cal phenomenon for nineteenth-century scientific organizations, understood themselves as having a “civilizing” mission.2 Some examples in Europe are the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association française pour l’avancement des sciences, the Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (on which we will focus in the next pages), and the Società italiana per il progresso delle scienze (even though this association was founded only later, in 1907, its coming into being had already been a wish of Moleschott’s colleague at the Senate, the chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro).3 Although “multidisciplinary congresses” had already taken place in Italy (before as well as after the unification),4 a permanent association that would be able to spread scientific culture and “regulate the relationship between scientists and government and, therefore, invest the scientific community of a social responsibility and a public role in the modernization process” did not yet exist.5 In this sense, Moleschott can be considered an innovator in Italy, since these kinds of associations were founded only later, between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, and one can suppose that the meetings of sciences, July 15, 1882: BCABo, FSM 5.29 (new). The letter was signed by Claude Bernard, Président, who invited him to “la première session de cette Association”, which “aura lieu à Bordeaux du Jeudi 5 au Jeudi 12 Septembre”) and the British Association for the Advancement of Science (cf. the invitation to Moleschott to participate in its 33rd meeting from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, May 11, 1863: BCABo, FSM 7.25 (new); Moleschott was invited to the meeting “to be held at Newcastle-UponTyne 26th August, 1863”; cf. also the letter from Bath, June 6, 1864, with the invitation to the “meeting for Wednesday the 14th September, under the Presidency of Sir Charles Lyell”, signed by Charles Moore, Charles E. Davis, H.H. Winwood, Local Hon. Secretaries for the Bath Meeting, as well as the letter from A. Noble, R.C. Clapham, A.H. Hunt, Local Secretaries for the Meeting in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne). 2

Concerning the associations of scientists in Italy, cf. Sandra Linguerri, “Tempi e forme dell’associazionismo scientifico”, in Scienza e cultura dell’Italia unita, Annali 26 of the Storia d’Italia, ed. Francesco Cassata and Claudio Pogliano (Torino: Einaudi, 2011), 83101; as far as the foundation of the Società italiana per il progresso delle scienze is concerned, cf. page 84 in particular.

3

Scientific associations were a general European phenomenon in the nineteenth century; however, an Italian association equivalent to the Association internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales, the Società italiana per il progresso dele scienze, was founded only in 1907 by the mathematician Vito Volterra. Cf. Linguerri, “Tempi e forme dell’associazionismo scientifico”, 83-101.

4

Cf. Maria Pia Casalena, Per lo Stato, per la Nazione. I congressi degli scienziati in Francia e in Italia (1830-1914) (Roma: Carocci, 2007).

5

Linguerri, “Tempi e forme dell’associazionismo scientifico”, 84. The translation from Italian is my own.

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international congresses, which Moleschott supported and in which he himself played an active role, paved the way for the foundation of an Italian association. Such associations allowed for exchanges and connections between different communities of scientists, as well as between scientists and politicians, constituting a real European network; they mostly brought together political, scientific, and “humanitarian” (philanthropic) issues, joining very practical aims with highly theoretical questions. In this way, values such as “le bien”, “le beau”, “le vrai”6 were presented as underlying the interventions of these associations – or of the State, conceived by the scientists and politicians participating in the congresses as the “philanthropic association” par excellence. The nationalist aim of these associations is particularly evident in the Società di antropologia ed etnologia (Association for Anthropology and Ethnology), which was founded by the anthropologist and physiologist Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910) in 1871, and whose members were assigned the “strategic” task of studying the “roots of the Italian folk and the specific characters of the people it is composed of”, therefore to create a form of knowledge which would also have an immediate applicability for the government and its projects in the most disparate fields and regions of the country.7

T HE P LANNED C ONGRES I NTERNATIONAL POUR LE P ROGRES DES S CIENCES S OCIALES (1866) Let us now consider the program of the international congress for the progress of social sciences (Congrès International pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales), as it is reported in a letter sent to Moleschott by the mayor of Turin, Timothéo Riboli, who was organizing the congress. The congress was planned for 1866, but it never took place since it was canceled due to the outbreak of the war against Austria.8 The hostilities between Italy and Austria were seen not only as a practical impediment to the realization of the congress, but also as being the polar opposite of the spirit and the aims of the meeting. When Moleschott announced that the committee would refuse to hold the congress in Turin, the president of the association in Brussels replied that 6

Cf. BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866).

7

Linguerri, “Tempi e forme dell’associazionismo scientifico”, 89-90.

8

Cf. BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866). “Lettere del Comitato Locale per il V Congresso dellʼAssociazione internazionale per il progresso delle scienze sociali”. Cf. in particular the report of the local Committee, July 31, 1866 (31 luglio 1866, protocollo n. 13 del Comitato locale), as well as Moleschott’s letter to Monsieur le Sécretaire général in Bruxelles, June 19, 1866.

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the war would simply make it impossible for the association to attain its goals in a spirit of “humanitarian progress” and of “universal civilization” (“impossibilité d’attendre […] le but si désirable que poursuit l’Association internationale dans un esprit de progrès humanitaire et de civilisation universelle”).9 “Humanity” was thus understood as an essential value and aim by the members of the associations, but at the same time, it was accompanied by the seeking of progress and civilization, as well as by the assumption that these could and must be universalized. The central issue of the conference was not the progress of social sciences as an academic discipline, as the title might suggest to contemporary readers: the aim of the congress was rather spreading the ideas that were meant to create the conditions allowing for social change. Thus, the actual goal was changing society itself and, in order to achieve it, the members of the congress were confronted with questions and problems, directly deriving from the new approaches of the social sciences as they developed in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, a more detailed program of the Fifth Congress of the International Association for the Progress of Social Sciences, which was written by the Local Committee (the Central Committee having its seat in Brussels), listed the development of the study of the social sciences as the first aim of the association. Since the association appointed a city as the host for its congress, once the city accepted the nomination, its mayor became the president of that conference. In 1866, Turin had been chosen as the host city, and Moleschott was among the personalities (mostly scientists and politicians, some of whom were strongly connected with Moleschott, e.g. his assistant Simone Fubini) who were invited to be part of the Local Committee for organizing the conference: in fact, he had been appointed general secretary of that congress.10 The subjects the congress dealt with were very disparate, yet they had in common the awareness of the central role of cooperation both within a given society and among nations. The list of the topics to be discussed started with the “moral solidarity of Nations” (“la solidarité morale des Nations”) concerning the “traitors of their fatherland”, namely whether they should be granted the status of refugees (“si on doit

9

BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866): draft of Moleschott’s letter to Monsieur le Sécretaire général, June 19, 1866, and the reply of the president of the association in Brussels, J. Vervoort, July 10, 1866.

10 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866). Cf. also the letter from Auguste Couvreur to “Monsieur le secrétaire généralˮ (June 4, 1866): BCABo, A IV 10c 2-14 (Association internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales).

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les accorder le droit d’asile”) or not.11 As we can see, the issue of the congress was, from its very beginning (this is the first point of the program), eminently political. Whereas the second point of the program concerned the institution of a universal agreement (“une ligne universel [sic]”) about insurance for workers (“[m]utualité cooperative par le travail et les sécours mutual [sic]”), the third point consists of the suggestion of the institution of an international court of the Nations, which should grant “universal peace” (“[p]aix universel [sic] avec le moyen de lʼInstitution dʼun Tribunal international ou Cour Supreme [sic] des Nations”) – indeed, starting from the early twentieth century, a similar project would be central to the concerns of international institutions like the League of Nations. Whereas these three points are grouped under the title of “Bienfaisance”, the following two points are collected in the paragraph on hygiene. However, it seems that the very concept of hygiene had not been defined for the purposes of the congress yet, since the first question asked whether hygiene should be understood as prevention or healing of sickness.12 The following two points concern more practical matters, namely whether there should be committees of mutual help in case of natural catastrophes, flood, epidemics, etc., as well as committees of volunteers who would help war victims: the first question was whether they were “indispensable” in Italy (“institutions des Comités de Sécours / volontaires pour les blessés, en temps de guerre; sont-ils indispensables en Italie?”), the second, how they should be practically organized. The last question reported in the list (which Moleschott underlined twice, and thus considered to be one of the most important questions) regarded the means of organizing associations of mutual help at domiciles (that is, these associations provided assistance at the homes of the people who needed it, not in institutions of care such as hospitals or hospices for the poor or similar institutes).13

11 All the documents regarding the planning and organization of the congress are contained in BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866). 12 This is no wonder, since hygiene was not a clearly defined discipline yet and several conceptions coexisted at that time. On ideas of hygiene in Italy in the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century, cf. Claudio Pogliano, “L’utopia igienista (1870-1920)”, in Malattia e Medicina, Annali 7 of the Storia d’Italia, ed. by Franco della Peruta (Torino: Einaudi, 1984), 589-631, in particular 589, where Moleschott’s assistant Luigi Pagliani is mentioned as one of the pioneers of hygiene in Italy. On the conception of hygiene and its function in the German nation-state, cf. Axel C. Hüntelmann, Hygiene im Namen des Staates: das Reichsgesundheitsamt 1876-1933 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008). 13 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new) : Association Internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866).

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If we have a closer look at the program, we will observe that not only political issues, but also literature and the arts were explicitly involved in the reflection about society, and were understood as possible catalyzers of change. Contrarily to what one might expect, literature and the arts were not encouraged to adhere to naturalism (e.g. on the model of Émile Zola’s novels): to the contrary, the Local Committee for the organization of the congress (including Moleschott) was asking whether there could possibly be the risk that literature and art would not fulfill their “mission” anymore if they did not deal with “elevated” sentiments but were devoted to the “expression of too material ideas” (the oxymoron is in the original).14 Therefore, the collaboration between the natural sciences and the humanities was not just an abstract idea in Moleschott’s Senate speeches, since in such an international association the natural sciences and the humanities were also conceived as belonging to the same system of science and as completing each other. In the previous chapters, we have seen that this was a typical feature of Moleschott’s conception of science; here, we can clearly see how Moleschott collaborated with associations that based their programs for shaping society on the positivist idea of a continuity between natural and social sciences, literature and the arts. Besides fostering the study of social sciences, the association had several aims, which were defined as follows: “to guide public opinion to find the most practical means in order to improve civil and criminal law”; “to improve and broaden education”; “to fulfill and to determine the task of arts and literature in modern societies”; “to improve the physical and moral education of the working classes” (since classes are mentioned in the plural, “classi”, we can suppose that the peasantry, much more consistent than the working class in Italy at that time, was also included – as we have seen in the previous chapters, the introduction of physical education in schools and the abolition of the grist tax were meant to fulfill a similar function); “to augment public wealth and to secure its equal distribution” (as we have seen, the abolition of the macinato was meant by Moleschott to serve precisely this goal); to aid in, or to facilitate, “the diffusion of all principles, which make the strength and the dignity of Nations”.15 The analysis of the association’s program and of its planned congress will 14 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Association internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales (1866). Cinquième session – Congrès de Turin (September 23-29, 1866). Among the possible issues of the congress are mentioned, at point “III. I. La religion, la famille, la patrie ont toujours été les trois grandes sources d'inspiration pour la littérature [sic] et l’art [...]. Première question: Faut-il attribuer les écarts et les défaillances de la littérature et de lʼart à ce quʼen sʼéloignant de leurs sources naturelles dʼinspiration, ils s’addressent [sic] quelquefois à des sentiments moins élevés, sʼattachent à l’expression d’idée trop matérielles?ˮ 15 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale per il V Congresso dellʼAssociazione internazionale per il progresso delle scienze sociali. Association internationale pour

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help us draw a greater framework, in which Moleschott’s ideas are part of a network of scientists and politicians who, in the newly established Italian State, worked to spread progressive ideas and shaped the society of the new nation. As far as religious aspects were concerned, we can notice that, among the invited members of the Committee, the chief rabbi of Turin (a certain Olper),16 was the only representative of a religious denomination – in fact, the Jewish minority played an important role in the cultural and economic life of nineteenth-century Turin.17 This is quite interesting, once we take into account that the association had a tendency to favor the secularization of culture and society. Indeed, according to the preliminary program, one of the questions to be dealt with was whether literature and the arts should stick to “the traditional motifs of religion, family and fatherland”, or should rather “address other topics, more adequate to modern society”. In the list containing the possible issues for the conference, we can read, under point III.I.: “Seconde question: Les conditions des sociétés modernes exigent-elles que l’art et la littérature pour remplir leur mission s’inspirent d’autres idées, d’autres sentiments encore que ceux de religion, de famille et de patrie?”.18 The nature of these “other ideas” and “other sentiments” was, anyway, still to be defined, and the need for a definition was formulated as an open question: “Quel seraient ces nouveaux sentiments? Quelles seraient ces nouvelles idées?”19 The program regarded not only practical matters, but also explicitly moral ones: for example, in section I.II it is asked whether the law defending the search for the legitimate father of a child be “moral and useful”.20 But, even more centrally, a political question was the nucleus of the whole program: the congress was indeed meant le progrès des sciences sociales, Bruxelles, le 4 juin 1866. Associazione internazionale per il progresso delle scienze sociali. Norme ed istruzioni, a sommi capi, per il Comitato locale: “[...] Lʼassociazione internazionale non è una società in accomandita od una accademia. Essa è una istituzione che ha per iscopo: Di sviluppare lo studio delle scienze sociali; Di guidare lʼopinione pubblica verso i mezzi più pratici per migliorare le legislazioni civili e criminali; Di perfezionare e di generalizzare lʼistruzione; Di raggiungere e determinare la missione delle arti e delle lettere nelle società moderne; Di aumentare le ricchezze pubbliche e di assicurarne lʼequa distribuzione; Di migliorare la condizione fisica e morale delle classi laboriose; Di aiutare finalmente la diffusione di tutti i principii, che fanno la forza e la dignità delle nazioni. [...].” 16 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. 17 Cf. Fabio Levi, “Emancipazione e identità ebraica”, in La città nel Risorgimento (17981864), vol. 6 of Storia di Torino, ed. Umberto Levra (Torino: Einaudi, 2000), 857-867. 18 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. 19 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. 20 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. “I. II. La loi, qui défend la recherche de la paternité, est-elle juste, morale et utile?ˮ

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to determine the role of literature and art in the “risorgimento” (the word is used in the sources) of the Italian nation; that is, in building a national culture itself.21 Since there were deputies, senators, and other people in the Committee who had important political positions, it is probable that the association aimed, through its congress, to exert a certain pressure or at least to direct political decisions in one or the other direction. The congress thereby had direct national (and international, since the association had indeed an international character) relevance. Among the members of the Committee, apart from Moleschott and the aforementioned rabbi, we can find Simone Fubini (Moleschott’s assistant at the laboratory of physiology in Turin) and Quintino Sella – as we have seen in the previous chapter, Sella, being a politician, a scientist, and founder of the Italian Alpine Club, was another example of the entanglement of natural sciences and politics in nineteenth-century Italy.22 It is evident that Moleschott agreed with the abovementioned points concerning the topics of the congress: in fact, he had written some comments in the margin of his own copy of the document; however, there is no remark from which one could infer that he disagreed with any of the suggested points or questions. Moleschott indeed thought that fostering the improvement of hygienic conditions was a philanthropic goal for every scientist and a duty for the State: that he was interested in fostering the improvement of hygienic and material working conditions is attested to in one of his notes, entitled “On the influence of light in school-buildings on the defects of vision, especially on short sight”.23 In one of his proposals for the congress,

21 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. “III. IV. Qualʼè [sic] la nuova forma che le arti devono assumere per rispondere ai bisogni e alle aspirazioni della civiltà moderna, e soprattutto quale il còmpito delle arti nel risorgimento della nuova Italia?” This draft of the program and of the central topics of the congress is written alternatively in French and in Italian. 22 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. 23 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. “Sullʼinfluenza dellʼilluminazione delle scuole nei difetti della visione, specialmente nella miopia”. This note is contained in a loose sheet which is conserved together with the documents regarding the organization of the congress; however, it is not clear what kind of relation it had with the planned congress. Since the note is in Italian and the next note is in French, we can infer that these thoughts also concerned the program of the conference, although they are not classified as such. Whereas the official language of the conference on criminal anthropology was French and all documents are written in French, in these documents about the planning of the congress of the association we have a continuous switching from French into Italian and from Italian into French.

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Moleschott problematized the practice of “arts as industry” (“lʼart comme industrie”).24 In a way which seems more typical for a Pre-Raphaelite25 than for a Positivist, he asked whether transforming arts into industrial activities – indeed, the mass production of objects and decorations which, before, was taking place on the level of arts and crafts, became an important and much discussed phenomenon in the nineteenth century – would imply the risk of distracting, “détourner”, the arts from the noble goal (“du bout elévé”) which they are meant to fulfill. This noble aim of art is identified in the “triple sphere of the beautiful, the good, and the true” (“dans la triple sphère du beau, du bien et du vrai”);26 in this respect, Moleschott confirms once more his belonging to a typically Hegelian (rather than just positivist) attitude in his conception of the world. In particular, we have seen that the Hegelian tripartition played an important role in his university speeches on the history of physiology, and that his planned work Anthropologie was structured according to a clearly idealistic scheme going from the “subjective” (the individual) to the “objective” (society), from the particular to the general. This short note written in a loose leaflet shows, once more, that Moleschott’s Hegelianism was not merely one of his rhetorical artifices. What the “noble aim” and highest good the arts should achieve is not further explicated in the short note that is available to us. However, Moleschott did not thereby relegate the arts to the intellectual sphere: in fact, he was deeply convinced of the political function of the arts. He both advocated for and practiced the employment of the arts as a highly promising means for spreading national ideology, and he was well aware of the function of rhetorical and other literary techniques for the popularization of national science. He himself explicitly acknowledged this in a letter to the publisher Emil Roth in Giessen, in which he stated that “these means [i.e. rhetorical means, L.M.] are way too important in these issues [in scientific popularization, L.M.]”.27 He expressed a similar thought with regard to the function of poetry in the fragment from a speech in Italian: here, he stated that “the merit of poets for the conquest

24 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. Since this is doubtlessly Moleschott’s writing, we can infer that this was one of his proposals for the congress, or at least some remark he took into consideration. 25 The Pre-Raphelite movement in nineteenth-century visual arts and literature suggested turning back to pre-Renaissance style in order to recuperate pure artistic forms, and criticized the industrial production of artistic objects. The group, inspired by John Ruskin, was founded in 1848; its most important representatives were Dante Gabriel Rossetti and, for the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris. Cf. Dinah Roe (ed.), The Pre-Raphaelites: from Rossetti to Ruskin (London: Penguin Books, 2010). 26 BCABo, FSM, 112.6 (new): Lettere del Comitato Locale. 27 Jacob Moleschott to Emil Roth (Turin, January 25, 1863): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Hs NF 729.

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of the fatherland is immeasurable” (“è immensurabile il merito dei poeti per la conquista della patria”), and that if “heroes are the fathers of poets”, “poets generate heroes”.28 For him, this was not “a vicious circle” but a positive effect; further, he complained that poets had not been given a higher function in the series of projects celebrating Victor Emmanuel through monuments to his memory.29 Celebrating the memory of Victor Emmanuel was one of the political and cultural programs through which the government tried to reinforce (or create) a sense of cohesion and national unity in the Italian population. Moleschott overtly took part in this program, or better in the even larger program of the creation of national myths and national heroes, writing a national history – in particular, a national history of science – which had not existed before. In this newly written national history, great personalities in the fields of science, literature, and philosophy were proclaimed “Italian”, linking at the same time the history of the new nation with a centuries-long tradition.30 Not only were historical figures “nationalized”, but these “national heroes” were also presented as religious figures: this was the case not only with Giordano Bruno, but with the whole rhetoric of nation-building (the word “Risorgimento” itself clearly refers to the religious event of resurrection, since it comes from the Italian verb “risorgere”, to resurrect). In the next section, we will analyze Moleschott’s speech on Giordano Bruno as a form of spreading national ideology: we will consider how Moleschott transformed Giordano Bruno into a symbol of new Italian science and religion, as well as how he made use of rhetorical strategies in this context. Moleschott commemorated Bruno as the highest religious figure in the speech he gave on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of the philosopher and scientist from the Renaissance who, during the Risorgimento, was depicted both as one of the “Italian” pioneers of modern science and as a representative of progressive, anti-dogmatic thinking.31 However, religious tones or liturgical formulae were not at all new in the 28 Jacob Moleschott ([after 1880 and before May 20, 1893]): BCABo, FSM 113.2 (new): “È verissimo che qui siamo in un circolo – che non vorrei chiamare vizioso – gli eroi sono i padri dei poeti ed i poeti generano gli eroi.” Part of a public speech, the fragment is interrupted: it could be part of a speech in commemoration of Victor Emmanuel II. 29 Jacob Moleschott ([after 1880 and before May 20, 1893]): BCABo, FSM 113.2 (new): “mi ha dolorosamente sorpreso che a loro non venne data una parte più cospicua nei numerosi progetti destinati ad inneggiare con monumenti alla memoria di Vittorio Emanuele.” 30 Concerning Victor Emmanuel as a mythical figure, cf. Umberto Levra, “Vittorio Emanuele II”, in I luoghi della memoria. Personaggi e date dell’Italia unita, ed. Mario Isnenghi (Roma, Bari: Laterza, 1997), 47-64. On the cult of the monarchy in Germany, cf. Hubertus Büschel, Untertanenliebe: der Kult um deutsche Monarchen 1770-1830 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006). 31 For the creation and “sanctification” of national heroes in unified Italy, cf. the volume edited by Mario Isnenghi on policy and culture of remembrance, I luoghi della memoria.

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popularization of science in the nineteenth century, when not only the nation-state, but also positivist science (or, better, both of them together) tried to replace the ideological role of religion and, thereby, took up its terms and rituals: in the popularizing series “La Scienza del Popolo”, a scientist exhorted his readers to “bless the names of Volta, Galvani, Torricelli”.32 Beyond the Italian borders, Rudolf Virchow criticized the moral authority of the Church and at the same time represented scientists as secular saints; he identified Galileo Galilei as “Luther der Naturwissenschaften” and as a scientist fighting for truth, where truth was symbolized by light, in a similar way as Moleschott did in his speech on Giordano Bruno.33 In fact, Galilei was represented as the symbol of scientific progress as opposed to the obscurantism of the Church not only by Virchow and Moleschott (as we have seen in his opening lectures), but in the whole popularizing discourse about science in the nineteenth century.34

T HE M ONUMENT TO G IORDANO B RUNO AND ITS P OLITICAL M EANING (1889) The next pages will focus on an event which has hardly been considered in the literature about Moleschott,35 but which represented a hot topic at the time when it was happening. I am hereby referring to the monument that was erected in commemoration of the Renaissance philosopher and scientist Giordano Bruno, who was burnt as

Personaggi e date dell’Italia unita (Roma, Bari: Laterza, 1997). However, this phenomenon was not typical for the Italian nation only: for the sacralization of the nation in SouthEastern Europe and its European context, cf. Stefan Rohdewald, Gö tter der Nationen: Religiö se Erinnerungsfiguren in Serbien, Bulgarien und Makedonien bis 1944 (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2014). 32 Cf. Paola Govoni, “Dalla scienza popolare alla divulgazione. Scienziati e pubblico in età liberale”, in Scienza e cultura dell’Italia unita, Annali 26 of the Storia d’Italia, 65-81; here, 72, where Govoni is quoting from A. Ponsiglioni, L’avvenire dell’operaio. Lettura fatta nella Gran Sala della R. Università di Siena (Milano: Treves, 1870), 46. 33 Cf. Goschler, Rudolf Virchow, 361. 34 Cf. Michael Hagner, “Ansichten der Wissenschaftsgeschichteˮ, in Ansichten der Wissenschaftsgeschichte, ed. Michael Hagner (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2001), 7-42, in particular on Galilei’s process and Romantic Naturphilosophie as the opposite poles for the construction of the image of modern science in the nineteenth century, 13-14. 35 Apart from the article by Del Soldato, which mainly deals with Moleschott’s reception (and instrumentalization) of Giordano Bruno’s philosophical thought, besides publishing the text of his Dutch speech: Eva Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, in Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, 7 (2011), 3: 577-587.

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a heretic in 1600. The monument was inaugurated in 1889, and on this occasion Moleschott gave a speech in Italian and one in Dutch, on behalf of the freethinkers’ society De Dageraad (“The Dawn”), which was published in the society’s journal in 1889.36 Moleschott, then, was once more an ambassador of several nations and institutions at once. This had already been the case on the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of Heidelberg University, where he represented the University of Turin, the University of Rome, and the Italian Minister of Public Education, but spoke at the same time also as a former member of the Heidelberg academic corpus.37 Moleschott’s speeches on Giordano Bruno are characterized by the imagery of victory: the victory of freethinking over the Church and the victory of enlightened, rational thought over the obscurity of religion. However, this victory was presented at the same time as a sign of conciliation: Moleschott explicitly included in his speech the position of a Christian (of a “credente”, literally “believer”) such as the French historian and politician François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) in support of his own argument and presented the statue of Giordano Bruno as the true affirmation of Christian principles. In fact, the statue was pictured as the synthesis – once more, Moleschott used the terminology of Hegelian dialectics – of Christianity, which would be the embodiment and affirmation of enlightened thought and true religion after centuries of errors and persecutions (represented by the crosses of the first Christians and the stakes of the heretics such as Bruno). In this way, Moleschott was clearly pointing out that the Catholic Church itself primarily constituted a persecutory institution. But what did the statue to Giordano Bruno represent, and what ideas did its promoters want to affirm? And how was it perceived by the Vatican institutions and by the Catholics? What had this particular form of remembering the past to do with the contemporary political situation? The erection of a monument to Giordano Bruno in that precise historical moment and in that precise geographical location had, in fact, a very high symbolic significance, and it was, therefore, not only a cultural, but primarily a political act. In fact, Italy as a nation-state was created in opposition to the Catholic Church: on the territorial level, it incorporated the large part of its domains, until the city of Rome itself was seized in 1870 (the so called “Breccia di Porta Pia”). The diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See were, at that time, quite tense. In fact, liberal Italy had difficult relations with the Church, although during the 1880s Crispi had already started to improve the situation. He was motivated by the fact that even in Italy the socialist movement was gaining more power, and thus the Church started to be viewed as an important ally in the fight 36 Jacob Moleschott, “De oprichting van het standbeeld voor Giordano Bruno”. In Giordano Bruno, een martelaar der vrije gedachte, 82-85 (Amsterdam: Vereeniging “De Dageraadˮ, 1889), 82-85. 37 Cf. BCABo, FSM 114.2 (new): Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier, 13 Mai 1886 (previously also in A II 4 2-3).

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against socialism, able to keep the masses of peasants away from that political threat.38 The monument to Giordano Bruno was perceived by the Church as a clear, arrogant way of affirming the supremacy of the new secular power: as Giovanni Miccoli has shown on the basis of documents conserved in the Vatican archives,39 the Pope and the clergy identified the celebrations in honor of Giordano Bruno held on June 9, 1889, and the erection of the statue as a “sacrilegious and impious profanation of Rome”.40 Similarly, the articles that appeared in Catholic newspapers at that time explicitly condemned the monument to Giordano Bruno in Campo dei Fiori and, with hostile tones, complained about the arrogance of the Italian ruling class.41 Pope Leo XIII himself affirmed that the statue, as its supporters had explicitly declared, had the purpose of shaming the Pope and the Holy See, and that it was “promoted, wanted, realized by Freemasonry with the help and the favor of the governors”; the aim and significance of the monument was, according to Leo XIII, “to substitute the Catholic faith with the most absolute freedom of examination, of critique, of thought and of conscience, and – he added – one knows well what such terms mean when they are brought up by the adepts of [that] sect”.42 Together with the suppression of religious

38 Cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 4-5. 39 Miccoli reports that “there are over 30 fascicles dedicated to the events regarding the inauguration of the monument to Giordano Bruno”. Cf. Giovanni Miccoli, “Leone XIII e la massoneria”, in La Massoneria, Annali 21 of the Storia dʼItalia, ed. Gian Mario Cazzaniga (Torino: Einaudi, 2006), 213, footnote 72. 40 “[L]a sacrilega ed empia profanazione di Romaˮ: the statement was pronounced by the Congregazione degli affari ecclesiastici straordinari and is reported in Miccoli, “Leone XIII e la massoneria”, 212. 41 On the Catholic critique of the cult of Giordano Bruno (a cult defined by its critics as “brunomania”) as being an expression of anti-Catholic ideas, compare e.g. [L. Previti], “La brunomania in Italia”. La Civiltà Cattolica, 10 (1888): 385-395; 658-673. In this article, not only politicians, but also academics and professors (for instance Enrico Morselli at the University of Turin) were criticized for having initiated the cult of Bruno, presenting him “as a great philosopher” ([L. Previti], “La brunomania in Italia”. La Civiltà Cattolica, 10 (1888): 666; reported in Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, 581). 42 Leo XIII, Enchiridion delle Encicliche, quoted by Miccoli, “Leone XIII e la massoneria”, 213: “[...] lʼerezione cioè del monumento al famigerato apostata di Nola, promossa, voluta, attuata collʼaiuto e il favore dei governanti dalla Framassoneria, che per bocca degli stessi più autorevoli interpreti del pensiero settario non arrossì di confessarne lo scopo e di dichiararne il significato: lo scopo fu di far onta al Papato; il significato è che si vuole ora sostituire alla fede cattolica la libertà più assoluta di esame, di critica, di pensiero e di coscienza, e si sa bene ciò che significhi in bocca dei settari un tal linguaggio.”

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orders and the Italian State’s control over education, the introduction of military service also for the members of the clergy, and the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the monument to Giordano Bruno was thus perceived by the Pope as a sign of highest disdain and of overt challenge by the liberal State in its relations with the Catholic Church.43 On the other side, the liberal public opinion had a different, although ambiguous attitude towards the erection of the monument. Moleschott’s speech should be read as being part of this liberal context: although celebrating Bruno and condemning the persecutions perpetrated by the Church, “by those who call themselves Christ’s vicars”, it is written in a tone of appeasement. Finally, it was not only and not primarily the celebration of a philosopher and scientist that stood behind the idea of the monument, but also and above all a political symbol of power: a monument to Giordano Bruno to be erected a few meters from the Vatican meant, first of all, that not the Catholic Church, but the liberal nation-state wielded political power in the former Vatican territories. Giordano Bruno being a symbol of freethinking, as the interest of the Dutch freethinkers’ society in the matter and Moleschott’s words attest, it can be stated that it was an affirmation not only of political, but also of spiritual power. In what follows, I will sketch the meaning of Moleschott’s commitment in the celebration of Giordano Bruno on the occasion of the erection of his statue and of the conference held in Rome in 1889.

A Close Reading of Moleschott’s Speeches on Giordano Bruno First of all, Moleschott began his talk by establishing a direct connection between the solemnity of the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno for the Italian nation on the one hand, and the “solemnity” of Greek antiquity on the other hand. This is just one example of Moleschott’s contribution to spreading a culture of remembrance according to which the new Italian state was presented as the rebirth of ancient culture and civilization. In fact, Moleschott’s speech started as follows: “Gentlemen! The official participation of the government is missing on this solemn occasion, and yet the government is with us. But if the government is not officially represented, we have the representation of the nation, an effective and official representation, because the nation has rushed hereto under such cheerful auspices, with such haste and fervor, that it recalls the great days of the Olympic feasts in Greece.ˮ44 43 Cf. Miccoli, “Leone XIII e la massoneria”, 213. 44 BCABo, FSM, C I 30 (1889, “Giornali che parlano di papà”), [1]: “Signori! A questa solennità manca la partecipazione ufficiale del governo, pure il governo è con noi. Ma se il

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Indeed, in the next paragraph, the reference to antiquity became even more prominent, since the presence of the political representatives of the municipality of Rome was saluted as highest homage, and Rome was presented as an “intangible” and “eternal city”. Moreover, the religious character of the celebration was explicitly mentioned: “And indeed a noble part of the nation officially participates in the solemnity of these days, since the Municipality of Rome is represented. Rome had to adhere to this saintly demonstration, to this vindication of the noblest martyrdom. The youth who was able to start to fulfill this proclamation of freedom would not have wanted to renounce it; for it [the youth, L.M.] the assent of the eternal city, of this intangible Rome, sounds like a benediction.ˮ45

As we can see even just from this short passage, religious terminology occurs in every single line of the speech: Giordano Bruno was depicted as a martyr, which implies that the inauguration of his statue was a solemn and “saintly” occasion for demonstrating the victory of the “intangible” Rome of the freedom of thinking over the intolerant Rome of the Pope.46 This is the basic message that the whole speech tried to convey. Indeed, in the next paragraph Moleschott insisted on a certain attitude, governo non è rappresentato in via ufficiale, abbiamo la rappresentanza della nazione, rappresentanza effettiva ed ufficiale, perché la nazione è qui accorsa sotto sì lieti auspici, con tanto slancio e fervore, da ricordarci i grandi giorni delle feste Olimpiche della Grecia”. The speech is now reported also in: Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, Appendice, 585-586; the speech was published only in its Dutch version in a special issue of the Dutch journal De Dageraad (Giordano Bruno. Een Martelaar der vrije Gedachte, 82-85) and in the newspaper De Amsterdammer dagblad voor Nederland, June 15, 1889 (cf. Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, 585, 587). Moleschott’s introduction to the Dutch translation (Jacob Moleschott, “De oprichting van het standbeeld voor Giordano Bruno”, in Giordano Bruno. Eeen Martelaar der vrije Gedachte) is contained in A II 9 and, in a slightly modified version, in C I 30. 45 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [2]: “E nobil parte della nazione divide ufficialmente la solennità di questi giorni, essendo rappresentato il Municipio di Roma. Roma doveva aderire a questa santa dimostrazione, a questa rivendicazione del più nobile martirio. La gioventù che seppe iniziare a compiere questa proclamazione della libertà non avrebbe voluto farne a meno; per essa suona benedizione l’assenso della città eterna, di questa Roma intangibile.” 46 The celebration of scientists as martyrs is a topos in the nineteenth century: as an example of primary literature, cf. for instance David Brewster, The Martyrs of Science: Or, The Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860). Michael Hagner understood this as part of “Wissenschaftsgeschichte als Erinnerungsdienst”, as it was practiced in the nineteenth century: cf. Hagner, “Ansichten der Wissenschaftsgeschichteˮ, 11-15.

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which we could identify with tolerance. Even though the word “tolerance” as such was not mentioned, it could fairly represent the ideas expressed as follows: “Moreover, we have the representation of the freedom of thinking. And I deliberately say freedom of thinking, and I do not say freethinking. Since everyone is welcome, believers and philosophers, spiritualists and materialists, atheists and deists, all of them if only they are idealists, if only they agree in the protest against every persecution of [the freedom of] thinking, which informs the conscience of man, be the persecution perpetrated by the pope [sic] or by Calvin. Tomorrow, when the monument to Giordano Bruno will be uncovered, you [I translate the third person plural as a formal address for the second person plural, thus “loro” with “you”, L.M.] will see how the Committee and its artist, the famous Ettore Ferrari, have been inspired by a really international concept and characterized by the most serene impartiality.ˮ47

Moleschott used words such as “international” and “impartiality” to describe the attitude of the supporters of the realization of the statue, as well as of its artist, the sculptor Ettore Ferrari – the same sculptor who created Moleschott’s bust at the University of Turin.48 Immediately after this declaration of impartiality and internationality, Giordano Bruno, together with Miguel Served, Jan Hus, and John Wyclif, was included in the pantheon of the martyrs for the freedom of thought. We should note that this choice confirmed the “international” character of the monument, and that the accent on impartiality referred to the concept of religious freedom, which was one of the pillars of the new liberal nation-state.49 However, the link to what was considered and presented as national history was established immediately afterwards through a parallelism with Galilei: “With Hus and Wyclif you will admire the effigies of Served, who was burnt upon Calvin’s instigation, because he did not believe in the divinity of Christ, and in Served we admire a 47 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [3]-[4]: “[3] Abbiamo inoltre la rappresentanza della libertà del pensare. E dico deliberatamente la libertà del pensare, e non dico il libero pensiero. Imperocché tutti sono i benvenuti, credenti e filosofi, spiritualisti e materialisti, atei e deisti, tutti purché idealisti, purché concordi nella protesta contro ogni persecuzione del pensiero, che informa la coscienza dell’uomo, la persecuzione venga dal papa o da Calvino. Domani, quando il monumento a Giordano Bruno sarà scoperto, vedranno come il Comitato ed il suo artista, l’illustre Ettore Ferrari, furono inspirati ad un [4] concetto veramente internazionale e della più serena imparzialità.” 48 Cf. Cesare Lombroso, “Commemorazioni di Moleschott, I (8 giugno 1893, Istituto di Fisiologia di Torino, mentre si scopriva il bronzo di Moleschott modellato da Ettore Ferrari)ˮ, in Moleschott, Per gli amici miei, 332-339. 49 For the importance of the concept of religious freedom (“libertà religiosa”) in liberal Italy, cf. Carocci, Il Parlamento nella Storia d’Italia, 4 (“L’eredità di Cavour: Roma capitale”).

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follower of positive science. We could say that Served represents in our monument the spirit of Galileo Galilei.”50

In this way, Moleschott established a link between the international ambitions of the monument and its national relevance. In the Dutch counterpart of this speech, which Moleschott gave as a delegate from the Netherlands, he pointed out at some length and in more detail the personalities who were represented in the monument and thereby, so to speak, sanctified: “On the base of Bruno’s statue will shine the heads of Wyclif and Hus, Vanini and Paleario, of Campanella, Ramus and Sarpi, and finally the one of Miguel Servede, more generally known under the name of Served, whom Calvin let burn at Geneva, because he did not believe in the divinity of Christ, because of the same belief, which they call a gift of God, but which they make a pretext for hate and revenge, when a thinker chivalrously confesses, that he does not possess that gift.”51

When the physiologist Angelo Mosso gave his speech in commemoration of Moleschott, he stated that it was Moleschott himself who wanted the effigies of Served to be represented at the base of the monument: Served was himself a scientist (just like Moleschott) who discovered the “circulation of blood through the lungs” and perished in Geneva as a consequence of Calvin’s intolerance – in the same way, Moleschott depicted himself as a victim of intolerance when the government of Baden threatened to divest him of the freedom of teaching his courses on anthropology and he left the University of Heidelberg.52 However, this is just the beginning of a climax

50 BCABo, FSM, C I 30: “Con Huss e Wiclef mireranno la effigie del Servede che fu bruciato sull’istigazione di Calvino, perché non credeva nella divinità di Cristo, ed in Servede ammiriamo un cultore della scienza positiva. Potremmo dire che Servede rappresenta nel nostro monumento lo spirito di Galileo Galilei.” 51 BCABo, FSM, A II 9: De oprichting van het standbeeld voor Giordano Bruno. Rome 25 Mei 1889 (manuscript), [4]-[5]: “Op het voetstuk van Bruno’s standbeeld zullen de [5] koppen prijken van Wiclef en Huss, Vanini en Paleario, van Campanella, Ramus en Sarpi, en eindelijk van dien Miguel Servede, meer algemeen onder den naam Servet bekend, dien Calvijn te Geneve liet verbranden, omdat hij niet aan de godheid Christi geloofde, om datzelfde geloof, dat zij eene gave God’s noemen, maar tot een voorwendsel van haat en wraak maken, wanneer een denker ridderlijk bekent, dat hij die gave niet bezit.” 52 Angelo Mosso, “Ricordo di Jacopo Moleschott”, in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott (Roma: Tipografia delle Mantellate, 1894), 140-141. Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, also refers to Mosso’s speech and interprets Moleschott’s predilection

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in the references to religious figures, which continues in the following part of this brief speech: “And which is the meaning of this feast? Let us say it, Sirs, let us say it loudly, because we do not have any intention to enfeeble our thought, nor any will to mask our ideal. Jerusalem has lapidated the prophets, the popes burnt them and Calvin did not disdain to become their emulator, and popes and Calvin followed the example of those, who crucified Jesus Christ. Now, the purpose of this ceremony is to affirm in the name of the world, to affirm in a monumental language, that stakes and crosses cannot play the role of logical arguments anymore – that the stakes themselves have burnt the crosses.”53

In fact, in agreement with Crispi’s “political education”, Moleschott contributed to the formation and popularization of a national pantheon of heroes, which would foster the cult of the (centralized) nation-state conceived in religious or quasi-religious terms. This program of “religious politics” included the adoration of laic heroes elevated to the level of martyrs of the State, anti-clericalism, the cult of the monarchy, and the importance of anniversaries and monuments.54 Moleschott’s speech for the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno is a clear sign of his active participation in the realization of this plan. His anti-clerical attitude is expressed e.g. in the concluding sentence of his speech in Italian: “[…] the ripest fruit is the fatherland, which is contested by that fierce enemy, fierce and ambitious, who says to be vicar of Christ, and denies the ideal of his master, because we have the explicit declaration by Jesus Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world.”55 This sentence recalls the thoughts

towards Served as being motivated by the similarity of their scientific interests and positions, as well as of their persecution by the evangelic Church respectively in Heidelberg and in Geneva. 53 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [5]: “E qual’è [sic] il significato di questa festa? Diciamolo, Signori, diciamolo forte, perché non abbiamo alcuna intenzione di snervare il nostro pensiero, nessuna volontà di mascherare il nostro ideale. Gerusalemme ha lapidato i profeti, i papi li bruciarono e Calvino non lo sdegnò di diventare il loro emulo, e papi e Calvino presero esempio da coloro che misero Gesù Cristo sulla croce. Ora la mira di questa solennità si è di affermare a nome del mondo, di affermare in lingua monumentale, che roghi e croci non possono più fare le veci di argomenti di logica – che i roghi stessi hanno bruciato le croci.” 54 On Crispi and the “cult” of the nation, or politics conceived “in religious terms”, cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 543; on the “religion of the fatherland” under Crispi’s government, cf. Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 393. 55 Cf. Moleschott’s speech for the conference on Giordano Bruno (manuscript), BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [7]: “[...] il frutto più maturo è la patria che ci viene contrastata da quel fiero nemico, fiero ed ambizioso, che si dice vicario di Cristo, e nega l’ideale del suo maestro,

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Moleschott had already expressed in a letter to the Swiss geologist Édouard Desor twenty years earlier, in 1865, namely that it was Italy’s task to destroy the power of the Pope, since it was “Italy” which had mostly contributed to its establishment.56 In fact, the anti-clericalism with which materialism and its popularization were associated perfectly fit the purpose of substituting Catholic influence upon Italian cultural and political life with a secular national culture. On the one hand, this program included the sacralization of science, whereby personalities belonging to the scientific tradition were represented as saints. On the other hand, the nation-state itself was invested with religious features and sacred power. In this speech in particular, Moleschott interpreted every historical event as the necessary precondition for the constitution of the Italian nation-state, and the whole historical process leading to a positive result (as was typical for the Hegelian and positivist tradition). The statue to Giordano Bruno was thus represented as the apotheosis of true religion, and references to Chateaubriand were used by Moleschott in order to legitimize his position and at the same time to present it as a synthesis including even that very same Catholic religious thought which it condemns: “Sirs, not yet sixteen months ago, one of us dared to foretell that within a short time we would have witnessed the building of the monument for Giordano Bruno in Campo dei Fiori. Now, Chateaubriand has written that great events are not being predicted because they will happen, but they will happen because they have been predicted. It is a great satisfaction to be able to mention a believer such as Chateaubriand, to demonstrate that there is an intimate movement in History, which impediments are not able to stop, while it reaches its end because of its intrinsic force, invincible predestination, because of the necessity of nature.ˮ57

As we have seen, in his opening lecture on “Causality in biology”, Moleschott presented both natural and historical laws as necessary laws; thus, nature and history poiché di Gesù Cristo abbiamo la dichiarazione esplicita, che il suo regno non è di questo mondo.” 56 Jacob Moleschott to Édouard Desor (Turin, January 19, 1865), AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 55: “[...] Italien, das am meisten dazu beigetragen hat, der übrigen Welt das Joch des Pabsthums aufzuerlegen, muß auch dazu berufen sein, es abzuschütteln. –” 57 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [6]: “Signori, non sono passati sedici mesi che uno di noi osò fare l’indovino promettendo che fra poco saremmo stati testimoni dell’erezione del monumento a Giordano Bruno in Campo di Fiori. Ora Chateaubriand ha scritto che i grandi avvenimenti non vengono predetti perché succederanno, ma che succedono perché furono predetti. Egli è alta soddisfazione poter invocare un credente dello stile di Chateaubriand, per comprovare che esiste un intimo movimento di Storia, che gli ostacoli non possono fermare, ma che raggiunge la méta per forza d’intrinseca, invincibile predestinazione, per necessità di natura.”

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stand on the same level. In this sense, we could infer that the very concept of scientific law (by Moleschott and his contemporaries called “natural” law, as if it were a characteristic of nature itself) as necessary law served to legitimize also the juridical laws of the newborn nation-state. As we will see in the next chapter, Moleschott also engaged in the shaping of the reform of penal law and thereby, even on that occasion, legitimized his position with arguments taken from the natural sciences. However, following a scheme which is typical for Moleschott’s arguments, the reference to science does not stand alone, but is immediately followed by literary references. As we can see from the reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the next paragraph, scientific and literary culture are both parts of Moleschott’s rhetorical strategy: “The ash of the stakes is not scattered, but it acquires the property of a seed. All of the waters of the Tiber do not suffice to export it, in the same way as Lady Macbeth did not find enough water to clean the blood spots from her hands. That seed germinates slowly, but it germinates. It produces flowers and fruits. And the most beautiful flower is that of freedom of thought; the ripest fruit is the fatherland, which is contested by that fierce enemy, fierce and ambitious, who claims to be vicar of Christ, and denies the ideal of his master, because we have the explicit declaration by Jesus Christ, that his kingdom is not of this world.ˮ58

The main rhetorical imagery of the speech, situated in its central section, is a plant metaphor: historical development is depicted as a natural process of plant growth, wherein the seed, the development of the plant, with its flowers and its fruits, is already in potentia. Here, the “ripest fruit” (as we have seen in the speech on higher education, this being a recurrent image in Moleschott’s rhetoric) is “the fatherland”. Thus, the nationalist aim of the speech and its patriotic character are situated in its central section, making its political function explicit: indeed, the next sentences are in direct polemic against the Vatican and denounce as illegitimate its vindication of territories and its political power over them. In fact, we could say that the whole speech is based on dialectical arguments: the Vatican’s aspiration to political power is delegitimized through a sentence attributed to Jesus Christ, and the ashes of the stakes are interpreted as the origin (“the seeds”) of the affirmation of freethinking on intolerant religion. In the final part of the speech, Moleschott officially thanked the 58 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [7]: “La cenere dei roghi non si disperde, ma acquista virtù di seme. Tutte le acque del Tevere non bastano ad esportarla, come Lady Macbeth non trovò acqua a sufficienza per lavare le sue mani dalle macchie di sangue. Quel seme germoglia adagio, ma esso germoglia. Fa nascere fiori e frutti. Ed il più bel fiore è quello della libertà del pensare; il frutto più maturo è la patria che ci viene contrastata da quel fiero nemico, fiero ed ambizioso, che si dice vicario di Cristo, e nega l’ideale del suo maestro, poiché di Gesù Cristo abbiamo la dichiarazione esplicita, che il suo regno non è di questo mondo.”

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“University Committee” for its engagement in the realization of the project and said that it was inspired by the “best religion”, which “consists of the seriousness of one’s commitment and in the courage of expressing it in all of one’s life’s actions”.59 In particular, Moleschott approved of the choice of Gaetano Trezza (1828-1892) as the main speaker on that day; in fact, Trezza also gave a speech on the occasion of the conference on Giordano Bruno (Giordano Bruno: discorso pronunciato in Roma lʼ8 giugno 1889, Rome 1889).60 Trezza had quite an interesting career as a revolutionary and a nationalist: having to flee from Austria-Hungary (to which his hometown belonged), he later on abandoned his career as a priest and adhered to positivism. The choice of Trezza as a speaker on that occasion can thus be interpreted as a reference to the Catholic Church being overcome by the more open and tolerant – at least, this is the way it was depicted in this speech – age of science and of the nation-state. The speech Moleschott gave in Dutch is very close, in its content and form, to the speech given in Italian. Certain aspects are made even more explicit: for example, the deterministic and necessary character of history is expressed in the (explicitly Hegelian) phrase “die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht!” (underlined in the original).61 Moreover, as we have seen above, in the Dutch speech, the list of the figures constituting the symbols of freethinking and at the same time of the intolerance and dogmatism of the Church is more complete: besides Wyclif, Huss and Served, here Moleschott mentioned also Petrus Ramus (1515-1572, a French humanist killed during the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre), Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623, Venetian historian, scientist, and theologian, condemned and persecuted by the Catholic Church), the Renaissance philosophers and humanists Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) and 59 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [8]: “The University Committee of Rome was inspired by the best religion, the one which consists of the seriousness of the conviction and in the courage to express it in all actions of one’s life. The youth of Rome, aided by the youth of the whole of Italy, has known how to prove to the world that, if this land is blessed by the sun of intelligence, the heart of the character beats hard as well”. The original reads as follows: “Il Comitato Universitario di Roma s’ispirò alla migliore religione, a quella che consiste nella serietà della convinzione e nel coraggio di esprimerla in tutti gli atti della vita. La gioventù di Roma, coadiuvata dalla gioventù di tutta Italia, ha saputo dimostrare al mondo, che se questa terra è benedetta dal sole dell’intelligenza, vi batte pure, vi batte forte il cuore del carattere.” 60 BCABo, FSM, C I 30, [10]: “Il Comitato Universitario merita pure la vostra gratitudine per la felice scelta che seppe fare nella persona dell’illustre Trezza, designandolo come l’oratore di questo giorno. Gaetano Trezza, portavoce, chiosatore, antesignano di ogni libertà filosofica, colla sua vibrante e misurata parola, darà succo e sangue, darà corpo ed anima alla nostra aspirazione.” 61 Jacob Moleschott, De oprichting van het standbeeld voor Giordano Bruno. Rome 25 Mei 1889, [4]: BCABo, FSM, A II 9 (manuscript).

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Aonio or Antonio (by Moleschott erroneously called “Giovanni”) Paleario (15031570), as well as the naturalist and philosopher Giulio Cesare Vanini (1585-1619).62 What all of their biographies have in common is their engagement in opposition to dogmatic religion, and their being persecuted and killed (mostly burnt as heretics) for this reason. A particularity of the Dutch speech is the reference to Arnaldo da Brescia (1090-1155) as one of the “martyrs of freethinking”.63 The celebrations in which Moleschott and his contemporaries adhering to the “brunomania”64 participated also had a culinary aspect: the “university committees”, founded respectively in 1876 and 1884, which had fought for the financing of the statue and the commemoration of Giordano Bruno, celebrated their success with a number of dinners (one of these took place on June 11, 1889, at Palazzo Cini in Rome). On the menu, we can find less spiritual signs of the Bruno celebrations: one of the plates was indeed called “Maccheroni alla Nolana” (Nola was the town where Giordano Bruno was born).65

Conclusion: Cultural Politics as National Program We have considered Moleschott’s engagement in the association for the progress of social science and his speeches on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno and of the conference held in his honor as two examples of his activity in the field of cultural politics. Again, we can also regard his engagement in these two contexts as a form of “popularization” of science, although in a different form than that of the large-scale publication (as was the case with the Kreislauf des Lebens and the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel). On the one hand, Moleschott carried on his ideal of a society guided by rational scientific principles through his contributions to scientific-political associations. The strategy of these associations consisted of discussing the possible ways and means that could change society and improve national and economic conditions. On the other hand, Moleschott contributed, with his 62 Jacob Moleschott, De oprichting van het standbeeld voor Giordano Bruno. Rome 25 Mei 1889, [7]-[8]: BCABo, FSM, A II 9 (manuscript). 63 Ibidem: “En Arnaldo da Brescia hoor ik vragen. Men heeft niet van hem afgezien, maar gedacht dat iedere vervolging, uit naam der kerk gepleegd, eene verheerlijking van Arnaldo is, wiens standbeeld sedert 1882 zijne vaderstad siert, wiens naam niet behoeft genoemd te worden, om de duisternis [8] van geloovige dweepzucht te overstralen, de ketens der dwingelandij te vergruizen, om de moed van weten en geweten te zegenen, die naar het hoogste doelt, het hoogste in Socrates en Jezus Christus.” 64 Cf. Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, 581-582. 65 Cf. BCABo, FSM, C I 30, as well as Del Soldato, “Jacob Moleschott tra Serveto e Bruno”, 584-585.

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speeches on Giordano Bruno, to spreading anti-clerical and highly patriotic ideas. His speech was, of course, received by a relatively restricted audience (probably more or less corresponding to the audience of his Senate speeches); through its Dutch version, however, he also reached an international audience, making the issue of the commemoration of Bruno an international issue. Summing up, the general themes of Moleschott’s cultural politics that emerge from his engagement in the international associations and in the celebrations of Giordano Bruno, are: the centrality of the ideal of humanity; the celebration of national heroes, which would foster nationalist ideology, combined with an aspiration to internationality and the actual participation in international networks; the inclusion both of natural science and of the arts and literature. Whereas science is the main issue in his university lectures, the arts are at the center of his late public speeches as well as of his engagement in spreading national ideology as part of “national culture”. As far as the first point is concerned, we have seen how the program of the (planned) conference of the association for the advancement of social science was inspired by philanthropic ideals, aiming with its work and through its international networks to influence the political decisions which would, eventually, have direct consequences on the whole society. As we have observed in the chapter on higher education, the ideal of humanity was, for Moleschott, connected to the humanities and to his idea of science as a whole, emerging from the cooperation of different disciplines. Indeed, the humanities are present in both of these examples of Moleschott’s cultural politics. Even though the work of the international associations was based on social science – seen in positivism as part of a greater system of science and based on natural science – it focused on arts and literature as a means for the development of society and civilization in the way they deemed the most appropriate and “rational”. In the speeches on Giordano Bruno, the humanities are present e.g. in the quotation from Shakespeare and, more generally, in all references to famous philosophers, scientists, and humanists, representing the synthesis of the natural sciences with the humanities. In both cases, finally, we can observe a combination of nationalist ideology and international networking: we could define this constellation as a coexistence of nationalist and international aspects. However, this is not that unusual if we consider that, in the nineteenth century, nations were considered not as competing with and opposing each other, but as collaborating in a cosmopolitan European or even global context and having the aim of “eternal peace”.66 As we have seen, in the speech he 66 Mazzini’s political thinking is a typical example of this concept: cf. the contributions in Giuseppe Mazzini and the globalisation of democratic nationalism, 1830-1920, ed. by C. A. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biagini (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008), especially Nadia Urbinati, “The Legacy of Kant: Giuseppe Mazzini’s Cosmopolitanism of Nations”, 11-36; Maurizio Isabella, “Mazzini’s Internationalism in Context: From the Cosmopolitan Patriotism of the Italian Carbonari to Mazzini’s Europe of the Nations”, 37-58; on “political

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gave at the conference on Giordano Bruno (in Italian), Moleschott explicitly mentioned “internationality” as one of the aims of the committee and of the monument itself. Internationality was one of the aspirations of the supporters of that project, which Moleschott made clear precisely through his talk in Dutch, thus bridging the gap between an eminently national event and an international – although restricted – audience. Indeed, anti-Catholic nationalism in Italy was supported by a broader international movement, and among the members of the committee supporting the statue of Giordano Bruno we can find important personalities such as the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen, the German historian Ferdinand Gregorovius, the scientist and popularizer Ernst Haeckel, the French writer Victor Hugo, and Ernest Renan.67 In this sense, these two instances, Moleschott’s collaboration in the international association for the progress of social science, his engagement in the project of the statue for Giordano Bruno as well as the speeches he gave on that occasion, are further examples of Moleschott’s attempt to contribute to the shaping of national society on the basis of his idea of science. However, his scientificity did not exclude the domain of non-empirical knowledge, and his nationalism did not exclude “internationality”: precisely through international networks could patriotic initiatives be granted higher resonance, and precisely through references to the classics (in the fields of literature, the humanities, and the history of knowledge) could ideas coming from the natural sciences gain comprehensibility and legitimation. And vice versa: through the references to the classics, nationalist arguments acquired strength and importance, whereas through international scholarly networks scientific ideas (in the form of publications, congresses, or just correspondence among scientists) could be transferred to and beyond European nation-states, and acquire political relevance religion”, Simon Levis Sullam, “The Moses of Italian Unity: Mazzini and Nationalism as Political Religion”, 107-124. 67 On Giordano Bruno’s statue as manifestation of anti-clericalism and of power against the Vatican, cf. Oliver Janz, “Konflikt, Koexistenz und Symbiose: Nationale und religiöse Symbolik in Italien vom Risorgimento bis zum Faschismus”, 238-239. On the project of the monument in Campo dei Fiori as an expression and an initiative of freethinkers’ societies, as well as for a list of the members of the committee, cf. Lars Berggren, Giordano Bruno på Campo dei Fiori: ett monumentprojekt i Rom 1876-1889 (Lund: Artifex, 1991) (123: Moleschott is listed as one of the members of the committee); Peter R. DʼAgostino, Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2004), 70-71; Manuel Borutta, Antikatholizismus: Deutschland und Italien im Zeitalter der europäischen Kulturkämpfe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 347. Cf. also a letter from Henrik Ibsen to the Giordano Bruno-committee (Rome, February 3, 1885): Bref B18850203GBkom, Henrik Ibsen Skrifter, Universitetet i Oslo, transcribed and made available online: http://ib sen.uio.no/BREV_1880-1889ht|B18850203GBkom.xhtml (Versjon 1.1).

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(this was indeed the aim of the Association international pour le progrès des sciences sociales). The next and last section of this chapter will deal with a concrete case of application and transfer of scientific ideas within and through an international network (or community) of both scientists and statesmen, namely the International Sanitary Conference, which was held in Rome in 1885. Moleschott was not only a participant in this conference, but was also unanimously chosen as president (Chair) of its technical commission. In his role as Chair of the technical commission of the conference, he performed multiple functions: first, he was an expert in the fields of medicine and hygiene; second, as a politician, he was a member of the “technical commission” on public health, in particular with relation to the epidemics of cholera which were a source of concern at that time; third, he represented the trait d’union between participants from different countries, and precisely because of the internationality of his career, he played the role of mediator.

M OLESCHOTT ’ S R OLE OF M EDIATOR IN THE I NTERNATIONAL S ANITARY C ONFERENCE (1885) The International Sanitary Conference was held in Rome in May 1885. The delegations of numerous European, American, and Asian countries were invited to contribute to the discussion of public health, a matter that was gaining more and more importance in an increasingly interconnected world, where technical innovations allowed for faster communications and where liberal commercial policies fostered the development of international trade. In particular, the matter was made urgent by the epidemics of cholera that occurred in numerous countries in Europe and in the whole world in the second half of the nineteenth century. The conference was not solely composed of scientists or physicians, but also of political representatives of certain nations; in several cases, the national delegates were at the same time both politicians and physicians. This was also Moleschott’s position; that is, he was present at the conference both in his role as representative of the Italian nation, and as an expert in medicine and physiology. Among the other members, we can find Robert Koch from Germany and the politician and physician Guido Baccelli from Italy, who was also Moleschott’s colleague at the Senate. It was Guido Baccelli, the “first Italian delegate”, who was the provisory Chair of the first session of the “Technical Commission” of the conference, on the morning of May 23, 1885, and who invited the members of the Commission to appoint their

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President.68 The French delegate, the pathologist Paul Brouardel, then stated that, in his opinion, the president (Chair) should be chosen from among the Italian delegates, that he should be a physician (thus, a scientific expert in the field of medicine), “known by everyone, and polyglot”; on this basis, he proposed that Moleschott be appointed President of the Commission.69 Under the aforementioned preconditions, the choice must not have been hard, since a candidate with these prerequisites could hardly be found among the members of the Commission, and it was certainly impossible to find among the other Italian delegates, Guido Baccelli (1830-1916), Mariano Semmola (1831-1896) and Giuseppe Buonomo (1825-1890):70 these were all medical doctors, professors at the university, and members of the Parliament, but did not have an international background.71 The proposal was supported by Zoeros Pasha, the Turkish delegate, as well as by the Indian delegate Sir J. Fayrer, and Moleschott was then unanimously elected President of the technical Commission.72 In his role as President of the Technical Commission of the International Sanitary Conference, Moleschott gave a programmatic speech (which, most probably, he had already prepared, or at least sketched), which we will consider in more detail. From the reports of the conference, it becomes clear that Moleschott played the role of mediator rather 68 BCABo, FSM 113.5 (new): Conférence sanitaire internationale de Rome, Commission Technique, Procès-verbal n. 1, Vingt-trois mai 1885 – Séance du matin, Présidence de M. Moleschott. 69 Ibidem: “M. Brouardel est d’avis que le Président doit être choisi parmi les délégués italiens, qu’il doit être médecin, connu de tous, et polyglotte. Il propose, à ces différents titres, M. le docteur Moleschott.ˮ 70 Ibidem. 71 Guido Baccelli was elected a represenative of the Sinistra storica in 1874, and was subsequently Minister of Public Education seven times between 1881 and 1900, later Minister of Agriculture, Trade and Industry; Mariano Semmola was Senator, and Giuseppe Buonomo was a member of the Chamber of Deputies. On Baccelli, cf. Luca Borghi, “Rome’s physician: Guido Baccelli and his legacy in the new Italian Capital”. Medicina nei secoli. Arte e Scienza, 25 (2013), 2: 395-414. 72 BCABo, FSM 113.5 (new): Conférence sanitaire internationale de Rome, Commission Technique, Procès-verbal n. 1, Vingt-trois mai 1885 – Séance du matin, Présidence de M. Moleschott: “Cette proposition, appuyée par Zoéros pacha et Sir J. Fayrer, est adoptée à lʼunanimité. M. Baccelli invite M. Moleschott à prendre place au fauteuil présidentielˮ. The career of Zoeros Pasha is another example of the entanglement of science and poltics, as well as of transnational networking: cf. Anne Marie Moulin, “The Pasteur Institute’s International Network: Scientific Innovations and French Tropismsˮ, in Transnational Intellectual Networks: Forms of Academic Knowledge and the Search for Cultural Identities, ed. Christophe Charle, Jürgen Schriewer, Peter Wagner (Frankfurt am Main, New York: Campus Verlag, 2004), 152.

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than that of an expert: it seems he himself had not really yet made up his mind, and did not support either the contagionist nor the anti-contagionist point of view on the spreading of cholera and other diseases. He tried to conciliate and mediate not only between different points of view on contagion, but also between political, economic, and scientific interests and ideas, as well as between attempts of national closure on the one hand, and of international openness (essentially for trade-related reasons) on the other hand.73 In the speech that he gave in French immediately after his appointment, Moleschott explicitly addressed the issue of his role as a President of the Technical Commission. He started with a captatio benevolentiae, stating that he was not going to give a speech because every word he would say would sound like a celebration of his own personality, which he did not want to perform. He went on by offering thanks for the appointment and stating that he would be the “instrument, not the guide” of the Commission: “Messieurs, Je ne vous ferai pas un discours. Chaque mot que je pourrais proférer, même l’expression la plus heureuse de ma déférence sans bornes, de ma vive reconnaissance, semblerait attacher une importance à ma personne que je suis loin de présumer, à laquelle je n’aurais aucun droit de prétendre. Je vous remercie du fond de mon cœur de la preuve de confiance que vous venez de me donner, mais je ne me fais pas d’illusion sur le sens de votre choix. Je serai votre instrument, non pas votre guide.ˮ74

After this humble beginning, he sketched his conception of science in a way that recalled the image of scientific progress as an always-broadening sphere, which Moleschott, as we have seen, cited from Cabanis in his notes on anthropology: “Au contraire, c’est moi qui serai guidé par votre lumières, soutenu par votre indulgence, et, grâce à votre sagesse, à l’énergie de votre volonté, nous arriverons aussi près de notre but que possible. S’il ne nous est pas donné de le toucher, espérons que nous verrons, que nous frayerons un chemin qui puisse y conduire.ˮ75 Finally, he came back to the great theme of “humanity”, and he did that through the voices of two classical authors, namely a sententia from the Latin Cicero (Pro Ligario, XII, 38) and two verses from the German Goethe (“Zahme Xenien”, IV):

73 BCABo, FSM 113.5 (new): Conférence sanitaire internationale de Rome, Commission Technique, Procès-verbal n. 1, Vingt-trois mai 1885. 74 Ibidem. 75 Ibidem.

354 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “Messieurs, Je vous félicite de votre noble tâche, en vous rappelant les paroles de Ciceron, lorsqu’il dit: Homines nulla re propius ad Deus accedere, quam salutem hominibus dando. Or, si quelqu’un devait trouver ambitieux le mot romain, puisque Cicéron parle des Dieux, je voudrais mitiger ou expliquer la phrase par un vers de Goethe, que je vais vous citer: Je mehr du fühlst ein Mensch zu sein, Desto ähnlicher bist du den Göttern, cʼest-a-dire que l’homme ressemble d’autant plus aux Dieux, qu’il sait mieux affermir son aspiration à l’humanité. Cʼest avec cette aspiration, Messieurs, que j’ouvre votre séance.ˮ76

Once more, humanity and the classics are the leading motifs of Moleschott’s rhetoric as well as of his idea of science. On the one hand, Moleschott quoted Cicero, expressing the idea that “healing” (literally, “giving health”) to the people makes one similar to the Gods. On the other hand, he quoted Goethe in order to underline that this coming closer to the Gods does not imply a distance from the ideal of humanity: on the contrary, the quality of humanity makes one closer to divinity. In this thought, we can recognize Feuerbach’s idea that divinity is a sublimation and alienation of humanity. That Moleschott adhered to this idea is clear not only from this speech, but also from other writings and from his own correspondence with Feuerbach, as we have previously seen. Since “a human being is the more similar to the Gods, the more he is able to affirm his aspiration to humanity”, this short speech (which its author declared not to be a speech) ended with a programmatic statement on the central value of the technical commission of the international conference on public health: the value of humanity. On this matter, we should recall that Moleschott defined humanity as the highest quality of a scientist in the abovementioned letter to the Swiss geologist Édouard Desor, and that, as we will see in the next chapter, during the conference on criminal anthropology, he summoned up for all of his colleagues that justice must guide the scientist’s work. Thus, humanity was understood both as a moral and as an epistemic value; Moleschott stuck to this central idea during his whole life, and the value of humanity was not just a concept he found useful for rhetorical purposes on the occasion of the Senate debates on higher education. For him, humanity was a key concept and a key value in the work of the scientist, as well as of the politician. Secondly, we can observe that the power of decision and the issues which were central to such events as the International Sanitary Conference went far beyond the domain of hygienic and medical matters: in fact, they took into account and decided upon issues concerning international trade relations and diplomacy, as well as commercial, political, and military alliances. Moleschott was there both as expert and mediator, and precisely because of the latter function, he was chosen to preside over 76 Ibidem.

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the conference’s activity. This had to do with his capacity for speaking several European languages, as it is explicitly stated, and not only with the general ability in translating from and into other cultures and disciplines. In the next chapter, we will consider Moleschott’s role at the conference on criminal anthropology: even there, Moleschott’s function was principally that of a moderator; however, in that case, he was not so much a cultural and linguistic mediator, but rather a mediator between parties, with the primary task of softening Lombroso’s version of criminal anthropology and his proposals for the reform of penal law. Once more, we will note that Moleschott’s position was consciously a non-radical, and even anti-radical position, and that he explicitly underlined his task of conciliator – as we have seen, this was the ultimate aim of the natural science in the age of materialism, as it was expressed in Otto Ule’s programmatic first article in the popularizing journal Die Natur.

Moleschott on Criminal Anthropology and Penal Law

“Penitentiary or anthropological [congress]? This is the question that each member of one of both congresses asks, when he encounters in the halls of the exhibition the face of another member of the congress, whom he does not know yet. And the esteem or the little appreciation, the cordiality or the coldness between the two of them often depend on the answer he receives to that question. Then, whatever one may do to hide it, the more or less overt hostilities between the two congresses have begun and maybe they will be accentuated in the future. The anthropologists, wishing to take part in the penitentiary congress as well, had disposed the schedule of their sessions in such a way that they would not correspond to the penitentiary congress; and there they are, at the penitentiary [congress], in order to avoid the unwished visit, they change their schedule and chose exactly the same timetables in which the sessions of the anthropological congress are set. Without success do the poor anthropologists or anthropophagi, as they are called here, try to indicate to the visitors with posters through which way one gets to the exhibition; the penitentiaries [here: members of the penitentiary congress] do not allow them to hang those out. Today they impede to go to the [congress on] anthropology through the shortest way, that is through the stairway at the right, which directly leads to the [congress on] anthropology, putting two huge sofas in front of the stairway. In the meantime the people go upstairs, find this inopportune, and inappropriate obstacle, and the policemen, moved to pity by the ones who have already completed the ascension, remove the sofa and then put it back in its place. […] But let us leave these talks (which, moreover, only serve to give a funny note in the middle of such abstruse disquisitions) and turn to the sessions.”1

1

Anonymous, “I due Congressi”. Lettere al Corriere. Corriere del Mattino, anno XIII, n. 321, giovedì 19 novembre 1885. The article is preserved in BCABo, FSM, 113.3 (new): “Penitenziario o antropologico? Ecco la domanda che ciascuno dei membri di uno dei due

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This long quote is part of a report in a newspaper that appeared in 1885, exactly during the days in which the congress on criminal anthropology was taking place in Rome. It was, so to speak, a conference report written while the works of the conference were still in progress. The ironic tone of this report reveals the tone of the controversy about the congress, which apparently was perceived as an expression of a new trend, whereby law suddenly became an issue for scientists and sociologists instead of being left to legislators. With this chapter, we are approaching the issue of the relation between Moleschott’s thought and Cesare Lombroso’s criminal anthropology. Whereas in the next chapter we will focus on Lombroso’s translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens, here we will first consider the interaction between Moleschott and Lombroso in a topic as important and nationally relevant as the reform of penal law in the 1880s. In this period, Moleschott was already an established university professor and a member of the Senate, as well as an internationally renowned personality. He was frequenting the circles of high society in Rome (such as the “oratorio di via Belsiana”) and his books and speeches had shaped not only the academic environment of physiology, medicine, and the natural sciences, but of politics as well. In this specific case, we will see how Moleschott’s ideas were both absorbed and at the same time adapted and freely interpreted by Lombroso and his “school of criminal anthropology”. On the one hand, Lombroso considered Moleschott his intellectual father and presented

congressi si fa, quando incontra per le sale dell’esposizione un’altra faccia di congressista, che non gli è nota. E dalla risposta che riceve a quella domanda spesso dipende la stima o il poco apprezzamento, la cordialità o la freddezza fra i due che si incontrano. Dunque, checché si faccia per nasconderlo, le ostilità fra i due congressi, più o meno aperte, più o meno leali, sono scoppiate e forse in prosieguo più si accentueranno. Gli antropologi, desiderosi di prender parte anche al congresso penitenziario, avevano disposto in modo l’orario delle loro sedute, che esse non coincidessero col penitenziario; ed ecco che al penitenziario, per evitare la poco gradita visita, mutano orario e scelgono proprio le ore per cui sono indette le sedute del congresso antropologico. Invano i poveri antropologi o antropofagi, come li chiamano qui, cercano con cartelloni indicare ai visitatori quale via bisogna prendere per recarsi alla esposizione; i penitenziari non permettono l’affissione. Pel più corto hanno impedito oggidì salire per lo scalone a destra, che conduce direttamente all’antropologia, collocando due enormi divani davanti alla scalea. Intanto la gente sale, trova quell’improvvido, ed inopinatissimo ostacolo, ed i vigili mossi a pietà di quelli che hanno già compiuto lʼascensione, rimuovono il divano e poi lo rimettono a posto. [...] Ma lasciamo questi pettegolezzi (che per altro non servono che a dare una nota buffa in mezzo a tante astruse disquisizioni) e veniamo alle sedute.”

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criminal anthropology as a direct consequence of Moleschott’s scientific materialism.2 On the other hand, Moleschott, while accepting the opportunity to take part in the meetings of the congress on criminal anthropology, was trying to mark the distance between his own thoughts and his disciple’s. In particular, his speech has the tone of moderation and conciliation – as we have seen, a common feature of his public speeches, both at the Senate and at the University, as well as on other occasions. At the congress on criminal anthropology, Moleschott had the function of mitigating the tone of some criminal anthropologists, whose position was too strict, and who suggested a too radical and sudden change of penal law. In Moleschott’s view, the cultural environment influenced human beings, their behavior, and their attitudes as much as the physical environment did, and precisely for this reason he rejected part of the implications of criminal anthropology and its conception of society and of crime. In the first part of this chapter, I will analyze Moleschott’s speeches at the congress on criminal anthropology in the context of the debates on the reform of Italian penal law and the new “school of criminal anthropology”. In the second part, I will focus on Moleschott’s conception of penal law and of legislation, bringing it into connection with his general conception of nature and of society, as well as with the influence of natural philosophy on certain aspects of his thought.

T HE D EBATE A BOUT THE C ONFERENCE ON C RIMINAL A NTHROPOLOGY (R OME 1885): M OLESCHOTT VERSUS T OMMASI -C RUDELI Let us then start with the congress on criminal anthropology, which took place in Rome from November 17 to November 25, 1885. Moleschott gave both the opening and the closing speeches for the congress, and thus indirectly presented himself as the scientist who inspired the congress and the new scientific discipline of criminal anthropology itself. Perhaps it was also for this reason that his speeches had once more the characteristic conciliation, since in fact within the very same congress of criminal anthropology there were different and even opposite views. The particularity of the congress is that it took place as a parallel event to the congress of “penalisti”

2

Cf. Delia Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, in Cesare Lombroso. Delitto, Genio, Follia. Scritti scelti, ed. Delia Frigessi, Ferruccio Giancanelli, and Luisa Mangoni (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1995), 333-374. Cesare Lombroso was born in 1835 and had studied medicine in Pavia, Padua, and Vienna: in 1875 he became Professor of Legal Medicine in Turin. However, as we will see in the next chapter, Lombroso was in contact with Moleschott as early as 1861, when he asked him to translate his Kreislauf des Lebens.

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or “penitenziari”, constituting thereby a direct confrontation with the “classical” conception of penal law and the school of criminal anthropology, and drawing a clear demarcation between the “penalists” and the “anthropologists”. As we have just read, a newspaper of national prominence such as the Corriere del Mattino satirized this curious group of anthropologists who were improvising themselves experts of jurisprudence and calling them “anthropophagi” (“antropofagi”).3 This play on words, which changes the ending of “anthropologist” from “-logos” into “-phagos” (“eater”, in fact an ironic accusation of cannibalism), is already quite telling of the general reception of criminal anthropology by the broader public. That such a diffident attitude vis-à-vis criminal anthropology was common in that period can be inferred from a booklet, which is preserved together with Moleschott’s documents relating to the conference.4 This publication, which reports a speech deliveredby Giulio Fioretti at the “Philological Circle” in Naples on January 10, 1886, deals with “popular prejudices about the new penal school with respect to the results of the anthropological congress”. It is a sort of report of the conference with some observations on the reception of criminal anthropology and offers an interesting perspective for introducing the ideas of criminal anthropology and its popularity in a certain cultural environment. The pamphlet was dedicated precisely to Ruggero Bonghi, Minister of Public Education and President of the Philological Circle (Circolo Filologico) in Naples, who was also a supporter of the new penal school. The author of the pamphlet cited a phrase from Bonghi’s article in the magazine La Cultura, from which it was clear that Bonghi supported the approach of the school of criminal anthropology: “Now who can affirm that the new penal school wants to diminish social defense against crime and that all experimental researches of psychiatry are meant to provide the school with arguments by means of accumulating facts, on which […] to erect pernicious and fallacious inductions? Instead, nowadays we can expect only from this school the correction of our penal legislation and of all the moral and mental weaknesses which are introduced there.”5

3

Corriere del Mattino, anno XIII, n. 321 (Thursday, November 19, 1885).

4

Giulio Fioretti, I pregiudizi popolari su la nuova scuola penale di fronte ai risultati del congresso antropologico. Conferenza detta al Circolo filologico di Napoli il giorno 10 gennaio 1886 da Giulio Fioretti (Napoli: Enrico Detken, 1886).

5

Fioretti, I pregiudizi popolari su la nuova scuola penale, 14: “O chi dunque può affermare che la nuova scuola penale voglia diminuire la difesa sociale contro il delitto e che tutte le ricerche sperimentali della psichiatria sono intese a fornirgliene gli argomenti ammucchiando i fatti, sopra i quali, come si sia [sic], erigere induzioni perniciose e fallaci? Invece oggi noi possiamo aspettare solo da questa scuola la correzione della nostra legislazione penale di tutte le debolezze morali e mentali che vi sono introdotteˮ (the quote is taken

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It becomes clear that criminal anthropology understood itself as being a bearer not only of political, but also of moral order. As main texts of the school, containing its beginnings and conclusions, Fioretti listed Lombroso’s L’uomo delinquente, Ferri’s book on penal law Nuovi orizzonti del diritto e della procedura penale, and Garofalo’s Criminologia.6 Indeed, these were the classical texts of the school and formed the basis of the newborn discipline of criminal anthropology.7 The author attributed to Enrico Ferri the theory of the negation of free will, “demonstrating the falsity of the fundamental postulate of the classical school, i.e. the existence of free will”.8 The result of the first session of the congress was a classification of the different kinds of delinquents, who were thought to do wrong because of “organic necessity”.9 Moleschott’s moderate attitude vis-à-vis some of the most radical assumptions of the school of criminal anthropology sheds a completely new light on the relation between Lombroso and Moleschott, between criminal anthropology and scientific materialism. Rather than the inspirer of a revolutionary movement in legal and anthropological thinking, Moleschott seems much more to assume the function of the moderator between traditional and new ways of thinking on issues as fundamental as the existence of free will, the necessity or contingence of crimes and their punishment, and the function of punishment itself. These debates concerned not only the role of the State in issues of punishment, security, and instruction, but also the significance of law, which, in an implicit way, was transferred from the natural sciences to penal legislation: if the laws of society mirror the necessary laws of nature, then the State is legitimized to foster and guarantee the respect of these “natural” laws.10

from an article by Ruggero Bonghi, Minister of Public Education, published in the journal La Cultura). 6

Ibidem.

7

Cf. Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 333-374.

8

Fioretti, I pregiudizi popolari su la nuova scuola penale, 17: “[…] dimostrava nel modo più evidente la erroneità del postulato fondamentale della scuola classica, cioè, l’esistenza del libero arbitrio”.

9

Fioretti, I pregiudizi popolari su la nuova scuola penale, 18-25.

10 In the Tanner Lectures she gave at Harvard University, Lorraine Daston has defined this as one of the typical changes in the conception of science and of state power in modern times: nature conceived as “universal nature” includes everything which is not human and is also directly associated with the conception of universal law. Cf. Lorraine Daston, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Harvard University, November 6, 2002, Lecture I: “The Morality of Natural Orders: the Power of Medea”, available online at: http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/d/daston_2002.pdf (last consulted November 6, 2015).

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In fact, an article that appeared in Il Corriere del Mattino precisely during the days in which the conference was being held reported that Moritz Benedikt (18351920), a neurologist and professor at the University of Vienna, also wished “the prompt and complete abolition of laws founded on metaphysical principles, and the prompt reconstruction of a new legislative system, which will happen according to the advice of a juridical science that, thanks to anthropology, will have entered the domain of exact sciences”.11 Moreover, the author of the article remarked that the congress had an eminently international character.12 Again, we are confronted with motifs typical for Moleschott’s collaboration in networks of scientists and politicians: first, the explicit aspiration to the internationality of these meetings. Secondly, the references to moral values (including “humanity” as an ethical and epistemic value). Thirdly, the idea that it is exactly the task of science, more precisely of anthropology as “exact science” and of the natural sciences, to grant that these values are achieved within society as essential features of public life in a liberal State. This implied a strong connection between science and the nation-state, since only science studied precisely those necessary laws of nature that were thought to regulate not only the life of living beings, but also of the greater organism of society. Thus, science legitimized the jurisdictional power of the State, insofar as it was based on laws which were modeled on the necessary laws of nature: if the laws of society corresponded to the laws of nature, then the natural sciences were supposed to know these laws best. In this way, experts in (supposed) “exact sciences” such as criminal anthropology were presented as being indispensable for the State, and the natural sciences, studying the necessary laws of nature, corresponding to the necessary laws of society, were invested with great power. Indeed, at that time scientists represented a majority group within Italian politics after the unification: Moleschott was not an exception, since most of his colleagues at the Senate, as well as many members of the Parliament (thus, the members of both Chambers) were coming from an academic milieu. Quite a lot of them had a background in the natural sciences, mathematics (e.g. Luigi Cremona, who supported Moleschott’s idea of a Philosophical Faculty based on the German university model), and medicine.13 11 “I due Congressi”. Lettere al Corriere. Corriere del Mattino, anno XIII, n. 321 (Thursday, November 19, 1885): “Il Benedikt, professore allʼUniversità di Vienna parla anche lui desiderando la pronta e completa abolizione delle leggi fondate su di erronei principii metafisici, e la pronta ricostruzione di un nuovo sistema legislativo, che sarà fatto secondo i suggerimenti di una scienza giuridica che per opera dell'antropologia sarà entrata nel dominio delle scienze esatte.” 12 “I due Congressi”. Lettere al Corriere. Corriere del Mattino, anno XIII, n. 321 (Thursday, November 19, 1885). 13 This is no wonder, since, as we have seen, the members of the Academy of Sciences were proposed to the King to be appointed Senators after seven years from the start of their

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The understanding of the State as an organism, functioning according to the same laws and the same principles as a living organism, is to be found in Moleschott’s answer to a letter of critique by his colleague, the physician and politician Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli.14 Tommasi accused criminal anthropology of offering inadequate und insufficient theories to protect society from lawbreakers: according to him, “whoever and for whatever reason has tried to break the laws of nature and of humanity does not have the right to live and remain in it [the society, L.M.]”.15 Moleschott replied with a letter to “my dear and illustrious friend”, in which he expressed the same concepts that we have found in his university lectures, in his notes (especially in his “Quaderni”), and in the sketches for his Anthropologie, namely that “man is a product of nature and culture”, and that “society constitutes a true organism”. In membership. On the role of scientists in the politics of unified Italy, cf. Silvano Montaldo, “Scienziati e potere politico”, 37-61. On scientists and medical doctors having a seat at the Parliament (in the “Camera dei deputati”), cf. Montaldo, “Scienziati e potere politico”, 57, where he mentions Paolo Mantegazza, who engaged in the field of hygiene; on medical doctors sitting on the extreme left wing of the Parliament (“Estrema”) or active members of the socialist party (“Partito socialista”), cf. Montaldo, “Scienziati e potere politico”, 5556, where he mentions, among others, a disciple of Moleschott and Mosso who engaged in politics and specifically in issues of public hygiene, Pietro Albertoni. On scientists having a seat at the Senate, cf. Montaldo, “Scienziati e potere politico”, 45-46, where Moleschott is also mentioned together with numerous other scientists; they were appointed according to three “categories” which referred to their “merits” and to their long-term membership (at least seven years) in an institution such as the Academy of Science or the Higher Council of Public Education (Consiglio Superiore di Pubblica Istruzione). On medical doctors close to socialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (with a particular focus on Turin), cf. also Bravo, “L’ideologia del movimento operaio”, 77-150, on this specific issue especially 134-135. 14 Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli (1834-1900) was an anatomist and pathologist, famous for his studies on malaria: after having studied medicine in Pisa and attended the laboratory of Claude Bernard in Paris and of Rudolf Virchow in Berlin, he became Professor of Anatomy and Pathology in Palermo, fought in the Second War of Independence, and became first a member of the Parliament, shaping Crispi’s reform on hygiene in 1888, and then a Senator, in 1892. Cf. Maurizio Colafranceschi and Sergio Goretti, “L’opera scientifica di Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli. Riflessioni e spunti d’attualità”. Rivista di storia della medicina, 5, (1995), 1: 133-146. 15 For this and the following quotes, cf. the two letters by Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli and Jacob Moleschott, published in Il Corriere del Mattino, Napoli, 4 Gennaio 1883, anno XIV, n. 8, and Il Corriere della Sera, Milano, 6 Gennaio 1886, anno XI, n. 6. Moleschott collected them and they are now preserved in BCABo, FSM, 113.3 (new): “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”.

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this respect, Moleschott’s conception of society was similar to that of other natural scientists who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, engaged in politics and aimed at introducing social reforms, as well as at improving the overall hygienic condition of the population. His German colleague Rudolf Virchow, for instance, also identified the moral law with the natural laws; therefore, he regarded morality as an empirical science, and the natural sciences as the foundation of ethics.16 The correspondence between Moleschott and Tommasi was published in both of the most important national newspapers, that is (respectively for Southern and Northern Italy), Il Corriere del Mattino (Naples, January 4, 1886) and Il Corriere della Sera (Milan, January 6, 1886). Moleschott reacted to the critique of his colleague by explaining the fundamental principles of criminal anthropology as follows: “Unfortunately one must recognize that, if human society is constituted by all of its individuals, even lawbreakers are part of it. Since society is brought together by a set of individuals, who are not able to live their lives or to satisfy their physical and moral needs without continuously relying on each other, without being interwoven a thousand ways, without that all of them influence each individual and each individual influences the whole of society, it is evident that society constitutes a true organism. The lawbreaker is similar to an evil member, and in the same way as the organism necessarily tries to make it innocuous, so does society put social order above individual responsibilities.”17

16 Cf. Goschler, Rudolf Virchow, 359-360; on the conception of the natural sciences as providing a basis for ethics and a method for thinking, as well as on their role for the question of national unity, see Goschler, Rudolf Virchow, 368. Moleschott and Virchow knew each other and exchanged some correspondence: three letters from Virchow are contained in BCABo, FSM, 22.13 (new); the first letter regarded the Naturforscherversammlung held in 1858 (Virchow to Moleschott, Berlin, January [?] 18, 1858), the other two letters regard some recommendation issues and the exchange of publications (Virchow to Moleschott, Berlin, December 16, 1862 and August 17, 1869). 17 Jacob Moleschott, in “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”, published in Il Corriere del Mattino, Napoli, 4 Gennaio 1883, anno XIV n. 8, and Il Corriere della Sera, Milano, 6 Gennaio 1886, anno XI n. 6 (BCABo, FSM, 113.3 (new)): “Pur troppo bisogna riconoscere, che se la società umana si compone di tutti i suoi individui, ne fanno parte pure i delinquenti. In quanto la società è congiunta in un insieme d’individui, che non possono svolgere la loro vita né soddisfare i loro bisogni fisici e morali senza far continuo appello gli uni agli altri, senza intrecciarsi in mille modi, senza che tutti influiscano sullʼindividuo e questo su tutti, è evidente che la società costituisce un vero organismo. Il delinquente rassomiglia ad un membro nocivo, e come l’organismo per necessità cerca di renderlo innocuo, così fa pure la società che mette l’ordine sociale al di sopra della responsabilità dell’individuo.”

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Moleschott thus supported, in principle, the position of Lombroso and his followers; he could justify and explain the main assumption of the school of criminal anthropology through references to physiological and biological theories, which have been the constant issue in his writings and his work. The parallelism between nature and society, however, represented an accepted presupposition not only for Moleschott, but also for his opponent Tommasi-Crudeli: as we have just seen, according to the latter, lawbreakers break both “the laws of nature and of humanity”. Moleschott’s reply is based on the presupposition that “society stands above the individual”, thus that society be more important than each of its single members. In this sense, he considered lawbreakers as indicating the presence of defects and problems in the society in which they were living as a whole: “There is one thing that must be recognized and contemplated in whatever political, social or humanitarian action, i.e. that society stands above the individual. This thesis, it seems to me, eliminates, or even defeats, most of the difficulties which you notice and which indeed refer to the task of harmonizing social defense with the respect that a lawbreaker merits, who is pushed to do evil not just because of the defects of its organization, but also because of the faults inherent to society itself.”18

In other words, Moleschott understood crime both as a defect of the “organization” of the criminal (the word directly recalls the physical organization of organisms, and in this particular case it also refers to a set of moral values) and as implying structural problems in the organization of society, i.e. in the societal organism. Even though punishment remained at the center of the new conception of penal law, this was seen as a way to educate (or reeducate) and to “heal” the “ill” members of society, not as an act of revenge: “It seems to me that the progress, which emanates from the penitentiary studies of a whole century be that, no matter how much the responsibility of the people may diminish, this is no reason for us to renounce the right to punish. It is enough to remember that the punishment must not be considered an act of vengeance […]. Thus, every project of torture is excluded from the punishment. Indulgence, which follows the biological examination of the criminal,

18 Moleschott, in “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”: “Una cosa vuol essere riconosciuta e contemplata in ogni provvedimento, politico, sociale od umanitario che sia, ed è che la società sta al disopra dell’individuo. Questa tesi, mi pare, elimina, se non vince, gran numero delle difficoltà che tu sollevi e che infatti fanno capo al còmpito di armonizzare la difesa sociale col riguardo che merita un delinquente, il quale è spinto al male per i difetti della propria organizzazione non solo, ma pure per colpe inerenti alle condizioni della società medesima.”

366 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY prohibits labeling him as an ignominious person; since a criminal is after all himself a member of society, society would degrade itself if it attempted to humiliate the criminal.”19

Consequently, the penalty itself was not understood as punishment, but as an attempt of reeducation: it was a right and a duty of society “to make its criminals innocuous”, or, taking up a clearly religious terminology, “to redeem” them, maintained Moleschott, who considered work as the most appropriate means to this purpose. Work as educative and redeeming means was considered to substitute for the idea of punishment and to represent advancement in the penal system as a whole. The Hegelian idea of work as a means for moral and civic education was justified through a reference to the Gospels: “why shouldn’t society take advantage of the productivity of its degenerate members, as far as this does not stand in competition with honest workers?”20 This sentence is understandable only in the context of Moleschott’s liberal political thinking. Ludwig Büchner, who, in his Darwinismus und Sozialismus, criticized discrimination and inequalities in his contemporary society, was also firmly attached to liberal principles.21 Finally, Moleschott outlined a direct analogy between criminal anthropology and medicine, or better surgery. He argued that both had become more and more conservative in their historical evolution, with the consequence that the criminal was not rejected from society, but society tried to educate him, or should do so, in accordance with the principles of the “empirical science” of criminal anthropology: “It is a glory of modern surgery to be conservative par excellence. Criminal right [i.e. penal law, L.M.] has emulated health science. I must confess to you, my dear Tommasi, that I

19 Moleschott, in “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”: “A me pare che uno dei progressi che più chiaramente emanano dagli studii penitenziarii di un secolo intiero, si è, che per quanto possa diminuire la responsabilità delle persone, non per questo ci viene meno il diritto di punire. Basta ricordare che la pena non deve considerarsi come un atto vendicativo. […] Quindi dalla pena rimane escluso ogni progetto di tortura. L’indulgenza che ci detta l’esame biologico del delinquente vieta di affliggere l’ignominia, poiché l’uomo criminale essendo pur sempre un membro della società, questa degrada sé stessa volendo avvilire il delinquente.” 20 Moleschott, in “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”: “Renderlo innocuo, ecco il diritto non solo, ma il dovere che la società deve esercitare. Se vuole redimerlo, non avvi per questo altro mezzo che il lavoro del quale la Scrittura dice bene che rende beati. E perché la società non dovrebbe valersi della produttività dei suoi membri degenerati, ma non guasti del tutto, purché non si faccia con essa una concorrenza allʼoperaio onesto?” 21 Cf. Gregory, Scientific materialism in 19th-century Germany, 212.

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will not be disappointed if jails, baths, penitentiary-agricultural colonies will therefore resemble penitentiary hospitals.”22 Moleschott thus explained to Tommasi that criminal anthropology aimed precisely at transforming jails into hospitals, thus making penal law a question of care rather than of punishment, and a branch of medicine rather than of juridical science. He then expressed his hope that he had convinced his opponent (in this specific case, Tommasi-Crudeli, but implicitly also the hypothetical opponents among the audience of the readers) that criminal anthropology took care of the “necessary, legitimate and holy defense of society”, no less than it sought to “recognize the organic, hereditary, [and] social causes of crime”. Finally, he thanked him for having believed that they must come to a common understanding of such questions, which are “as important for science as for the good of humanity”. As we have seen, the ideal of humanity has always been central in Moleschott’s thought: according to him, “humanity” should be the leading principle of ethics and of justice and should be regarded as the highest value not only by international associations “for the progress of social sciences”, but also by the legislators. Once more, we can observe that “humanity” represents a fil rouge of Moleschott’s ideas about science and about science applied to society. Criminal anthropology is therefore presented as an “exact science”, but at the same time as being based on moral principles – or better, re-founding morality on the solid base of empirical science. In the next section, we will deal with Moleschott’s ideas about the task of criminal anthropology in more detail. Let us then turn to Moleschott’s speeches at the conference, whose content did not primarily address the critics of criminal anthropology, as was the case with the abovementioned article: instead, these speeches directly addressed the participants of the congress, and therefore the followers of criminal anthropology. In the next section, we will analyze some central elements of Moleschott’s thinking about the relationship between society and nature, showing the relation between the representation of society as an organic whole and natural philosophy, in particular in the explicit and implicit references to Goethe’s thought. In fact, while addressing the opponents, or the critics, of criminal anthropology, Moleschott was rather backing the anthropologists and defending their position, whereas when holding the opening speech at the congress itself, he also made clear on which of their points he disagreed and attempted to influence their program.

22 Moleschott, in “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”: “È gloria della chirurgia moderna l’essersi resa conservativa per eccellenza. Il diritto criminale si è fatto emulo dell’arte salutare. Ti confesso, mio caro Tommasi, che non mi sembra un gran male se ne risulterà che le carceri, i bagni, le colonie penitenziarie-agricole rassomiglino per ciò ad ospedali penitenziari.”

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M OLESCHOTT ’ S S PEECHES AT THE I NTERNATIONAL C ONGRESS ON C RIMINAL A NTHROPOLOGY , R OME 1885 Let us then analyze more closely the two speeches that Moleschott held at the congress, namely the opening and the concluding speeches. Moleschott had the demanding task of giving a programmatic beginning to the conference, illustrating the basic principles that should lead the work of the criminal anthropologist, as well as of making a synthesis of the results of the congress. Instead of listing its achievements, however, Moleschott took advantage of that occasion to celebrate the aims and values of criminal anthropology. Once more, we can notice the central role assigned to morality, in particular to the ethical and epistemic value of humanity23 as guiding the work of every scientist (including the anthropologist). Further, we can observe that Moleschott made use of quotes from antiquity and the classics (again, Goethe, whose phrases also appear at the beginning of his lectures starting in the 1860s, and in his unpublished “Anthropologie” as early as in the 1850s) in order to convince the audience and to justify the position of natural science. In the same way as he did in his Senate speeches and in the other public speeches we have analyzed in the previous chapters, Moleschott put side by side descriptions taken from the natural sciences and rhetorical images, texts from classical antiquity, and poems by modern writers. What is more, he described natural and physiological phenomena themselves through vivid rhetorical imagery such as analogies, parallelisms, and metaphors. As we will see in the next section, Moleschott also made ample usage of images taken from the natural sciences in the speech on penal law he gave at the Senate, in which the concept of organic growth was transferred from the natural sciences to legislation. The first sentences of his opening speech praised the participants for having dared to question even the most accepted principles and for assuming a critical standpoint vis-à-vis the tradition: “Le progrès dépend de ces hommes intrépides qui n’admettent pas le droit de la tradition, sans lui avoir demandé les raisons de son existence. […] Or, Messieurs, je vois parmi vous ces hommes illustres qui ont osé demander raison à l’institution dont la base semblait la plus inébranlable, la plus inabordable de toutes, à la justice elle-même.”24 In spite of his critique of the tradition, one of the main features of Moleschott’s speech was the reference to the classics and to the cultural and juridical tradition in general. His main aim is, on the one hand, to persuade the audience that criminal 23 For ethical and epistemic virtues, cf. Daston and Galison, Objectivity. 24 Jac[ob] Moleschott, Discours prononcés dans la séance d’ouverture (17 Novembre 1885) et à la conclusion (25 Novembre 1885) du Congrés International d’antropologie [sic] criminelle à Rome (Rome: Ippolito Sciolla, Imprimeur du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, 1886). The opuscule is also conserved in BCABo, FSM, 113.3 (new). The following quotes are part of Moleschott’s opening speech, pp. 1-3, here p. 1.

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anthropology represented the necessary continuation of traditional juridical thinking; on the other hand, he tried to persuade the anthropologists not to present their view as completely new and revolutionary, but instead to show its continuity with the past. One of his strategies for underlining that criminal anthropology belonged to a wellestablished and centuries-long tradition was the constant reference to the ideal of “humanity” as the highest value and guiding principle for the work of the scientist. Moleschott himself used the term “humanitarian” at the end of his speech as a synonym for “philanthropic”. Here, he told the participants of the conference that “the most noble, the most generous, the most holy, in one word, the most humanitarian of your aspirations, is to set free the criminal […] from the ignominy of crime, it is to cancel his shame”.25 In fact, Moleschott continued by saying that even if it were not always possible to accord grace to criminals, one should always forgive them, since, as he had previously declared, the aim of punishment was “to secure society while protecting the criminal”: in his view, punishment was not a “revenge” but a “safeguard”.26 This forgiving attitude was justified through a quote from Madame De Staël, “to understand everything is to forgive everything”.27 The quote underlined the fundamental role of knowledge for one’s moral attitude; but, if it is necessary to know in order to comprehend and forgive, this implied that it was science, in this case criminal anthropology, which is the necessary precursor to a just and equitable attitude towards lawbreakers. This means that Moleschott considered science, in a somewhat self-contradictory way, both as a foundation for morality and as being guided by morality and justice. This interplay, which we have already observed in the Senate speeches about physical education, should not be understood as incoherence, since Moleschott never tried to clearly define the relationship between science and morality, but always mentioned them as being in constant and continuous interaction with each other. Exactly the study of the interaction between nature and culture, between human beings and their

25 Moleschott, Discours prononcés dans la séance d’ouverture (17 Novembre 1885) et à la conclusion (25 Novembre 1885) du Congrés International d’antropologie [sic] criminelle à Rome. The following quotes are part of Moleschott’s opening speech, pp. 1-3, here p. 2: “Oui, Messieurs! tout en protégeant, tout en sauvant le criminel. Car la plus noble, la plus généreuse, la plus sainte, en un mot, la plus humanitaire de vos aspirations, cʼest de délivrer le délinquant de la flétrissure, de l’ignominie du crime, cʼest d’effacer sa honte”. 26 Moleschott, Discours (opening speech) 2: “Vos punitions ne sont pas des représailles, ce sont des sauvgardes dont le but est de rassurer la société tout en protégeant le criminel.” 27 Moleschott, Discours (opening speech), 2-3: “Il s’agit de malheureux, de disgraziati, sciagurati, auxquels la société peut ne pas toujours accorder la grâce, mais toujours le pardon. Car – répétons le mot célèbre de Madame de Staël – ‘Tout comprendre cʼest tout pardonner.’”

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social, natural, and cultural environments was meant to be the base of criminal anthropology. Moleschott could only support such an idea of penal law based on the study of mankind, or better of its relation with “nature”, “climate”, “attitude”, “work”, and all kind of factors which could influence its behavior, since this was exactly his conception of anthropology:28 “On a combattu le nom dont vous avez embrassé l’ensemble de vos recherches et de vos aspirations, parce que l’on a pas voulu comprendre qu’aussi bien qu’on parle d’un droit criminel, on est autorisé a [sic] désigner comme anthropologie criminelle l’étude de l’homme qui l’envisage dans les liens de la nature, de la descendance, des besoins que [sic] créent le climat et la misère, l’habitude, l’exemple, le travail, le repos forcé, pour mesurer la portée de toutes ces influences en tant qu’elle disposent l’individu aux faux pas, aux égarements de la passion, au vice, au crime. Etudier [sic] l’anatomie, la physiologie, l’hygiène du criminel, sa productivité, sa guerison [sic] ou bien sa ruine fatale, examiner ses besoins et reconnaître ses droits, c’est bien, il me semble, faire de l’anthropologie criminelle.”29

As Moleschott presents it, then, it is exactly the task of the natural sciences to bring “humanity” within the conception of law, of justice and of punishment, with the result that society would maintain the right to punish lawbreakers, but the punishment would be “necessary”, because founded on scientific principles, and, for this reason – as Moleschott argued – “humane”: “Sous vos mains, la Société n’a perdu et ne perdra pas le droit de punir; mais vous insistez sur ce que la punition soit humaine, et elle n’est humaine qu’en tant qu’elle est nécessaire. Guidés par cette maxime, vous ne perdez jamais de vue l’homme qui vit dans le délinquant. En épiant toutes les conditions de son être, en examinant tous les motifs de ses actions, vous marchez sur un chemin qui ressemble beaucoup à celui que la médecine moderne s’efforce de frayer avec une ardeur éclairée. Comme ici il s’agit avant tout de prévenir la maladie, et, lorsqu’elle a éclaté, de la guérir avec les moyens les plus simples et mesurable, vous voulez enrayer le vice et prévenir le crime, ou bien le punir par les moyens les plus humanitaires possibles, pour défendre la société, non pas pour la vanger [sic].”30 28 Cf. also the notes in his “Quaderni”, where he explained the influence of culture, experience, and environment on human perception: BCABo, FSM, “Quaderni” A II 3 a, Fisica dell’organismo, [30]: “Influenza d’idee preconcette: sotto il microscopio in genere vedono meglio le donne che gli uomini, meglio gli stud[ent]i di letteratura o di teologia che gli studenti di medicina.” English translation (my own): “Influence of preformed ideas: women see better than men what is under the microscope; literature or theology students see better than medicine students.” 29 Moleschott, Discours (opening speech), 2. 30 Moleschott, Discours (opening speech), 2.

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Again, Moleschott insisted on the human side of a reformed penal system: criminal anthropology would consider every criminal as a human being and treat him as such; it would prevent crime and, when a crime was committed, it would punish the criminal in order to educate him and to defend society, not to take revenge on the lawbreaker. In other words, criminal anthropology would be the way to a “humane” justice. These principles were accepted as underpinning the school of criminal anthropology,31 and Moleschott, as we can infer from these lines, completely agreed with them. As he did in the abovementioned public letter to Tommasi, here too he compared these advancements of anthropology to those of modern medicine, this time underlining its striving for prevention of illnesses and for simplicity and measure in their cure. Another typical feature of this speech is its nationalist character and the inscription of scientific development within the framework of national history, again a motive that we have observed in all of Moleschott’s Italian writings and speeches, especially in those directed to a broader, not exclusively scientific audience. In this speech, Moleschott greeted the participants “in Rome, in the name of Rome, as Italian citizen, as adoptive son of Italy – which, I repeat it, is the fatherland of Beccaria and Filangieri”. He declared himself to be “fiercely thankful” for this, underlining that the mere possibility of holding such a meeting “is a title of glory for our era”: “Le seul fait de la possibilité de cette réunion est un titre de gloire pour notre ère, Messieurs. J’en suis fier, je suis reconnaissant de pouvoir vous saluer à Rome, au nom de Rome, comme citoyen italien, comme fils adoptif de l’Italie qui, je le répète, est la patrie des [sic] Beccaria et des [sic] Filangieri.” 32

Indeed, the speech started and ended with a reference to two famous figures from the Italian Enlightenment, Gaetano Filangieri and Cesare Beccaria (the latter is known above all for his treatises on punishment, Dei delitti e delle pene, 1764).33 In order to understand the reference to the Enlightenment and, in particular, to Italian juridical thinking in the Enlightenment, let us then turn to the beginning of the speech, where 31 Cf. Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 333-374. 32 Moleschott, Discours (opening speech), 3. 33 In the eighteenth century, Cesare Beccaria and Gaetano Filangieri criticized contemporary penal legislation and, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, suggested its reform and pled for a secularized and rationalized penal system (compare e.g. Cesare Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, 1764). Cf. “Strafrecht”. Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit Online. Ed. Friedrich Jaeger. Brill Online, 2015. Reference. Universitaetsbibliothek Giessen. January 22, 2015. . First appeared online: 2014 (in particular Jens Eisfeld, § 8 “Krise des gemeinen Strafrechts und kriminalpolitische Aufklärung”).

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Moleschott explained that, one century before, “Filangieri was publicly condemned as revolutionary and impious by the clergy of Naples”. Here we can observe an implicit analogy with Giordano Bruno, who was condemned by the Church but elevated as spiritual hero of the new nation-state: “C’est la patrie de Cesare Beccaria et de Gaetano Filangieri qui vous reçoit et qui vous donne la [sic] bienvenue. Il y a un siècle ou peu de plus, puisque c’était le 6 décembre 1784 que l’œuvre de Filangieri fut condamnée publiquement, comme révolutionnaire et impie, par le clergé de Naples. Et aujourd’hui, vous vous réunissez à Rome, Messieurs, pour vous entendre, pour vous animer l’un l’autre dans les recherches d’anthropologie criminelle. C’est donc bien un signe des temps dont nous sommes les témoins.”34

Once more, the Italian liberal State was presented as an example of progress. An even more direct reference to Italian patriotism is contained in the last sentences of the speech that Moleschott gave at the conclusion of the conference on criminal anthropology. There, he described the works of the conference as a nationalist act and invited its participants to understand themselves as essential elements of national progress. At the very end of the speech, he cited a motto attributed to Mazzini: “L’idéal ne tombe jamais, mais il recule toujours. Il ne fait qu’attirer l’investigateur en s’éloignant assez pour que la recherche reste un culte perpétuel. C’est ce culte, Messieurs, qui m’inspire de couronner mon discours avec la parole célèbre en Italie, parce qu’elle a été proférée par une bouche auguste: Sempre avanti!”35

The image of science that he suggested here recalls the image of the always-broadening sphere, which, as we have seen, Moleschott quoted from Cabanis, conveying the message that knowledge is a task always yet to be more fully achieved, and that research is a never-ending search for knowledge. In this way, the image of science as a never-ending (“perpetual”) activity gained a religious connotation, and research was defined, with a religious terminology, as “perpetual cult”. As we have seen in the chapter about higher education, in the speech he gave at La Sapienza in Rome in 1892 during the celebrations held in his honor, Moleschott utilized a similar image in order to describe the work of the scientist, namely the image of a ship one can only follow at the horizon, but never reach. Also in that speech, the “ideal” was said to 34 Moleschott, Discours (opening speech), 1. 35 Moleschott, Discours prononcés dans la séance d’ouverture (17 Novembre 1885) et à la conclusion (25 Novembre 1885) du Congrés International d’antropologie [sic] criminelle à Rome. The following quotes are part of Moleschott’s concluding speech, pp. 2-5, here p. 5.

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play a central role in the motivation of the scientist. Even though by definition unreachable, the ideal on the one hand constituted the motivation for scientific investigation, and on the other hand gave research the moral nobility that the observation and description of mere facts, alone, would never provide.36 What the “ideal” actually meant, whether it belonged to the epistemic or to the ethical sphere, is not defined by Moleschott: both at the conference on criminal anthropology and in the lecture he gave at La Sapienza, he left this undefined, or better, we can infer that such a distinction between epistemic and ethical values was not relevant for him. If Moleschott did not clearly distinguish between ethical and epistemic values, we can better understand his conception of science as being by definition engaged in shaping a new society and a new nation, since in such a framework it did not make sense to speak of a pure and an applied science, with a theoretical and a practical component. Rather, science as such was conceived as always embedded in a social and political context, which it should contribute to improving by informing it through its “rational” principles – the word “rational” is taken directly from the sources, since, as we have seen, Moleschott spoke about a “rational” dietetics, but also about “rational” hygienic principles and a “rational” organization of society as an organic whole. Further in this speech, Moleschott defined morality and – even more astonishing – Christian morality, as “the crowning of humanity set free from slavery”: “Une récompense vous est acquise dès à présent. Vous n’avez pas perdu ce guide, cette bussole [sic] suprème [sic] qui s’appelle la morale. Dans toutes nos réunions, je n’ai pas eu un moment de satisfaction plus grande que lorsque vous avez applaudi à mes paroles, que, quelle que puisse être notre opinion sur les dogmes du Christianisme, nous sommes tous d’accord en considérant sa morale comme la couronne de l’humanité affranchie de l’esclavage.”37

36 Cf. Jacob Moleschott, Allocuzione di Jacopo Moleschott pronunciata alla Sapienza di Roma il 16 dicembre 1892 per le feste giubilari in onore di lui, in Moleschott, Per gli amici miei, 302-312, here 304. English translation (my own): “All of us would not be satisfied with collecting hard facts, but aspire to transform them into letters through which we could read ideas. Navigating in the flow of life, we look at phenomena and we try to put them in relation with each other and to fully understand the relation they have to us. And in that research journey we see in front of us a small vessel which becomes a boat, a ship […] whose mast becomes higher and higher, whose flags […] become more and more shining, and that ship always remains unreachable, no matter how hard we try […]. That ship carries the ideal. We can never touch it, but it gives us the strength to progress, and together with the height of the mast do the nobility of our aspirations become higher and higher.” 37 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 4-5.

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In the following lines, he went on with a reference to the Gospels; however, he then continued with a quote from Shakespeare, in this way suggesting that both Christianity and literary traditions should inspire criminal anthropology: “Le Christ, avant Shakespeare, nous a fait connaître, et cela dans son meilleur disciple, en l’apôtre Pierre lui-même, que notre espèce est frêle. ‘Woman, thy name is frailty!’ Ce mot ne s’adresse pas à la femme seulement, ce mot doit s’appliquer à l’homme, au genre humain entier. Nous y puisons la force de l’indulgence. Or, si la morale est notre guide, la justice est notre phare. Il est inutile de s’appuyer sur cette assertion, puisque toutes vos discussions l’ont confirmée, je serais porté à dire d’une manière par trop accentuée. Vos théories ont retrempé le droit de punir, et par là vous avez confuté vos adversaires les plus acharnés. S’il m’était permis d’exprimer un vœu à moi, ce serait que vous ne glissiez sur la pente qui conduit à l’extrème [sic] opposé, pour devenir plus rigureux [sic] que n’étaient les défenseurs les plus sévères de l’école classique.”38

In this way, his speech also paid a tribute to religion, trying to reconcile criminal anthropology with Christianity, but at the same time implicitly criticizing its dogmatism (as Moleschott specified, “whatever might be our opinion about its dogmas”). At the same time, he referred to classical literary authors in order to underpin his observations: in the concluding speech, these references go from the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras to a verse from Dante’s Convivio up to a poem by Goethe, ending up with a quote from then-contemporary author Victor Hugo.39 The order in which these important figures in the history of modern thought are cited is not arbitrary, nor does it only reflect the logical order of Moleschott’s argument, but is in fact chronological. This gives the speech a character of necessity and presents the ideas of anthropology as being the topping of a continuous progress, and thus at the same time as being part of and connected to a millenary tradition. Indeed, criminal anthropology is presented as having the origins of its methods in Protagoras’s maxim, πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος (“man is the measure of all things”): “It is at this point that positive science, that criminal Anthropology finds its origin and its method.

38 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 5. 39 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 4: “Si Dante vous promet la récompense de vos efforts, Goethe vous anime dans votre travail. Rien de plus vrai que ces vers: Greift nur hinein in’s volle Menschenleben! / Ein jeder lebt’s, nicht vielen ist’s bekannt, / Und wo ihr’s packt, da ist’s interessant.ˮ The quoted verses originate from Goethe’s Faust, Teil I, Vorspiel auf dem Theater, Lustige Person. For the correspondence between Moleschott and Victor Hugo, cf. Desittere, “Un carteggio privato della famiglia Moleschott conservato a Bologna”.

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The task is to measure everything, to weigh everything, in order to achieve well defined results” – where there is no space left for individual, contingent elements.40 In the following paragraphs, Moleschott celebrates Lombroso as an admirable scientist because he measures everything: in fact, one of his favorite activities was measuring skulls and deriving the psychological character of a person from the form and measure of his or her cranium, as well as undertaking other anthropometric classifications (mostly summarizing his results in tables) and carrying on physiologicpsychological experiments.41 However, this does not necessarily mean that Lombroso was familiar only with the natural sciences. In fact, he also had a predilection for history (under the influence of the historian Pasquale Villari, who was a supporter of anthropology and, as Minister of Public Education, allowed the institution in Florence of the first Chair of Anthropology in Europe in 1870)42 and for statistics.43 It is probably due to the essential role played by statistics in criminal anthropology that one of the suggestions Moleschott gave at the end of the conference would be exactly to beware of statistics since their results can be interpreted in several ways and should not be given an absolute value: “Dʼabord, soyons sur nos gardes quand il sʼagit de chiffres. On dit souvent que, dans les recherches statistiques, les chiffres sont complaisants et quʼon peut y lire tout ce quʼon veut. Mais à bien y voir, il faut plutôt convenir que les chiffres sont rebelles et celui qui les manie avec imprudence, sʼappercoit [sic] bientôt que ce sont des couteaux à deux tranchants.ˮ44 Lombroso’s predilection for statistics had already been the cause of his unsuccessful attempt to win a scientific award (the “premio Riberi”) in 1862. Lombroso himself expressed the risks of statistics in the introduction to his work and then explained why he nevertheless held them in great esteem; however, the jury did not appreciate the predominance of such a method, which, together with an “almost mathematical precision”, implied also a plain and sterile character of the publication.45 40 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 3: “C’est là que la science positive, que l’Anthropologie criminelle trouve son origine et sa méthode. Il s’agit de tout mesurer, de tout peser, pour arriver à des résultats bien définis qui ôtent à l’observation le rapport individuel et qui délivrent le raisonnement de l’influence des prédilections.” 41 Cf. Ferruccio Giacanelli, Introduction to “Il medico, l’alienista”, in Cesare Lombroso. Delitto, genio, follia. Scritti scelti, ed. by Delia Frigessi, Ferruccio Giancanelli, and Luisa Mangoni (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1995), 5-44, in particular 15. 42 Cf. Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 343. 43 Cf. Luisa Mangoni, Introduction to “Eziologia di una nazione”, in Cesare Lombroso. Delitto, genio, follia. Scritti scelti, ed. Delia Frigessi, Ferruccio Giancanelli, and Luisa Mangoni (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1995), 691. 44 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 2. 45 Cf. Giacanelli, Introduction to “Il medico, l’alienista”, 13.

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Moleschott, when warning the anthropologists away from being too confident and trusting vis-à-vis statistical data, was probably well aware of the not-so-high reputation in which statistics were mostly held in contemporary Italy. Once more, he was trying to convince the participants of the congress not to go in too-unusual directions and to comply with accepted styles of research and writing by sticking to well-established scientific traditions. At the same time, he praised medicine for having set them free from hypostatization (here called “ontologism”); in fact, according to him, medicine did not deal with diseases as abstract entities, but with each concrete ill person: “En second lieu, suivons l’exemple de la médecine en ce qu’elle nous a délivrés de toute espèce d’ontologisme. Notre illustre confrère, M. Lacassagne, nous a rappelé l’anecdote de Corvisart qui, un jour qu’un de ses amis le priait de lui montrer la pleurésie, lui répondit quʼil était incapable de lui faire voir la pleurésie, mais qu’il pouvait lui montrer des pleurétiques. Nous sommes bien décidés, Messieurs, à faire à lʼépilepsie la plus sévère application de cette leçon. En esquivant l’ontologie, en observant les épileptiques, il nous sera donné de monter et de descendre l’échelle sans confondre les racines avec le faîte.”46

Thus, Moleschott considered it to be a merit of medicine that it had drawn attention to empirical phenomena, rather than to abstract theories. Thirdly, he considered as an important result of the conference the acknowledgement that science must look for the causes without confusing them with the circumstances of that same event: “Il y a une troisième maxime à relever et ce n’est pas la moins importante. Nous savons tous depuis longtemps éviter l’écueil du post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Mais nous sommes menacés d’un autre danger qui est tout aussi grand, plus grand peut-être, parce qu’il est séduisant et qu’il est très difficile de démêler les causes et les effets. Tâchons de ne pas tomber dans le cum hoc, ergo propter hoc, ce qui serait confondre les causes avec les circonstances dans lesquelles les effets se sont produits.”47

In other words, Moleschott advised his audience to keep in mind that correlation does not display a relation of causality, and that they should distinguish the causes from their effects and from their circumstances, even though that might be a difficult task. However, not only figures and causal relations, but also literary references played a significant role in Moleschott’s own argument: lively metaphors from the vocabulary of zoology are alternated with quotes from poetry. For instance, the work of the scientist is compared to the activity of a chick breaking its own eggshell and poking its head out of it as soon as possible, in order to admire the outer world; then, it would 46 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 2. 47 Ibidem.

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decide that this hard work was worth being done, and it would continue its efforts and emerge from the egg.48 Comparing this activity with that of the scientists and anthropologists, he addressed them in the following way: “Il me semble, Messieurs, et permettez-moi d’appliquer la comparaison avec tout le respect qui vous est dû, que vous avez pratiqué la première ouverture et qu’il vaut bien la peine de persévérer dans vos recherches. L’époque de l’alchimie vous a été épargnée. Vous n’êtes pas allés à la recherche de l’or, vous avez eu foi en la promesse de Dante: Essere suole, che l’uomo va cercando argento, e fuori della intenzione trova oro [“It usually happens that one looks for silver, and unintentionally finds gold”, L.M.].”49

These two images help us to complete Moleschott’s portrait of scientific research: a hard and never-ending task, which is always in the process of completion and which does not promise any supernatural discovery (the reference to alchemy), but which mostly rewards the researchers with a new, unexpected insight into the secrets of life (the world outside the egg). What is more, the less one expects, the more one finds (Dante’s verse: “the ones looking for silver would unintentionally find gold”, i.e. something more valuable than what one sought). Thus, for Moleschott, being modest also belonged to the scientist’s ethics, and modesty was a precursor for epistemic progress. The quote is taken from Dante Alighieri’s Convito, which Moleschott judged as constituting “the greatest part of Dante’s influence on our culture” and, most interestingly, as “contain[ing] such subtle observations on method”.50

48 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 3-4: “Je ne sais , Messieurs, si beaucoup d’entre vous se sont procuré le plaisir de voir éclore le poulet de sa coque. Je puis vous assurer que c’est un spectacle charmant. Dès le vingtième jour le poulet, dont l’incubation dure trois semaines, porte sur son bec une petite dent qui lui sert à percer la coquille, heureusement devenue assez fragile perce qu’elle a cédé une partie de ses sels calcaires au poulet et sans doute à la dent elle-même qui doit la rompre. Or c’est un travail assez lent et pénible que de pratiquer le premier trou. A peine est-il assez grand – et je vous prie de faire attention, parce que c’est le moment dramatique – à peine le trou permet-il à la tête du poulet d’y passer, qu’il la pousse dehors, et sur son cou long et flexible, il la promène à l’entour comme pour regarder si le monde qui l’environne vaut bien la peine qu’il continue ses efforts. Il trouve que si, il reprend son travail, et finit par briser sa coque pour en éclore en triomphe.” 49 Moleschott, Discours (concluding speech), 4. The quote originates from Dante Alighieri, Convivio (treatise II, chapter XII, strophe 5). 50 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 23 giugno 1887, 1233-1253 (Discussione del progetto di legge N. 51,

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Moleschott’s words were thus at the same time an encouragement for criminal anthropologists and an incitement to moderation. Although supporting in principle their mission of reforming Italian penal law through an approach deriving from what was considered an “empirical science”, Moleschott was aware that the possible radical consequences of such an approach were not necessarily well appreciated by the old school of penal law (as the article quoted at the beginning of this chapter also attests). As we will see in the next section, such a moderate view, trying to trace criminal anthropology back to preexisting ideas and rooting its principles in wellestablished traditions, was also typical for Moleschott’s Senate speeches on penal law. There, he underlined the continuity between the new anthropological approach and well-accepted conceptions of legislation; again, he did this through references to Goethe, as well as to Italian thinkers and poets.

I TALIAN P ENAL L AW BETWEEN C RIMINAL A NTHROPOLOGY AND N ATURAL P HILOSOPHY The following section concerns the conception of law and legislation, as well as the underlying ideas about nature, culture, and the influence of the environment on human behavior. In particular, it will become clear that a holistic conception of nature, related to natural philosophy (in particular, Goethe’s natural philosophy), was at the basis of Moleschott’s thought about legislation, as well as of his criticism of certain positions and implications of criminal anthropology. Moleschott’s conception of society appears as being deeply connected with his conception of nature. At the same time, he justified his position concerning a reform of penal law based on the new conceptions of criminal anthropology through references to the most well-known traditions of western culture. As we can see from the following quote, Moleschott justified his vote by referring at the same time to a strophe from Goethe’s Faust and to its translation by Andrea Maffei, Senator of the Kingdom in the XIII legislature (Depretis government): “In the effective discourse he held yesterday, Mr. Lampertico, dealing with the same school I am speaking about, in an even more detailed way, said that, if criminal anthropology is right, the Penal Code should not be reformed by means of slight alterations, but it should be done anew, completely afresh. “Istituzione di cattedre dantesche”), 1250: “[…] e soprattutto del Convito, che non ho sentito nominare, che contiene così fine osservazioni sul metodo, e che è grandissima parte della influenza di Dante nella nostra coltura”. The speech was also published as Jacob Moleschott, Relazione e discorso del senatore Jac. Moleschott sulla istituzione di una cattedra dantesca (15 e 23 giugno 1887) (Roma: Forzani e c., tipografi del Senato, 1887).

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I regret I do not agree about this conception with that serious and loyal thinker I have often mentioned. I would like to recall the words Mephistopheles said to the student, and I want to quote them in the translation we have by a late lamented and dearest colleague of ours, who has stuck to us for many years: Maffei. He says so: All rights and laws are still transmitted Like an eternal sickness of the race, – From generation unto generation fitted, And shifted round from place to place. Reason becomes a sham, Beneficence a worry.”51

In this way, Moleschott managed to pay a tribute to a former member of the Senate, while citing Mephistopheles’ words, in order to explain that he did not agree with a sudden and complete change of the penal code on the basis of criminal anthropology: Moleschott was for reforms, not for revolutions. Moleschott’s ideas about law and its reform were inspired by the gradual process of transformation that was typical of his conception of scientific knowledge as gradually evolving, as well as for the metamorphoses of organisms, which is the reason why he maintained that law must be changed progressively, not in just one step: “Sirs of the Senate, I believe it is impossible to eradicate the ill plant in order to suddenly substitute it with a new one, a healthy, flourishing, satisfying the best exigencies, because this would suppose that one could annihilate several generations from this world, without having any hope of seeing the following generations being born and then able to write a new law on blank pages.

51 Jacob Moleschott, Sul codice penale. Parole dette in Senato da Jac. Moleschott [November 12, 1888] (Roma, Forzani e C., Tipografi del Senato, 1888), 12: “Nel suo efficace discorso di ieri, l’onor. Lampertico, occupandosi della scuola, cui alludo, anche in modo più particolareggiato, ebbe a dire che, se l’antropologia criminale è nel vero, il codice penale non dovrebbe essere riformato a ritocchi, ma dovrebbe essere rifatto di pianta, dall’ime fondamenta. Mi duole di non poter convenire in questo concetto col serio e leale pensatore che ho più volte nominato. Mi piace ricordare le parole che Mefistofele dice allo scolare, e voglio citarle nella traduzione che dobbiamo ad un nostro compianto e carissimo collega che per tanti anni ci è stato fedele, al Maffei. Egli dice così: Leggi, diritti e patti, / Quasi malor, trapassano in retaggio / Da questo a quel lignaggio, / E striscian quatti quatti / Di paese in paese, / Tal che demenza / Diventa la ragione, / Tormento il beneficio.” The English translation of the verses from Goethe, Faust, are cited in the translation of Bayard Taylor: Faust. A Tragedy by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, trans. in the original meters by Bayard Taylor (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1870).

380 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY Law has to be reformed fragment by fragment, in the same way as the living organism is renewed and gains new life.”52

In the next paragraphs of his speech, Moleschott carried on the reference to knowledge deriving from the natural sciences as a way to explain and justify his proposed gradual reform of Italian penal law. There, he described the growth of a new nail, an example which is, again, taken from the domain of physiology, but presented as being understandable to anybody, since such a process can be observed by anyone who is attentive enough: “For him, who has open eyes, nails prove it. We see them grow, and he who observes knows that in few months they are rebuilt from the root up to the top; in a few months a completely new nail is generated, as in a few days blood is made anew; in a short while, in a period of time which is not very long, but not easily determinable with precision, the whole organism is renewed, molecule by molecule, and a new organism is born in the old one, and it flourishes with new strength. This, and nothing else, is the evolution of the law.”53

This is an example of the way in which Moleschott not only popularized the natural sciences, but also used images and processes in order to make his ideas understandable by everyone: as in most of his Senate speeches, Moleschott explicitly tried to visualize his thoughts in order to make his analogies between state organism and natural organism also comprehensible to politicians and other people who did not have a background in natural science. Summing up, we can observe that, while tracing the main lines of criminal anthropology in his Senate speeches on the reform of penal law, Moleschott tried to present it as being deeply rooted in European cultural, juridical, and even religious 52 Moleschott, Sul codice penale, 13: “Signori senatori, io credo che sia impossibile svellere la mala pianta per sostituirvi di un tratto una nuova, sana, rigogliosa, soddisfacente alle migliori esigenze, perché ciò supporrebbe che si potessero distruggere parecchie generazioni da questo mondo, senza avere alcuna speranza di vederne sorgere delle successive che potessero scrivere una nuova legge su vergini pagine. La legge, il diritto deve rifarsi per modo di frammenti, nella stessa maniera in cui si rifà, si rinnovella a nuova vita vigorosa l’organismo vivente.” 53 Ibidem: “Per colui che ha gli occhi aperti le unghie lo fanno da sperimentatore. Noi le vediamo crescere, e chi osserva sa che in pochi mesi si rinnovano dalla radice fino al margine libero; in pochi mesi nasce un’unghia nuova di pianta, come in pochi giorni si rifà il sangue, ed in un breve lasso di tempo, in un tempo non molto lungo, ma non facile a determinare con esattezza, si rinnova, molecola per molecola, tutto l’organismo, e nasce un organismo nuovo nel vecchio, e rifiorisce con nuovo vigore. Tale e non altra è l’evoluzione della legge.”

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tradition. He achieved this aim through references which went from Greek antiquity (Euripides’s tragedy Antigone) to Cesare Beccaria and Gaetano Filangieri (who, as we have seen, were also presented as central figures at the congress on criminal anthropology), passing through Roman law. The message which he thereby conveyed was that the scientific perspective of criminal anthropology did not represent a break with the past, but rather incorporated all of the most important traditions in juridical and cultural thinking. The result of this new conception of law would be a kind of “holy” judge, who would forgive in the same way as Christ did.54 Not only did Moleschott present his position and the position of criminal anthropology as the continuation of a centuries-long tradition, but he also underlined its specific national character, which, in his opinion, displayed a clear example of the progressive and liberal features of the Italian state.55 Once more, Moleschott presented science, liberalism,

54 Cf. Moleschott, Sul codice penale, 13-14. The translation reads: “Three thousand years ago Creon dared to condemn Antigone to be buried alive; Antigone, that luminous model of filial affection and fraternal love, and why? Because she had honored the corpse of Polynices, her brother. Such a horrendous fact must not happen again; and even if three thousand years provide a shining example of moderation, I do not dare to foretell the future counting the number of centuries; but something is certain, in my opinion: a day will come in which, instead of having self-styled vicars of God, we will have apostles of humanity, in which the transcendental world will have descended, it will be concrete in the chest of strong thinkers. And then there will be no judge who, by means of inflexible morality, will dare to brand the mark of infamy on the chest of a criminal; then the judge will look at that miserable, that degenerate wretch, and he will render him innocuous; he will defend society, he will defend it maybe better than we do it today; but that judge moved to pity will forgive, as well as the most serene, the most sublime judge the world has ever seen did, by means of this prayer: Forgive because they do not have knowledge of what they committed, ‘forgive because they do not know what they do.’ The school of criminal anthropology is not as new as its own audacity or a certain perplexity within the classical school could make believe.” 55 Cf. Moleschott, Sul codice penale, 15-16. The translation reads as follows: “It is not from today that we recognize the principle according to which man is a product of nature and culture, of his own disposition and of the environment. […] Gentlemen of the Senate! I have approached an arduous and thorny field, in which we find Italy standing up, Italy discharging a debt of honor and of glory, recognizing the inheritance of the legislative knowledge of ancient Rome and developing the initiatives and the work of our Filangeri and Beccaria. I have approached a ground on which Italy has acted in advance of the other nations in the courageous work of preparing it. […] After these words, I do not need to tell the Senate that I will vote in favor of the Code, being glad to see a monument of Italian wisdom being raised, a law taking inspiration from such a great liberality that it overcomes

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and nationalism as going hand in hand and as being at the core of his views on society. In fact, at the end of the speech he celebrated both the Italian State and the triumph of the “ideal” in the new penal legislation, which Moleschott approved as the most advanced expression of “Italian wisdom”, of “liberality” and of scientific progress (because it derived from criminal anthropology). At the same time, Italy was assigned the “courageous” mission of paving the way for the “other nations” in the reform of penal law. As we will see in the next pages, depicting Italy as the avant-garde of liberal reforms was also a topos of Moleschott’s Senate speech about the regulation of the relationship between the clergy and the State, in particular as far as the application of penal legislation to the clergy was concerned. As we have shown in the previous chapter, he had already expressed similar thoughts in 1865, in one of his letters to his friend and colleague, the Swiss geologist Édouard Desor.56 However, these elements of progress, such as the image of Italy as occupying an advanced position in penal legislation compared to other European countries, and therefore as a model for those countries, were accompanied by a moderating and conciliating tone. The whole speech can indeed be understood as an attempt to both redirect the school of criminal anthropology towards a more moderate attitude and to present it as such, i.e. as continuation of a well-established tradition in juridical science and culture in general. Moleschott’s speech was thus characterized by a tendency to moderation, whereas his conception of the changes in legislative systems and codifications was explained through implicit references to Goethe and his theory of gradual growth (Steigerung),57 as well as through analogies with biological and physiological models of the development of organic life. However, he also used a justification (both of his vote and of the position of the school of criminal anthropology) ex auctoritate through explicit references to the classical and the Christian traditions: in fact, the theories of Filangieri and Beccaria were presented as anticipating criminal anthropology, and Roman law and the Christian conception of morality as its background. In this way, Moleschott not only wanted to show that criminal anthropology was not at all a new phenomenon clearly breaking with the tradition, but that it was nothing other than the synthesis of the whole classical legislative and cultural tradition.

force, so rich of ideas that it dominates matter, the same matter from which even ideas are born.” 56 Letter from Jacob Moleschott to Édouard Desor (Turin, January 19, 1865): AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 55. 57 Regarding the principle of gradual development in Goethe’s both scientific and political thinking, cf. Bell, Goetheʼs Naturalistic Anthropology, 194.

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As a conclusion to this chapter, I would like to point to three other speeches, which Moleschott gave at the Italian Senate respectively, in 1876, at the beginning of his career as a Senator, in 1888, and in 1890, thus towards the end of his political activity and of his life. These speeches concern some topics which are connected both with the reform of Italian legislation and with the relationship between State and Church. For this reason, they offer an interesting perspective on Moleschott’s representation of the Catholic Church, which we can now compare with the one present in his speeches on Giordano Bruno, as well as with the speeches about criminal anthropology and its influence on the reform of penal law. The first speech we will deal with was given at the very beginning of Moleschott’s career as a Senator, a fact which explains the rather moderate tone in which he expressed his critique (a rather harsh one, as far as its content was concerned) of the Catholic Church as a political institution. In fact, again and again, he tried to underline that he would not dare to deny the Church its “Italian character”, since he himself was so grateful for having been granted Italian nationality in recent times.58 The issue was quite a critical one, namely how penal legislation should punish the abuses of the “cult ministers”, that is of the clergy, when these take place when they are on duty. Thus, the law proposal had in itself a revolutionary character, since in the new Italian nation-state the clergy would be subject to secular, and not only to ecclesiastic law. On the one hand, this was a perfect occasion for Moleschott for bringing his struggle for a secularized state and for a division of Church and State into the political and decision-making context of the Senate. On the other hand, he was aware that his position might have been considered an extreme one by some of his colleagues, so for that reason he tried to maintain a mild tone and to underline his gratefulness to the Italian State for having been accepted as one of its citizens. In his speech about the reform of penal law, Moleschott distinguished between “Church” and “religion”, underlining that true religion can be found precisely outside

58 Jacob Moleschott, Discorso del Senatore J. Moleschott pronunziato al Senato del Regno nella tornata del 1° maggio 1877. Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1877), 8: “Signori, io sono troppo lieto, troppo pieno di gratitudine per avere acquistata la Italianità, per aver lʼidea di spogliarne chicchessia; io non voglio spogliare il clero del suo carattere nazionale, ma spero che se il Senato avrà il paterno coraggio di inculcare loro questa ammonizione, farà sì che essi riconoscano lʼalma madre, nella patria divenuta più grande, più possente e soprattutto più libera dalle gerarchiche pastoie”.

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of the institution of the Church.59 However, these kinds of thoughts had already been expressed in the speech he gave in 1877 about the legislation regarding the abuses in the clergy’s own ministry: here, he first criticized the “abstract idea of liberty” their colleagues referred to in their previous speeches; then, he stated that such an “absolute concept” of freedom did not work in political life, in the same way as straight and parallel lines only exist in geometry, but not in the applied science of mechanics.60 Once more, Moleschott argued using examples from the natural and exact sciences; indeed, in the next sentence he continued by saying that “in reality not even the human eye, which many people consider to be a perfect emanation of divine creation, satisfies the requirements […] of a perfect optical instrument”.61 This “wellknown fact in modern physiology” served to strengthen his argument against that abstract concept of freedom to which the opponents of the law appealed inside and outside the Parliament.62 Stating that he “cannot recognize this absolute concept of freedom”, Moleschott expressed his pragmatic conception that “where the freedom of the one starts, there ends the freedom of the other”.63 However, the most important and explicitly provocative part of his argument is the critique of the clergy quoting both Spinoza and Christ (thus indirectly underlining, as he would do in his speech on Giordano Bruno eleven years later, that true religion does not correspond to the Church):

59 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. XCVII. Tornata del 13 novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: Facoltà del Governo di pubblicare il nuovo Codice penale, 2308. 60 Moleschott, Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero, 5: “Quell’idea astratta della libertà, quel concetto assoluto, quello schema che diventa un’ombra, e che mi fa pensare all’impossibilità di far reggere in meccanica la linea retta ed il parallelismo delle linee, mi sembra veramente che non regga nella vita politica.” The speech is also reported in BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII. Sessione del 1876-77. Tornata del 1 maggio 1877, Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero – Discorsi del Senatore Mauri contro il progetto, del Senatore Moleschott in favore, 793-802. Moleschott’s speech is at pp. 799-802. 61 Moleschott, Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero, 5: “[…] in realtà l’occhio umano, il quale a tanti piace di considerare come una perfetta emanazione della creazione divina, corrisponde alle esigenze, quali oggi conosciamo, di un perfetto strumento ottico.” 62 Moleschott, Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero, 5. 63 Ibidem.

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“Gentlemen, Spinoza used to say: Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse; and I would like to transform his maxim in the following: Nihil contra libertatem nisi libertas ipsa. I will confess to you frankly, I cannot transform freedom into a field of fodder, where I could hide my head so that I would not see that iron chain with which the higher clergy enchains the conscience of the lower clergy, in order to atrophy it, at such point that they forget the promise of the founder of Christianity: Pulsate et aperietur vobis.”64

As we can see, in this passage Moleschott strongly criticized the Catholic Church, his argument being based on the Latin sentence that “nothing can counter freedom, except freedom itself”: he voted in favor of the law in order to fight against the suppression of freedom and the repression of the higher ranks in the hierarchy of the Church vis-à-vis the lower ranks. Such a critical attitude towards the Catholic Church is also the main motif of Moleschott’s speech regarding the “opere pie”, that is, the institutions providing the lower classes with aid and assistance, which were managed and owned by the Catholic Church. Whereas these institutions had been at the base of the people’s life and education in the pre-unitary Italian states, they were perceived as a contradictory element within the secularly governed nation-state. Now, it was the nation-state itself that had to take care of its citizens, including the poorest ones; if this required, on the one hand, a completely new organization and not-insignificant costs, on the other hand it was considered inadequate for a secularized State to tolerate old religious institutions of social assistance. If we compare this speech with the speech he gave in 1890, we can notice that in the latter Moleschott, having been a member of the Senate for almost fifteen years, was much more self-confident. However, his tendency to conciliation is present even in this speech, where we cannot have any doubt that this was not caused by any recent appointment as a Senator and thereby a certain shyness in defending positions which might have been perceived as too extreme, or even as too far from national sentiments (Moleschott’s critics indeed tended to underline that he was a “foreigner”, and he was often referred to as “Germanic”).65 Even though criticizing the Catholic Church as a political institution, Moleschott took care to praise the values of Christianity – exactly 64 Moleschott, Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero, 5-6: “Spinoza, o Signori, diceva: Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse; ed io vorrei trasformare il suo detto in quest’altro: Nihil contra libertatem nisi libertas ipsa. Io vi confesso francamente, non posso trasformare la libertà in un campo di biade, nel quale potessi capovolgere la testa per nascondermi quella ferrea catena colla quale il clero superiore cerca di stringere la coscienza del basso clero, volendola atrofizzare, fino al punto di dimenticare la promessa del fondatore del Cristianesimo: Pulsate et aperietur vobis.” 65 E.g. in the Catholic reception: Luigi Maschi, “Il panteismo in Italia e il prof. Moleschott”. Rivista universale, anno 3, vol. 8 (1869): 101-118; 249-265.

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in the same way as he had done in the speech on criminal anthropology five years before. In fact, first of all he remarked that he did “not intend to combat faith”, and that instead he considered faith to be worthy of “deference, respect, sympathy”, when it is either “spontaneous, naïve”, or “thought through, convinced”. He declared that this kind of faith was worthy of respect even when it “is wrong”, and in that case Moleschott considered it to be “worthier of compassion than the thinker who goes against the rock of natural necessity” (probably an implicit critique of creationist positions, where the opinion of the Church opposed the achievements of research in the natural sciences).66 At the beginning of the same paragraph, however, Moleschott had just started with a decided sentence: “The fight between faith and life has not been ended, and it must be ended”.67 In spite of his conciliating tones and the explicit statement that he did not want to “combat faith”, Moleschott then pictured the relation between science (here: “life”, which is to be read as “the necessary laws of nature”, and thus also “natural science”, which studies those laws) and religious belief as a dichotomy, where the one excluded the other; the struggle between the two of them had not ended yet, and “it must be ended”, that is, in Moleschott’s opinion, “life” must prevail. In fact, he continued by saying that the most important thing was “that faith does not want to impose itself”, but that such an imposition regularly happens, in his opinion, “each time that the denial of charity for non-believers [here “infedeli”, thus actually a word with a stronger religious connotation, which recalls Medieval crusades and the fight against the infidels, L.M.]”, thereby being just a replacement for “the stake, which once threatened heretics”.68 This is the substance of Moleschott’s argument for the secularization of social assistance: the State should take over the Church’s prerogative to “charity” through granting assistance to the most disadvantaged social 66 Jacob Moleschott, Opere pie. Parole del senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziate in senato nella tornata del 24 aprile 1890 (Roma: Forzani e C., 1890). The speech is also reported in: BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 4° sessione 1889. Tornata del 24 Aprile 1890. Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Sulle istituzioni pubbliche di beneficenza” (N. 6): Moleschott’s speech is on pp. 598-604; here p. 599: “Io non intendo di combattere la fede; anzi la fede quando è spontanea, ingenua, oppure ragionata, convinta insomma, merita deferenza, rispetto, simpatia, e quando falla merita maggiore compassione che non il pensatore che irrompe contro la roccia di necessità di natura.” 67 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 4° sessione 1889. Tornata del 24 Aprile 1890. Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Sulle istituzioni pubbliche di beneficenza” (N. 6), 599: “La lotta fra la vita e la fede non è finita e bisogna finirla.” 68 Ibidem: “Basta che la fede non voglia imporsi, e s’impone ogni volta che si sostituisce al rogo, che una volta minacciava gli eretici, il diniego della carità agl’infedeli.”

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groups; only in this way would such assistance be granted to everyone who needed it, independently from their religious conviction. It is very interesting to notice that, exactly while arguing for the secularization of such institutions, Moleschott used highly religious terminology. Not only the reference to infidels and heretics, but also the statement that Italy must “expiate” its “sins” belong to this category. Slightly paraphrased, Moleschott’s sentences read as follows: “Italy can be proud of its arts and of its science; it can be proud of having given hospitality to faith, offering the shadows of the tree of knowledge; here was born the science of trade and the method of scientific research; here had their origin diplomacy and free municipalities… But another task is reserved to Italy, a task which is the more elevated the richest the talents of the country are, and the more severe the more – according to the principles guiding this law-proposal – [are] the sins, which Italy must expiate.ˮ69

This is why he maintained that “Italy has the task of secularizing all of its administrative institutions, all of them without any exception; it must humanize [again, a reference to “humanity”, L.M.], or, if we want to be clear, it must eliminate all interferences” and intrusions of the Catholic Church in the State’s affairs and in the people’s life, recognizing that “mutual help is due to everyone in need of it, without any discrimination, in the same way as the sun shines for everyone”.70 As we have seen, Moleschott also stated that natural elements such as air and water must be free for anyone, independently of his or her financial condition, in his speech for the abolition of the grist tax. In his speech about charitable institutions, Moleschott categorically affirmed that “it would not have been worth coming to Rome”, i.e. annexing Rome to the Italian Kingdom, “if we did not want to recognize 69 Ibidem: “L’Italia vanta l’arte e la scienza; vanta di aver dato ospitalità alla fede ombreggiandola coll’albero del sapere; qui nacque la scienza del commercio ed il metodo della ricerca scientifica; qui sorse la diplomazia e la libertà dei comuni… Ma all’Italia è riserbato un altro compito, un compito tanto più elevato quanto il paese è più ricco di doti, e tanto più severo quanto, nell’ordine delle idee che spirano da questo progetto di legge, l’Italia ha più peccati da espiare.” As we have seen, the “tree of knowledge” is a constant topos in Moleschott’s thought, expressing his conception of science as a process in development on the one hand, and as an organic unity where all different disciplines remain connected with each other on the other hand. 70 Ibidem: “L’Italia ha il còmpito di secolarizzare tutte, ma tutte senza veruna eccezione, le sue istituzioni amministrative; ha da umanizzare, o, se vogliamo esser chiari, ha da eliminare tutte le ingerenze che la teocrazia abbia potuto usurpare; ha da riconoscere che non è la fede alla quale noi dobbiamo la nostra stima, ma alla convinzione, che fede può essere, e che i soccorsi son dovuti a tutti indiscriminatamente che ne abbiano bisogno, come il sole splende per tutti.”

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and take upon us that noble mission, of secularizing all theocratic institutions”, in order to avoid any possible mingling of the Church in the “life” of the country. Thus, Moleschott conceived the secularization of all institutions of the State as a “noble mission”; however, through the word “mission” he reproduced religious discourses and their terminology in his turn.71 In an earlier Senate speech, given on November 3, 1888 and published under the title “On The Penal Code”, Moleschott had already anticipated the topic of the abovementioned speech “on the abuses of the ministers of cult in the exercise of their ministry”.72 Here, too, he condemned the attitude of the Church as an institution, in particular as being anti-nationalist (even though he also admitted that there might be and indeed there were virtuous, patriotic priests),73 whereas religion was defined as bearing a much broader significance, for instance in this passage: “First of all, I do not want to confuse religion with the Church. Religion is superior to the Church and, it is painful to say that it often lies outside of the Church. Religion always respects the fatherland; what is more, patriotism is one of its most sublime manifestations.”74 As we can see, Moleschott explicitly attempted to save religion, while condemning the Church. Read in the context of nationalism and of the “religion of the fatherland”75 in the Italian Risorgimento, this position is fully understandable. Indeed, the ideology spread in the newly born Italian nation-state did not dismiss religion as such, but rather substituted the Catholic Church in its ideology and even in some of its institutions (the “opere pie” became a state institution, national feasts substituted for religious feasts, Giordano Bruno’s statue was erected in front of the Vatican). In particular, the end of the 1880s and beginning of the 1890s represented a period of even more aggressive national propaganda, with the Crispi government and the beginning 71 Ibidem: “Se noi non volessimo riconoscere ed assumerci quell’alta missione, di secolarizzare cioè tutte le istituzioni teocratiche, di assicurare la vita indipendente, in tutti i sensi, da qualsiasi ingerenza che possa venire da quel lato, tanto varrebbe, signori senatori, non essere venuti a Roma.” 72 Jacob Moleschott, Sul codice penale: parole dette in senato da Jac. Moleschott [November 13, 1888] (Roma: Forzani, 1888). The speech is also reported in BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 13 novembre 1888, 2307-2311 (Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: Facoltà del Governo di pubblicare il nuovo Codice penale). 73 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 13 novembre 1888, 2308. 74 Ibidem: “Innanzi tutto io non voglio confondere la religione colla Chiesa. La religione è superiore alla Chiesa, ed è doloroso doverlo dire, molte volte, sta all’infuori della Chiesa. La religione rispetta sempre la patria, anzi il patriottismo è una delle sue più sublimi manifestazioni.” 75 Duggan, Francesco Crispi.

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of the colonial enterprise. We can situate Moleschott’s Senate speech on penal legislation, especially with regard to his statements about religion, in such a context, where the “religion of the fatherland” played a role for the first time not only in internal national politics, but in foreign politics as well. In this sense, we can inscribe his speech in the political framework of a first attempt of colonial expansion, even though the Senate discussion itself just regarded national matters. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that Moleschott also characterized the Italian nation, especially Tuscany, as one of the cradles of “modern civilization”. The reform of penal law, according to which the death penalty would be abolished, was presented as a sign of modernity, which would put Italy on the side of civilized countries such as the Netherlands and Portugal, or Switzerland: “And one should not say that we are among the few because we would be in good company. We would be with the most civilized and free nations, with Holland, with Portugal; we would compete with the efforts of noble Switzerland; we would imitate the example of Tuscany, which gave us Dante and Michelangelo, Leonardo and Galilei, of that italic region which shares together with Greece and Palestine the glory of being the cradle of modern civilization.”76

Thus, it seems that he not only absorbed and in his turn propagated the idea of religion as fundamental means for patriotism, but also the concept of a superior civilization that favored the development of a “modern” Europe. From this point, the step towards saying that a “civilized” nation also has the right and the duty to “civilize” so-called inferior populations could be easily taken. Although Moleschott himself never made such an affirmation, we can read his commemoration of Senator Francesco Magni, whom he praised for his siding with the colonial enterprise,77 at least as a sign of his support for the Italian expansion in Eastern Africa. In Moleschott’s speeches, the transfer of his ideas from the scientific realm to the political domain went together with nationalist ideology, such as the construction of a national history of science. That his statements at the Senate were consciously 76 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 13 novembre 1888, 2308: “E non si dica che ci troviamo coi pochi, poiché ci troveremo in buona compagnia. Staremo colle nazioni più civili e più libere, coll’Olanda, col Portogallo; gareggeremo cogli sforzi della nobile Svizzera; imiteremo l’esempio della Toscana che ci diede Dante e Michelangelo, Leonardo e Galilei, di quella regione italica che colla Grecia e colla Palestina divide la gloria di essere la culla della moderna civiltà.” 77 Jacob Moleschott, Discorsi del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziati in Senato nelle tornate del 29 novembre, 14, 15, 16 e 17 dicembre 1886, 20 e 21 gennaio e 5 febbraio 1887. Modificazioni della legge sullʼistruzione superiore e Commemorazione del Senatore Francesco Magni (Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1887), 65-66, especially p. 66.

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meant to have an influence not only within the Senate, but also on public opinion, is implied in one of Moleschott’s remarks during this speech, where he concisely stated that “much of what is said in the Senate, is not for the Senate, but for the public of the nation [literally: “for the nation to the public”]”78. Moleschott thus consciously shaped his Senate speeches as a form of popularization of nationalist, scientific, and political ideas; through them, he did not primarily address the members of the Senate, but a broader national audience. In fact, in this Senate speech Moleschott also expressed the idea that “man is the product of nature and culture”, an essential element of his anthropological and scientific conception: “It is not until today that it has been recognized that man is the product of nature and culture, of his own character and of the environment. The anthropologist attempts to investigate, to measure both of these factors, man’s innate potential and the goal he can reach in social life, the individual impediments nature imposed upon him and the means society has given him in order to get rid of those.”79

Moleschott thereby included criminal anthropology in his own conception of human nature and made it part of his own “popularizing project”: therefore, I argue that Moleschott’s Senate speeches were part of his own strategy of popularization. This implies that the relation between Moleschott’s materialism and Lombroso’s anthropology was not just univocal: to the contrary, Moleschott himself attempted to shape criminal anthropology (as we have seen from his opening and final speeches at the congress held in 1885) as much as Lombroso tried to shape scientific materialism (at least, in its Italian reception). In the next chapter, I will analyze the interaction between Lombroso’s and Moleschott’s ideas through their correspondence about Lombroso’s translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens.

78 BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 13 novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: Facoltà del Governo di pubblicare il nuovo Codice penale, 2307-2311, here p. 2308: “[…] molte cose che si dicono in Senato, non si dicono per il Senato, ma per la nazione al pubblico […]”. 79 Jacob Moleschott, Sul codice penale, 14: “Non è da oggi che è riconosciuto il principio che l’uomo è un prodotto di natura e di coltura, dell’indole sua propria e dell’ambiente. L’antropologo cerca d’indagare, di misurare amendue questi fattori, i poteri congeniti dell’uomo e la mèta che possono raggiungere nella vita sociale, i ceppi individuali che natura gli appose ed i mezzi che la società gli ha offerto per liberarsene.” The speech is also reported in BSR, Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 13 novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: Facoltà del Governo di pubblicare il nuovo Codice penale, 2307-2311.

Moleschott and Translation

C RIMINAL A NTHROPOLOGY AND M OLESCHOTT ’ S C OLLABORATION WITH C ESARE L OMBROSO As we have seen, at the first conference on criminal anthropology, held in Rome in 1885, Moleschott supported criminal anthropology, albeit not uncritically. Criminal anthropology was not a direct outcome of Moleschott’s thought: its founding father was Cesare Lombroso, who is considered to be and indeed considered himself to be Moleschott’s disciple. Lombroso, born in Verona in 1835 to a Jewish family, studied Medicine at the Universities of Pavia, Padua and Vienna; after graduation, he joined the Italian army in the fight against the so-called “brigantaggio”,1 where he carried on medical and anthropological research, as well as an inquiry on the hygienic conditions of the population in Calabria (published as Dell’igiene nelle Calabrie, 1862). When he suggested translating Moleschott’s Kreislauf, he was still in the army; however, he was at the same time teaching a course in Clinical Psychiatric Medicine and Anthropology (“clinica delle malattie mentali e antropologia”) at the University of Pavia.2 He considered both Moleschott and Paolo Marzolo, a medical doctor and glottologist, as his most important teachers.3 As is evident from the letters which we

1

The term “brigantaggio” indicates the insubordination of part of the inhabitants of Southern Italy and their armed fight against the laws and institutions of the new Italian nation-state; whereas these were presented as simple expressions of uncivilized, barbaric folks, in fact the political meaning of the phenomenon was a sign of fidelity to the Bourbon against the Savoy. Cf. Molfese, Storia del brigantaggio dopo l’unità.

2

Cf. Frigessi, Giacanelli, Mangoni (ed.), Cenni biografici, in Cesare Lombroso, XVIIXVIII, as well as Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 334.

3

Cf. Lombroso’s correspondence with Moleschott; in particular, the letter from Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, December 7, 1862), published by Mariano Luigi Patrizi in Addizioni al “Dopo Lombrosoˮ: ancora sulla monogenesi psicologica del delitto (Milano: Società

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will consider in the following chapter, their correspondence started when Lombroso suggested translating Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens into Italian: it was this enterprise which shaped the (not always easy) relationship between the two scientists. The letters Lombroso sent to Moleschott show the processes of negotiation and the roles played by the different actors who were involved in this process (the translator, the author, the publisher and, although indirectly and only through the expectations projected on them, the readers).4 The Kreislauf had already been translated into French;5 however, a translation into Italian was still missing and, as we will see from the correspondence, that was not a priority for Moleschott. On the contrary, he would have preferred to translate his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, which was rather a popularizing treatise in dietetics (or, as Moleschott called it, on “rational dietetics”) than a philosophical and generalizing work such as the Kreislauf.6 Why, then, did Lombroso translate the Kreislauf? A mixture of personal aspirations and political reasons emerges from the correspondence as motivating his choice. That Lombroso wanted to translate precisely the Kreislauf is indeed symptomatic of two central features in his relation with Moleschott, in his popularization strategies and career plans. On the one hand, Lombroso understood the translation of the Kreislauf as a good occasion for developing his career as a nationally renowned scientist editrice libraria, 1930), 208-209, as well as Ferruccio Giacanelli, Introduction to “Il medico, l’alienista”, in Cesare Lombroso, 9. 4

Lombroso’s letters to Moleschott have been edited and published by Mariano Patrizi, a physiologist and professor at the University of Bologna, whose first wife was Moleschott’s daughter Elsa: cf. Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombrosoˮ, chapter VIII. Documenti e Ristampe, 1.A. Lettere inedite di Cesare Lombroso a Jac. Moleschott (1861-1875); cf. also Mariano Luigi Patrizi, “Moleschott e Lombroso su documenti inediti e ricordi”. La lettura, anno 25, n. 6 (1925): 430-436, where he announced that he was working on the transcription of the letters and that he would publish them soon. It was Patrizi who, some years later, donated Moleschott’s manuscripts to the Library of the Archiginnasio in Bologna, where they are still preserved: cf. Patrizia Busi, “Moleschott nella Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna”. I have viewed the letters sent from Cesare Lombroso to Jacob Moleschott in September 2011, in BCABo, FSM, “Corrispondenza Cesare Lombroso”. The quotes in this chapter are based on Patrizi’s transcription of the letters. On the importance of the correspondence between scientists as a source for the history of science, cf. Erika Krauße, “Der Brief als wissenschaftshistorische Quelle (Vorbemerkung)”, in Erika Krauße (ed.), Der Brief als wissenschaftshistorische Quelle (Berlin: VWB, 2005), 1-28.

5

Jacob Moleschott, La circulation de la vie. Lettres sur la physiologie en réponse aux lettres sur la chimie de Liebig, trans. E. Cazelles (Paris : Baillière, 1866).

6

Cf. Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombrosoˮ, 207-208.

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and popularizer. On the other hand, he thought that the issue and the polemic tone of the Kreislauf would be more likely to foster a change in Italian public opinion than the moderate or neutral tones of a treatise on nutrition. In fact, Lombroso understood the translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf also as an occasion to express his own ideas: not only did he write a preface to the book which was rather a compendium of his own conception of science and society, but in the correspondence with Moleschott, he had even asked him whether he could add to the translation some of Lombroso’s own scientific contributions, or some writings by Paolo Marzolo.7 In the end, the translation was published with Lombroso’s preface only, which was nevertheless sufficiently broad to contain the expression of Lombroso’s most important thoughts, together with his own interpretation of Moleschott’s work. Moreover, Lombroso insisted on the value of the Kreislauf as contrasting the Catholic Church and its culture, and therefore as being particularly appropriate in order to diminish their influence on Italian culture and to reinforce nationalist sentiments through secularization and the idea that natural science would substitute for religion.8 Lombroso was persuasive enough, and Moleschott agreed on the necessity of translating the Kreislauf. As we will see, the problems arose after Lombroso had already completed the translation, when the drafts were sent to Moleschott for proofreading: it was at that moment that the divergence between the two scientists in conceptual as well as linguistic issues became evident. Apparently, Moleschott wanted to modify the translation, and Lombroso disagreed with those changes to such a degree that he declared that he would delete his name as a translator, should the modified version be published.9 As we will see in the following paragraphs, the translation of the Kreislauf is exemplary of the complex implications of a process of translation. Lombroso himself was well aware of such implications, as well as of the fact that a translation is at the same time an interpretation: in one of his letters to Moleschott, he underlined that the translator was at the same time a traitor (this expression being

7

Paolo Marzolo, also defined as “the Darwin of Italian anthropology”, studied medicine but mainly published in linguistics and glottology. He significantly influenced Lombroso’s interest in history and the relation between physical features and moral character. Cf. Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 334-335. For some bibliographical information on Lombroso, Marzolo, and the school of criminal anthropology, cf. Frigessi, Giacanelli, Mangoni (ed.), Cenni biografici, in Cesare Lombroso.

8

As we have seen, this idea was typical also for Lombroso’s book on anti-Semitism: cf. Lombroso, Lʼantisemitismo e le scienze moderne.

9

Cf. Lombroso to Moleschott (s.l., February 6, 1869 [1861 in the original; however, a letter dated Pavia, January 31, 1869, is included, and for this reason the date has been changed to 1869 by Patrizi]), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombrosoˮ, 227-228.

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typical in the Italian language, due to the similarity and etymological connection between “tradurre” and “tradire”).10 In such a process, the ideas of the original text are interpreted through and in the translation; in the case of Lombroso this is particularly evident, since he consciously tried to use his work as a translator to propagate his own ideas. The analysis of Lombroso’s preface to his translation of the book and his letters to Moleschott will make visible the role played by political and personal issues in processes of knowledge transfer. Why one chooses to translate a certain work instead of another depends on the interaction of ideas and actors, of nationalist values and personal aspirations. If, as Ludwik Fleck maintains, popularization is an essential part of the affirmation of scientific ideas and thereby of scientific development as such, then the analysis of the process of translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf not only pertains to the history of the translation of a single work, but regards the broader issues of knowledge circulation and the reception of Moleschott’s thought.11

Lombroso’s Reasons for Translating Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens Let us first consider Lombroso’s preface to his own translation: here, he explained “why a man going his obscure, but own paths, has taken upon himself the difficult and inglorious task of popularizing someone else’s thought”.12 Although starting with 10 Lombroso to Moleschott (s.l., December 26, 1868), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 226. 11 On Ludwik Fleck’s theories on the historicity of scientific knowledge, cf. Ludwik Fleck, Denkstile und Tatsachen. Gesammelte Schriften und Zeugnisse, ed. Sylwia Werner and Claus Zittel (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011). In particular, the introduction of the editors, page 23: “Die zunächst nur hypothetisch eingeführten Begriffe werden […] zu fixen Wissensbeständen und dann kehren aus der exoterischen Sphäre der Wissenschaftspopularisierung wieder in die esoterische Wissenschaftlergemeinschaft zurück; sie wirken auf diese so ein, daß auch die betroffenen Forscher an die Tatsachen zu glauben beginnenˮ. Concerning the concept of translation and its role in cultural studies, cf. Doris Bachmann-Medick, Cultural Turns. Neuorientierungen in den Kulturwissenschaften (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2006), in particular chapter 5; Doris Bachmann-Medick, “Translation – A Concept and Model for the Study of Culture”; Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari (ed.), Constructing a Sociology of Translation (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2007). 12 Cf. Cesare Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore” to Jacob Moleschott, La circolazione della vita. Lettere fisiologiche in risposta alle lettere chimiche di Liebig, translated by C. Lombroso (Milano: Brigola, 1869), I: “[…] perché un uomo avvezzo a percorrere oscuri, ma suoi propri sentieri, siasi sobbarcato al difficile ed inglorioso compito di volgarizzatore del pensiero altrui.”

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this first sentence Lombroso tried to depict his task as a translator as a pure sacrifice for the sake of scientific popularization, in the correspondence there is sufficient evidence that he had also taken into account that he might get some fame and advantages for his career by translating the work. He went on by saying that he did not do that out of mere curiosity about a book which, just few years earlier, was the cause of so many debates in Europe: a book in which, moreover, science and aesthetics perfectly matched.13 Above all, Lombroso put the accent on experimentalism: it was with this respect, he maintained, that Moleschott’s work “marked […] a new period in the history of science”, which was characterized by “the primacy of experiment and observation on authority and opinions”. He described this kind of progress as being not only typical for the natural sciences, but also for other disciplines: in a way which, as we have seen, was typical for Moleschott’s opening lectures at the university of Turin,14 Lombroso affirmed that this new period in the history of science was not limited to the natural sciences and to medicine, but also included the “historical and statistical method”.15 He continued by assessing the position of Italy vis-à-vis such innovative methods and ideas, stating that, probably due to its delay, “Italy has thrown itself in that scientific movement, which had its beginnings in that book [Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens]”, and that this was happening “surely with more sincerity and fervor than among the other Latin races”.16 However, he defended a position which was doubtlessly not on a line of continuity with the tradition of scientific materialism, complaining that, probably because of this delay, one uncritically stuck to these (materialist) views, “following not always secure guides, such as Büchner [and] Renan”,17 assuming in its turn a dogmatic attitude (“fanatismo”) and “offering in this way to one’s enemies […] the most apt instruments to rebuild the destroyed edifice.”18 The building which was meant to be destroyed was metaphysics. Whereas Lombroso presented Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens, or better, its translation, as an antidote to such extremes (and therefore interpreted Moleschott’s position not as a radical but as a moderate one), at the same time he advised keeping a distance from two authors Moleschott understood as being close to his own thinking, namely Büchner and Renan.19 According to Lombroso, the materialist and monist principle, that 13 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, I. 14 For instance: Moleschott, Della causalità nella biologia. 15 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, II. 16 Ibidem. 17 Ibidem. It is not clear to which Büchner Lombroso referred: it could be that he did not refer to the scientist Ludwig Büchner (1824-1899), but to his brother, the writer, revolutionary and physician Georg Büchner (1813-1837). Renan was the French historian of religion (1823-1892). 18 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, II-III. 19 Cf. Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, II.

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matter is “always one and eternal”, had been accepted in all disciplines and constituted the basis for the “truly scientific method”, on a line of continuity with Moleschott’s idea that all disciplines stand in relation with each other and are based on the same “ground”. Lombroso’s preface to his translation was thus not so much a preface to the Kreislauf as an interpretation of Moleschott’s thought, based above all on his later work, such as his public lectures at the University of Turin. In fact, the idea of a “unity of science” was typical for Moleschott’s Italian lectures rather than for his German popularizing books.20 Moreover, Darwin played a central role in Lombroso’s preface, one he did not play in Moleschott’s publication. Darwin, Lombroso maintained, had “completed, in the study of natural history, the concept of the unity of the origin of organic [living] beings”. Chemistry, embryology and, above all, the “discovery of the cell” had, in Lombroso’s opinion, paved the way for such a view.21 The theory of evolution and the discovery of the cell were seen as two necessary steps in the rejection of teleology:22 since the adequate and harmonious development of animal organs and their interdependency were explained only on the basis of “observation”, there was no reason left for believing in a final cause, as Lombroso maintained. Under the “laws dictated by observation only”, Lombroso included natural selection (“legge di selezione”) and the survival of the fittest (“lotta per la esistenza”), giving in this way an exclusively empirical connotation and justification to Darwin’s theory. This was Lombroso’s own contribution in his popularization of Moleschott’s thought, since Darwinism did not play any significant role in the early phase of Moleschott’s work, that is in Germany in the early 1850s (Moleschott’s speech on Charles Darwin at the University of Rome dated 1882).23 At the same time, Lombroso counted criminal 20 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, V. 21 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, VI. 22 The rejection of teleology was a central issue in nineteenth-century biology: cf. Lenoir, The Strategy of Life, and Coleman, Biology in the nineteenth century. 23 Jacob Moleschott, Carlo Roberto Darwin: commemorazione pronunziata a nome degli studenti dellʼUniversità di Roma, nel giorno 25 di giugno 1882 da Jac. Moleschott (Torino: Loescher, 1882). Darwinism was often propagated in the framework of a monist idea of science: the most relevant example of popularization of Darwinism in nineteenth-century Germany was, indeed, the monist Ernst Haeckel; in Italy, Leopoldo Maggi, in his turn, popularized Haeckel’s theories and also Darwinism. Cf. Brömer, Plastidules to Humans. Moleschott possessed a booklet by Leopoldo Maggi on the subject of the institutes of higher education for teachers, Intorno al nuovo regolamento per le Scuole Superiori di Magistero. Osservazioni del Professore Leopoldo Maggi (BCABo, FSM, “Schede Desittere”, consulted in March 2012). Both Maggi and Lombroso studied Medicine at the University of Pavia and graduated under the supervision of the naturalist and anatomist Giuseppe Balsamo Crivelli (1800-1874).

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anthropology among the most advanced scientific ideas that contributed to defeat teleology and to “explain the origin of man, which was hidden behind the fog of a sacred mythology”.24 Here, Lombroso on the one hand included his own research and ideology within the idea of scientific progress of which, according to him, Moleschott’ Kreislauf had been a milestone; on the other hand, he presented this progress as a demystification of natural phenomena and, thereby, as a progressive detachment from the remains of religious and theological conceptions (so, at least, he considered final causality and teleological thinking in general, even when they were defended by natural scientists in a secularized framework, e.g. by Justus Liebig).25 Besides physiology, Lombroso mentioned “experimental psychiatry” as a step forward towards the primacy of materiality, which had finally triumphed even in “moral sciences”, insofar as “Moleschott’s conception” was accepted and established.26 Then, he declared that linguistics and political economy had also profited from Darwin’s theories, and put the accent on the practical application of scientific research.27 Once again, Lombroso tried to include his own school of thought in his representation of scientific progress: for instance, he mentioned Paolo Marzolo, saying that he discovered that “grammar does not originally exist in languages”.28 As far as political economy was concerned, Lombroso defended a liberalist position, speaking in favor of a free market and stating that political economy shows “how morality can be based on utility”.29 As we have seen in the previous chapters, Moleschott also had a view of society that was clearly founded on liberal principles. However, Lombroso added his own view, saying that “moral statistics, now well defined as social physics”, had shown that the regularity of certain events in human and social life corresponded to astrological changes and, “for a great deal, it depends on them”.30 The “influence of meteors on the human organism”, Lombroso maintained, is more relevant than education, and crime itself is an “unlucky natural production, a form of sickness which deserves cure and sequester rather than penalty and vengeance”;31 as practical application of these theories, he listed the “origin and development of life insurance”.32 Finally, Lombroso presented Moleschott’s work as having fostered and continuing to foster not only scientific, but also and above all social and

24 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, VI. 25 Cf. e.g. Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 342-343. 26 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, VII. 27 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, VII-IX. 28 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, VIII. 29 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, VIII-IX. 30 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, IX. 31 Ibidem. 32 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, X.

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economic progress.33 Even ethics, which at first glance seems to be completely endangered and humiliated (the adjectives “dangerous” and “humiliating” are used on page X) by such discoveries, in the end profited from them, for instance finding in science “the means to prevent and treat” crime and madness in such a way that, “for the first time”, one could find a point of “conciliation with the most horrendous human manifestations”.34 Again, science was presented as having a potential for conciliation, whereas a utilitarian worldview was substituted for metaphysics.35 According to Lombroso, this would imply a clear improvement in morality, political economy, and penal law, and would also foster cooperative societies, cooperative banks, insurance societies, “substituting charity with mutual help” and thereby “elevat[ing] human dignity, and turn[ing] that very same selfishness, [which is] the origin and the ruin of many of our actions, to a secure protection”.36 As we have seen in the previous chapter, this corresponds to Moleschott’s statements against the “opere pie”: in his speech at the Senate, he pled for a transformation of religious charitable institutions into state institutions, and wished that “charity” would be substituted for “alms”. Moleschott’s and Lombroso’s views had in common the aim of secularizing these institutions and transforming them from Church-related institutions based on Christian values into national State-managed and State-financed institutions based on secular values. These values, however, were not just suggested as a substitute for ancient religious values, but were, by Moleschott as well as by Lombroso, justified as being based on the most recent and progressive scientific positions; in their turn, these were meant to be founded on observation and empirical data, rather than on metaphysics, authority, or prejudice. In general, Lombroso tended to accentuate the relation between science and society, arguing in his preface that the work he translated bore relevance to each citizen. He thus attempted both to establish a direct connection between Moleschott’s theories and his own theories (i.e. with criminal anthropology) and to present the Kreislauf des Lebens and its related scientific theories as having direct and concrete applications in society, thus essentially contributing to social progress. In the next section, we will have an insight into the background of the translation of this work: indeed, the translation has quite a long and complicated story, which can be traced through the correspondence between author and translator.37 33 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, X-XI. 34 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, X. 35 Lombroso, “Prefazione del traduttore”, XI. 36 Ibidem. 37 Most of the letters sent from Moleschott to Lombroso are missing. The only letter that I was able to view has been kindly provided by Silvano Montaldo from the Museo di Antropologia Criminale Cesare Lombroso in Turin: cf. Jacob Moleschott to Cesare Lombroso (Turin, November 1, 1863), Archivio “Cesare Lombroso”, Università degli Studi di Torino,

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The Process of Translation as Process of Adaptation: Negotiations and Conflicts Interestingly, in his first letter to Moleschott, Lombroso already mentioned his wish to publish a translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens (which he erroneously called “Kreislauf der Leben”): he expressed profound admiration towards Lombroso and a great joy for having now “next to him” (Moleschott had just got the Chair of Physiology in Turin) a person who “opened a new and vast field in the search for truth”.38 He even defined his admiration as a form of “religion”, implicitly referring to the original Latin meaning of “religio”, from the verb “religare”, “to bind” (“the religion which binds me to you”).39 Then, he stated that, two years before, he had already started the translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf, which he had had to interrupt because of historical events (probably referring to the outbreak of the war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Habsburg Empire, in 1859) and “for the fear not to find either readers… nor publishers”.40 It was apparently “the coming of Moleschott” to Italy, which encouraged Lombroso to get back to his project of translation, and it was for this reason that he asked Moleschott: first, whether he would allow such a translation of his work; second, whether he would agree that he translate the Kreislauf, or would find another work more convenient; third, whether he could give him some biographical hints for the preface to the book, in order to catch the interest of the readers. “All this”, Lombroso added, “after you read my booklets [Lombroso’s own publications, L.M.] and you find me worthy of it [of translating Moleschott’s work, L.M.]”.41

Fondo Cesare Lombroso. The letter shows that, at that time, Moleschott was negotiating the publication of Lombroso’s translation of the Kreislauf with the publishing house Loescher in Turin. Loescher would pay 1800 Lire, Moleschott explained, and suggested that he would keep one third for himself, whereas two thirds would be for Lombroso. Should there be successive editions, they would divide the sum evenly, since Moleschott would need to adapt the content of his book. 38 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, October 26, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 206-207. 39 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, October 26, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 207. 40 Ibidem. 41 Ibidem.

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It was the second question that created, in this first phase, most of the problems, since Moleschott thought that a translation of his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, in Lombroso’s letter42 mentioned as “the work on food”,43 would be more adequate as a first Italian publication. Evidently assuming that this would be the first of a series of translations, Moleschott wanted to follow the same chronological order in which his works had been written and published in Germany. However, Lombroso did not agree on that, and immediately asked Moleschott whether he was sure that such a work “would shake the country, and would sweep away that sad priestly veneer […] as the Kreislauf would”.44 Lombroso doubted that this would be the case: he wrote that he knew his “compatriots” and that these “are impatient or uninterested towards what they do not know – or even just if it [the subject of their readings, L.M.] is difficult to understand – but [they are] very curious, very ardent towards new systems – and ready to embrace them, once they comprehend them”.45 For this reason, he insisted on starting with the translation of the Kreislauf, and underlined that “the purely medical topic of the Alimenti46 etc. would forcefully exclude a great deal of thinkers who are not medical doctors”.47 From the first sentence of this letter, it is obvious that Lombroso presented the whole issue as a national, patriotic enterprise, with a nationalist task: here, he thanked Moleschott for “not rejecting my proposal of translating your works” also “in the name of the country”.48 The whole nation as a collective was said to be in need of discussing and following Moleschott’s ideas, thus, first of all, of becoming familiar with them.49 Although Lombroso seemed to agree with Moleschott’s proposal of starting with the translation of the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, we will see that, in fact, 42 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 207-208. 43 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 207. 44 Ibidem. Emphasis in the original. 45 Ibidem. 46 Lombroso meant thereby the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, first translated into Italian by Giuseppe Bellucci in 1871 as Dell’alimentazione. Trattato popolare (Milano: Treves, 1871). 47 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 207. Whenever possible, I have tried to stick to Lombroso’s own punctuation, which, as the editor of the letters, Mariano Patrizi, already noted, is very unusual in the Italian language: cf. Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 206, footnote 1. 48 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 207. 49 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208.

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his will could not be so easily modified, and that in the end he succeeded in his project of translating the Kreislauf. In his next letter,50 Lombroso asked Moleschott, with an exclamation and with some impatience, when he would be allowed to translate his Kreislauf des Lebens: “Oh! when will it be allowed to me [literally, “given to me”, as if it were a great privilege] […] to translate and comment upon some of your works for my fellow citizens, who are so much in need of knowing them”.51 These remarks show that Lombroso understood the publication of Moleschott’s popularizing writings in the framework of the propagation of a secular national ideology. He conceived of his work as a translator as having not only a national character, but also a civilizing mission; as we have seen, these were at the same time the terms of Moleschott’s own understanding of his scientific and popularizing work. In all of these first letters to Moleschott, Lombroso showed a very high esteem, an extreme admiration towards him: the words he wrote to Moleschott, whom he did not personally know yet, recall the words of Romantic poetry rather than the style of the correspondence between two scientists. It was visibly different from the style of other letters which were sent to Moleschott by other scientists and disciples such as his assistant in Turin, Simone Fubini, or his successor in the Chair of Physiology in Turin, Angelo Mosso:52 in comparison, Lombroso’s words sound extremely poetic. In the following closing sentence of one of his first letters, we can even notice, for instance, an alliteration between “ardente” and “ardire”: “Forgive me, eximious master, my extroversion; it is the ardent love for your theories, which is transformed into the courage to dare (‘ardire’) –; I send you a kiss from the profundity of my heart”.53 In the next letter, Lombroso presented his master Paolo Marzolo, professor in Naples, to Moleschott, explaining that “he loves you now as much as I do as a father of science”.54 He continued by saying: “I hope I will come to Turin shortly –; anyway I have you in my mind day and night and I have built an image of you in my mind as

50 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, March 7, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208-209. 51 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, March 7, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208. 52 Cf. BCABo, FSM, “Corrispondenza Simone Fubini”, “Corrispondenza Angelo Mosso” (viewed in September 2011). 53 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 5, 1861), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208: “Scusi, esimio maestro la mia baldanza; è l’amore ardente delle sue teorie, che si converte in ardire –; io le mando un bacio dal profondo del cuore.” 54 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, March 7, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208-209: “egli vi ama a quest’ora come io che v’amo come padrino della scienza.”

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if I saw you –; so much do your writings depict you.” The letter ends with the following phrase: “Please do love your son and admirer C. Lombroso”.55 This tone did not remain constant in Lombroso’s letters, but it always came back when he dealt with the issue of the translation of Moleschott’s work, as if that would be the most important task for him and as if his most important role in his relation with Moleschott would be the role of translator. At first, Moleschott expressed his opinion against an immediate publication of a translation of the Kreislauf, as we can infer from Lombroso’s reply: Lombroso indeed asked him if he would allow him to publish “those two chapters of yours about thought” (meaning two chapters of the Kreislauf).56 However, finally Lombroso succeeded, and he translated and published the whole book. The only time there was a real break in the friendly and admiring tone in their correspondence was on the occasion of the disagreement about the correction of the drafts of Lombroso’s translation of the Kreislauf: there, Lombroso seemed to get really annoyed by Moleschott’s attempt to modify the translation as he liked best. Lombroso reproached in him the use of nonexistent words, and described his use of the Italian language as inadequate. However, Moleschott’s colleagues, including Lombroso, mostly admired his use of the Italian language, which they described as highly poetic. In the case of Lombroso, the situation is rather paradoxical, because his own style, especially in the letters, was surely not typical for the Italian language (especially his lexicon, his syntax, and his use of punctuation), whereas Moleschott wrote in a perfect and elevated Italian, with both quotations from poems and literary works, and loans from poetic and literary language. Lombroso himself, when not voicing disagreement with Moleschott’s corrections of Lombroso’s own translation, praised Moleschott’s style as being comparable to the most famous pieces of German and Italian poetry.57 For instance, he praised Moleschott’s lecture on the composition of blood (published under the title Un’ambasciata fisiologica, but here called “Polibroziani” from the name of the imagined people, who represented blood cells) as a “work of art” and for the eloquence of its style, having transformed such a “dry [scientific] issue” into an elegant narration, where “language and style are clear, fluent” so that even “a purist would hardly

55 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, March 7, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 209: “Spero fra poco venire a Torino –; ma in ogni modo giorno e notte vi ho nella mente e mi sono fabbricato nella mente un’immagine di voi come se vi avessi veduto –; tanto i vostri scritti vi dipingono.” And the closing sentence sounds “Amate” (“Please love” or “Do love”) “il vostro figlio ed ammiratore” (“your son and admirer”). 56 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, December 29, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 210. 57 Lombroso to Moleschott (Pavia, September 15, 1863), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 211.

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know they are not [the production] of a true and pure Tuscan, but of a recent Italian citizen”.58 As far as the role of his translation is concerned, Lombroso was certain that it would represent the “beginnings of the new materialist school in Italy”: “Habe ich meine freude darein [sic] not so much because of the financial gains nor because of the vanity of being the translator of Moleschott – but rather because we would initiate the new materialist school in Italy – where when they say the famous Epicuri de grege porcum [sic; reference to the critique of ancient Epicureanism i.e. materialism, from Horace’s letter to Tibullus, Epistulae I, 4, 10] – they think they have said everything.”59

Then, Lombroso added that he would like to publish his own book on “thought and matter” as a follow-up to his translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf, which supports the hypothesis according to which Lombroso actually understood his translation as an occasion for the promotion of his own scientific and popularizing work. The first corrections Moleschott made to Lombroso’s manuscript of the translation were all in all apparently accepted by Lombroso, who thanked him for them and just in two specific cases tried to explain his reasons for having chosen a certain expression instead of another: “I thank you for the appraisals, oh! not enough merited, and for your wonderful corrections which are overtly in contradiction with your appraisals – You can imagine that I accept them wholeheartedly – Still as true translator traitor – I would like you to consent to science which is always in completion which, as it seems to me, well reproduces the ‘in werden’ [becoming] – As well as that I know it already – which sounds like the style of Alfieri. Though if you do not agree I will delete it.”60

58 Lombroso to Moleschott (Treviso, September 7, 1866), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 221. Emphasis in the original. 59 Lombroso to Moleschott (s.l., s.d.), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 218: “Habe ich meine freude darein [sic] non tanto già pel lucro né per la vanità d’essere il traduttore di Moleschott – quanto perché si inizierebbe la nuova scuola materialistica in Italia – dove quando hanno detto il famoso Epicuri de grege porcum – credono di aver detto tutto”. 60 Lombroso to Moleschott, (s.l., December 26, 1868), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 226: “Vi ringrazio degli elogi, ahi! troppo poco meritati e delle bellissime correzioni che fanno aperta guerra ai vostri elogi – Potete capire che le accetto di gran cuore – Pure da vero traduttore traditore – vorrei che mi lasciaste passare quella scienza che sta sempre nel completarsi che mi par riproduca bene l’in werden – Così pure Io mel so già – che sa d’Alfieriano. Se però non lo credete lo cancellerò.”

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These sentences are exemplary of Lombroso’s attention to the formal aspects of popularization and to the literary style of his translation: as we have seen, this had been a central issue for Moleschott as well, as he made clear to his publisher Emil Roth.61 However, the stylistic reference to literary authors was not just a matter of style: it was at the same time part of the construction of a literary and cultural national identity, of which scientific popularization was an essential element. Moleschott’s style was compared to that of the most famous literary works, and in another letter Lombroso reported that he and Paolo Mantegazza62 thought that his first opening lecture at the University of Turin was written in Ugo Foscolo’s style – Foscolo being considered as a patriotic poet – and with such a clearness that can rarely be found “among us”, i.e. in Italian scholarly and popularizing publications.63 Another issue in the debate between Lombroso and Moleschott concerned which title the Italian version of the Kreislauf should bear: whereas Lombroso had translated it as “circolo” (“circle”), the publisher, Brigola in Milan, suggested to translate it with “circolazione” (“circulation”), a suggestion which Moleschott promptly accepted.64 It is interesting to notice how Lombroso justified his preference for “circolo”: in fact, he thought that “circolazione” would be a too complicated, specific scientific word for many readers, who were rather familiar with the style of novels and newspaper articles, and for this reason he foresaw that the word “circolazione” would scare many potential readers: “Brigola is happy because he got you on his side regarding the preference of Circulation [“Circolazione”] instead of Circle [“Circolo”] – …. I will not say anything anymore but you will see that that “[-]ation” [in the original “azione”, which also means “action”] will take him hundred Italian readers away – who will be too scared by such a technical word and will not be encouraged to read the book – Unfortunately I know my fellow citizens are corrupted by the Novel and by too easy newspaper readings – Your pages, even the most popularizing ones, are too sublime for them.”65

61 Cf. Jacob Moleschott to Emil Roth (Turin, January 25, 1863): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Hs NF 729. 62 In 1870, Mantegazza held the first Chair in Anthropology in Europe, which was instituted in Florence with the help of the historian Pasquale Villari, who was Minister of Public Education at that time. Cf. Frigessi, Introduction to “La scienza della devianza”, 343. 63 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, November 7, 1863), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 215. 64 Lombroso to Moleschott (s.l., December 26, 1868), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 226. 65 Lombroso to Moleschott (s.l., December 26, 1868), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 226: “Egli il Brigola si è felice perché vi ebbe dalla sua in quella preferenza di

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This sentence, showing a feeling of superiority vis-à-vis the average cultural level of the Italian readers, seems to indicate that Lombroso aimed at a broader popularization than Moleschott did: whereas Moleschott had identified his target audience in the upper class, as the lectures he had given until 1868 show (seven years had passed from Lombroso’s first contact with Moleschott and his proposal of translating the Kreislauf), Lombroso tried to spread the ideas of the “new materialist school” among a potentially broader audience. It was only later on that Lombroso became clearly irritated, accusing Molschott of abusing his faculty of correcting the drafts of the translation and confessing that he had not accepted a great deal of Moleschott’s last corrections because they disturbed “the symmetry of my style”. As an alternative, he asserted that he would accept all corrections, if Moleschott insisted, but would in that case delete his “name from the book-cover and renounce the responsibility of the translation”.66 In fact, that letter included a second letter, which Lombroso had written one week earlier in an even more annoyed tone: in that letter, Lombroso concluded that he would indeed accept Moleschott’s corrections but definitely cancel his name as a translator.67 Apparently, Moleschott pretended to make some changes which, for Lombroso, were an insult to his own ability as a writer and to the supposed elegance of his style; moreover, he wanted to substitute some words with other terminology which, according to Lombroso, did not exist in the Italian language or did not have the same meaning. All in all, we can say that Moleschott was very dissatisfied with Lombroso’s translation of his book. In fact, as he wrote in his autobiography, even after the publication of the book, he believed that Lombroso had mistranslated his work and held the French translation by Émile Cazelles (1831-1907) to be a much better one.68 Since Moleschott himself had a great deal of experience with the translation of popularizing and scientific works, both as a translator and as the author of translated texts, we might wonder why Lombroso insisted so much on his own version of the translation, and why he was so insistent with his changes. In fact, it is likely that Lombroso used the translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf in order to affirm himself as an author rather than as a mere translator in the Italian cultural panorama of scientific popularization: Circolazione in luogo di circolo–…. [sic, L.M.] Io non fiato più ma vedrete che quell’azione gli porterà via cento lettori Italiani – i quali si spaventeranno alla parola troppo tecnica e non morderanno all’amo della lettura – Pur troppo io conosco I miei concittadini guasti dal Romanzo e dalle facili letture giornalistiche – Le vostre pagine anche le più popolari sono troppo sublimi per loro.” 66 Lombroso to Moleschott (February 6, 1869), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 227-228. 67 Lombroso to Moleschott (Pavia, January 31, 1869), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 228-229. 68 Moleschott, Für meine Freunde, 227-228.

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he considered the translation of Moleschott’s book as the perfect occasion to make himself known as Moleschott’s disciple. In this sense, Lombroso created his own position as Moleschott’s follower through his own translation of the book; in fact, it was not Lombroso who took up Moleschott’s way of popularization, but rather, it was Lombroso who shaped the style of Moleschott’s most important popularizing book. After these misunderstandings, the relations between the two scientists returned to normal; the Kreislauf des Lebens was translated and published as La circolazione della vita, and the “new materialist school” was presented to a broader audience, while Moleschott’s Italian lectures and speeches were translated into other European languages and found their way into other European countries.

Lombroso’s and Moleschott’s Conceptions of Popularization between Science and Literature Summing up, Lombroso’s letters show that the representation of the audience was different for Lombroso and for Moleschott: as we have seen, Lombroso considered his translation as a relatively broad popularizing book, which spread the new conception of science and the materialist worldview among the middle class. Second, the translation was understood by Lombroso as having a national, patriotic character: it was not only a popularization of the ideas of “the new materialist school”, but also a work of national education. In this task, literary style played a central role: Lombroso often praised Moleschott’s literary style when writing in the Italian language, but at the same time he admired also the style of Moleschott’s German writings, identifying his “life of the great naturalist” (certainly meaning thereby Georg Forster) with a literary masterpiece (“gemma letteraria”), “written with the heart of Jean Paul and with the mind of Lucretius”.69 When negotiating single terms in his own translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf, finally, he justified some of his lexical choices as an imitation of Vittorio Alfieri’s poetry. This means that Lombroso himself had learned the importance of literary style in scientific popularization, both as a means to reach a broader audience, and as inscribing the popularized works in the framework of a program of national education. Hence, science and literature were joining their efforts for the sake of nationalism. Third, both the ideals of the new nation-state and the scientific view on nature and society were propagated as a new form of religion: the religion of science was

69 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, March 7, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208.

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complementary to the religion of the fatherland.70 Indeed, as Lombroso expressed it in his letter to Moleschott after their reconciliation, praising the publication Moleschott had sent him as a Christmas present (most probably Dei regolatori della vita umana, the opening lecture he had given for the whole University of Turin in 1870): “We [the nation, L.M.] are too much in need of an apostle of freethinking who shakes our character, sleepy and evirated by the priest, and who brings us back to Rome – but to a novel Rome of thought, not the old, pontifical, catholic – And you did it with a master’s hand – that religion invoked in depth with Galileo and Voltaire as proselytes – […] and there is little prose in our literature which is more powerful than the last two lines ‘Galileo more religious than his persecutors and Voltaire much more than all the inquisitors in the world’, wonderful that ‘it transforms that air in lucid arguments and sweet melodies.’”71

Lombroso thus interpreted Moleschott’s work as a way back to pre-Catholic Roman antiquity, and figures of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire are explicitly characterized as the true representatives of religion, in overt contrast with the “false religiosity” of the Church. As is clear from one of Lombroso’s letters, the connection between materialism and freethinking was not limited to the theoretical level, but was also coherently mirrored on the practical level, since Lombroso, looking for a publisher of the book, tried to ask a “society of freethinkers” in Milan if they would print the translation of the Kreislauf; anyway, he soon realized that “they rather work with words than with facts”, meaning that their support was only ideal but not concrete.72 As we have seen in the previous chapters, freethinking and materialism were conceived in opposition to the ideology of the Vatican and the culture of the Catholic Church: having in mind this juxtaposition, Lombroso conceived of Moleschott’s

70 On the religion of the fatherland and on the sacralization of politics cf. Emilio Gentile, Le religioni della politica. Fra democrazie e totalitarismi (Roma, Bari: Laterza, 2001). 71 Lombroso to Moleschott (Pavia, December 24, 1870), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 230: “Noi troppo abbiamo bisogno di un apostolo del libero pensiero che ci scuota la fibra addormentata ed evirata dal prete e che ci riconduca a Roma – ma ad una Roma novella del pensiero non la vieta, pontificale, cattolica – Ed ella lo ha fatto con mano maestra – quella religione invocata al fondo con Galileo e Voltaire per proseliti – […] e poche prose v’hanno nella nostra letteratura più potenti delle due ultime righe ‘Galileo più religioso dei suoi persecutori e Voltaire assai più di tutti gli inquisitori del mondo’, bellissimo quel ‘tramuta quell’aria in lucidi argomenti e dolci melodie.’” 72 Cf. Lombroso to Moleschott (Pavia, January 1(?), 1863), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 210: “Io mi sono rivolto anche a Milano alla società dei liberi pensatori – ma e’ pare che vogliano lavorare più di parole che di fatti.”

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work as “worthy of being lectured in the halls of Rome in front of the Vatican”.73 The translation of Moleschott’s work was thus explicitly meant to secularize Italian culture and to contribute to its independence from Catholicism: in this sense, it was clearly part of the propagation of Italian national ideology.

T HE P ROCESS OF T RANSLATION C IRCULATION OF K NOWLEDGE

AND THE

The reception of Moleschott’s work, however, was not limited to Western European countries: in fact, not only his Kreislauf des Lebens and his Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, but also his Physiologisches Skizzenbuch, his book on Georg Forster, as well as some of the opening lectures he gave in Turin and Rome were translated into Russian.74 There, his thought was appreciated above all by the so-called “nihilists”: in Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons (1862), the main character, the young, inexperienced, but obstinately atheist and materialist student of medicine Bazarov was inspired by widespread images of and prejudices about materialist scientists such as Moleschott and Vogt. An even more famous literary representation of scientific materialism – more precisely, of the “materialist tryptic” composed of Ludwig Büchner, 73 Ibidem: “Ma io non finirei più se dovessi analizzarle le pagine che piacquero nel suo lavoro degno di esser recitato nelle aule di Roma di faccia al Vaticano.” 74 These were published respectively as: Krugovorot zhizni: Fiziolog. otvety na “Pis’ma o khimii” Yustusa Libikha, transl. (from the fourth edition) and ed. by Iv. Shchelkov (Khar’kov: A. Zalenskiy i E. Lyubarskiy, 1866); Uchenie o pishche, obshcheponyatno izlozhennoe Ya. Moleshottom, transl. of the 3rd German edition (Sankt-Peterburg: SernoSolov’evich, 1863); Fiziologicheskie eskizy, transl. with annotations by A. Pal’khovskiy (Moskva: V. Grachev i A. Cherenin, 1863 and 1865); Georg Forster, narodnyy estestvoispytatel’: Ego zhizn’ i kratk. izvlech. iz nekotorykh ego soch, translated from the second German edition (Sankt-Peterburg: A. Sazanovich, 1874). His popularizing lecture on blood cells was translated as Fiziologicheskaya lektsiya: Chit. 21 marta 1864 g. v Turin. o-ve uchen. i lit. chteniy (Sankt-Peterburg: Buynickiy, 1865), his opening lecture at La Sapienza in Rome as Edinstvo nauki s tochki zreniya ucheniya o zhizni: Vstup. lektsiya k kursu fiziologii, chit. Yak. Moleshottom 11 yanv. 1879 v Sapientse, v Rime, translated from German (Sankt-Peterburg: tip. E. Mettsiga, 1879). As for the opening lectures given in Turin, they were published as: Estestvoznanie i meditsina [i.e.: “Fisiologia e medicina”]. Rech’, chit. 28 noyabr. 1864 g. pri otrkytii novogo kursa lektsiy fiziologii (Sankt-Peterburg: M. O. Vol’f, 1865); Prichiny i deystviya v uchenii o zhizni, [i.e.: “Della causalità nella biologia”], transl. from German by V. Svyatlovskiy (Moskva: Tip. S. Orlova, 1868). I am thankful to Stefan Rohdewald for helping me with the transliteration and translation of the Russian titles.

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Carl Vogt, and Jacob Moleschott – is contained in Dostoevsky’s novel The Devils (1872), where the protagonist destroys his landowners’ Christian icons only to replace them with Büchner’s, Vogt’s, and Moleschott’s bestsellers, which are illuminated by candles and in this way presented as a surrogate of religious idolatry.75 Moreover, Moleschott’s theories on nutrition and hygiene were translated and popularized in Russia, in Spain, and in Scandinavia.76 There was a significant reception of scientific materialism even in the late Ottoman Empire: there, in a similar way as in Italy, the dissemination of materialism went hand in hand with a worldview which substituted science for religion, and joined secularization with a new nationalist ideology.77 75 On the reception of scientific materialism in nineteenth-century Russian literature, cf. for instance Ulrike Jekutsch, “Der Krankheitsbegriff und seine Konstruktion in der russischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhundertsˮ, in Russische Begriffsgeschichte der Neuzeit: Beiträge zu einem Forschungsdesiderat, ed. Peter Thiergen (Köln, Weimar: Böhlau, 2006), 182. I thank Gabriel Finkelstein for drawing my attention to the representation of materialism in Dostoevsky’s The Devils and Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons during a workshop at the University of Gent in August 2011. On the reception of Moleschott’s nutritional theories in Russia, cf. Peter Brang, Ein unbekanntes Russland: Kulturgeschichte vegetarischer Lebensweisen von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Köln, Weimar: Böhlau, 2002), 255-258. 76 Cf. in Russian: Bud’te zdorovy! Popul.-med. Besedy d-ra Boka, d-v Moleshotta, Yu. Libikha, Nimeyera, Val’da, Direnfurta i dr. Translated from German, ed. by dr. M. M. Shershevskiy (Sankt-Peterburg: V. E. Genkel’, 1872); Fedor Iosifovich Surin, Sokhranenie i razvitie uma i energii: (Gigiena). K. Aar [Pseudonyme]. Po soch. Grizengera […], Darvina, Moleshotta, Sechenova […] i dr. (Kazan’: F. I. Massal’skiy-Surin, 1873). In Spanish: De la alimentacion y del regimen (Madrid: El Globo, 1850) and La circulación de la vida: cartas sobre la fisiología en contestación a las Cartas sobre la química de Liebig, por Jac. Moleschott, translated by the socialist A. Ocina y Aparicio (Madrid: Saturnino Calleja, 1881). In Swedish: Carl Johan Jakob Keyser, Om mat och dryck: populär framställning af läran om wåra wanliga näringsmedel. Fri öfvers. av [...] Moleschotts “Lehre der Nahrungsmittelˮ med bearb. och tillägg af C. Joh. Keyser (Upsala: Leffler, 1858). 77 On the reception and popularization of scientific materialism in the late Ottoman Empire, cf. M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, “Blueprints for a Future Society: Late Ottoman Materialists on Science, Religion, and Art”, in Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy, ed. Elisabeth Özdalga (London: Routledge, 2005), 28–116 (on “Vulgärmaterialismus” and its reception by Baha Tevfik, pages 67 ff.). Cf. also M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Atatürk. An Intellectual Biography (Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011), 48-52 (on Dostoevsky’s representation of materialism, 49); I am grateful to Tobias Gabel, who kindly suggested this book to me while he was translating it into German. On the reception of materialism in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, especially by Tahsin, cf. also Niyasi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964), 181-

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On the one hand, the fact that specific speeches such as university lectures were translated into many western-European languages already indicates that Moleschott himself understood his lectures (as well as his Senate speeches, as we have seen in the previous chapters) as popularizing works: although being delivered in front of a restricted audience, and although being clearly addressed to a cultural elite, the lectures were not only conceived for the audience present in the lecture hall at the university, nor were they conceived for an Italian audience only. Even though these were indeed the primary target groups, their translation (the German versions were always published shortly after the Italian editions) show that they were part of a general popularizing strategy. On the other hand, Moleschott’s speeches that were translated and published abroad were at the same time meant to construct an image of the recently formed Italian nation and spread it beyond national borders. In other words, one could define them as a form of popularization not only of ideas about science, but also about the nation-state, or better as popularization of a certain image of the Italian nationstate. I will explain this in more detail further in this chapter by analyzing two public speeches that Moleschott gave in Germany as a delegate of the Italian State respectively in the 1860s and in the 1880s. The style in which Moleschott’s speeches have been translated is not less important than the translation of specific scientific and technical terms, or of words implying a certain political and cultural worldview. In fact, whereas in Italy Moleschott’s writings were part of a political program of national education, in other European countries where they were translated they represented a contribution to the popularization of a conception of science and of a worldview in which the natural sciences form the foundation of knowledge. In France, as well as in England, Moleschott’s writings were not as important, and not as revolutionary, as they were in Italy; however, they found a place in popularizing journals such as the Popular Science Monthly and the Revue des cours scientifiques de France et de l’etranger, and were thus considered as being part of the European scientific panorama. As we have seen, in Italy each of Moleschott’s university lectures, as well as many of his Senate speeches, were published as single booklets, as well as in a collection of lectures which appeared in 1872 (Sulla vita umana). In Germany, the translation and publication of Moleschott’s work was almost simultaneous with the Italian publication: his university lectures given in Turin, as well as the lecture held in Zürich, were each published separately, starting from 1862, as well as in a collection of six lectures in one single volume in 1865 (Sechs Vorträge) by the publishing house of Emil Roth, Ferber’sche Buchhandlung, in Giessen (the lectures he held in 1880-1881 followed as Kleine Schriften). This was 182. Cf. also the dissertation by Serdar Poyraz, “Science versus Religion: The Influence of European Materialism on Turkish Thought, 1860-1960.ˮ Dissertation. Ohio State University, 2010.

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surely due to the fact that Moleschott had personal contacts with the publisher, and that the works were most probably translated with the help of his wife, Sophie Moleschott. This resulted in a translation that was very close to the Italian original, and it is likely that Moleschott and his wife worked in close collaboration on the German translation of the texts. In its turn, the publishing house Emil Roth in Giessen became increasingly important precisely through the publication of Moleschott’s works.78 Although Moleschott never worked at the University of Giessen, his contacts with the publishing house were long lasting, especially due to the publication of the journal he edited, the Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere.79 Significantly, the translations of Moleschott’s university lectures were not always directly translated from Italian into other languages, but sometimes first from Italian into French, and then from French into English, as was the case with “The Unity of Science”, originally La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, which was translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the French version in the Revue Scientifique.80 Moreover, with the French translation, the form of the publication was changed from a book into a journal article; the English translation was also a shortened version of the lecture, which was published as a journal article. Although the typology of the publication was the same in French and in English, namely a journal article, there was a slight change in the target audience, since the Popular Science Monthly had a less scientific and more popularizing character with respect to the Revue Scientifique. From these examples, we can understand that a translation always implies a shift and an adaptation not only of the form of the text, but also of its message and communicative aim: scientific popularization, together with scientific practices and their socio-cultural context, essentially contributes to the affirmation (or rejection) of a scientific theory. As the microbiologist and sociologist of science Ludwik Fleck (18961961) maintained, the circulation of ideas and of social practices is of central importance in the process of knowledge production.81 Fleck conceived of knowledge

78 In a note enclosed in Moleschott’s letter to Emil Roth (Jacob Moleschott to Emil Roth (Turin, January 25, 1863): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Hs NF 729), Olaf Schneider, archivist at the University Library in Giessen, indicates the publication of Moleschott’s works, together with that of the works by Geh. Justizrat Professor Dr. v. Schulte in Bonn, as being the most significant for the publishing house at that time. 79 Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, ed. Jacob Moleschott, vol. 1-15, 1857-1895 (published in Frankfurt am Main, Verlag von Meininger Sohn & Comp.; from 1860 published by Roth in Giessen). 80 Jacob Moleschott, “The Unity of Science”. Popular Science Monthly, 33 (1888): 520-527. 81 Sylwia Werner and Claus Zittel, Introduction to Ludwik Fleck, Denkstile und Tatsachen. Gesammelte Schriften und Zeugnisse, ed. Sylwia Werner and Claus Zittel (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011), 19.

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production (including “scientific” knowledge) as a highly social activity, as the social activity par excellence:82 “Gedanken kreisen vom Individuum zum Individuum, jedesmal etwas umgeformt, denn andere Individuen knüpfen andere Assoziationen an sie an. Streng genommen versteht der Empfänger den Gedanken nie vollkommen in dieser Weise, wie ihn der Sender verstanden haben wollte. Nach einer Reihe solcher Wanderungen ist praktisch nichts mehr vom ursprünglichen Inhalte vorhanden.ˮ83

Even if such a conclusion, namely that nothing is left of the original content, could seem quite extreme at first glance, we should not underestimate the changes and the adaptations to which Moleschott’s works were subject according to the different contexts in which they were translated and diffused. Such processes of translation and of circulation of scientific ideas were typical for nineteenth-century popularization, and Moleschott was not the only scientist who complained about his translator and who was astonished at substantial changes from the original content and style of his publication. The neurophysiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond, for instance, expressed his complaints with the same British popularizing journal which published the shortened and translated version of Moleschott’s lectures, the Popular Science Monthly, for the innumerable mistakes in their translation of his “The Limits of the Knowledge of Nature”, the famous Ignorabimus-speech.84 For popularizing publications such as Moleschott’s and Du Bois-Reymond’s, this was a particularly significant issue, and they were not ready to compromise on precision and elegance: not only did they want the translation of the content, including its scientific terminology, to be as accurate as possible, but they also fundamentally relied on literary form in order to make that content appealing and understandable. They saw the popularization of scientific ideas and of a worldview based on the natural sciences as a highly political mission, and that mission could only be accomplished with the help of an adequate style and of evocative rhetorical imageries. For instance, let us consider the title of Molechott’s lecture given at the University of Turin in 1864, L’unità della vita, which referred to a unitary principle, conceived as being at the base both of the whole of natural processes and of their explanation, displaying thus the “unity of life” and the “unity of science”. That lecture was translated into the most important European languages: it contained the basic principle of a unity and coherence of nature, as well as of cultural and social phenomena, which 82 Ibidem. 83 Ludwik Fleck; Lothar Schäfer, Thomas Schnelle (ed.), Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980), 58. 84 Cf. Finkelstein, Emil du Bois-Reymond, 269.

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was not typical for materialism alone in nineteenth-century scientific thinking, but also for monism, as for positivism in general.85 Only by referring to such a unitary and unifying principle could science present itself as encompassing religion and ethics; this happened, as we have seen, in a systematic way, and was then continued by Lombroso himself with his conception of anthropology as an all-encompassing natural and social science. For this reason, it can be understood as a programmatic speech. The speech was not only translated, but also adapted and, in certain cases, significantly shortened. The French journal Revue des Cours Scientifiques published the whole series of Moleschott’s lectures in Turin, as well as his lecture in Zürich, Licht und Leben, in its first issues; they were systematically translated and published as a part of a program of popularization (although mainly directed to an audience of scientists or of cultivated people) and also, in a certain way, a manifesto of the new journal which, from its first number on, took care of translating all of the lectures Moleschott had given until that moment. The fact that, in France, the translation and adaptation was published in the form of journal articles indicates at the same time a different form of reception: in Italy and in Germany the lecture was published as a separate booklet (however, also as part of a volume including all of Moleschott’s lectures), whereas in France and England its translations addressed the broader, but also heterogeneous audience of readers of a scientific journal containing a review of lectures in the natural sciences at European universities. Even though the title was literally translated, in the French version of the lecture the style was completely transformed: from a narrative, almost poetic text, it was changed into a plain journal article. As far as the titles of the lectures are concerned, there are other cases in which it was modified quite significantly: Del metodo nella investigazione della vita (his first opening lecture in Turin, 1861) became De la méthode en physiologie (“On method in Physiology”, Revue des Cours Scientifiques, première année, N. 7, January 16, 1864) in French: a shorter title which was less poetic and more technical. In German, the title Zur Erforschung des Lebens (“On the Investigation of Life”) was also shorter, and even more simple than the Italian one. It was in its Dutch translation that this title gave up every poetical attempt, reading Iets over de methode van het physiologisch onderzoek (“Something about the method of physiological research”). In a similar way, Moleschott’s opening lecture given at the University of Rome in 1879, La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle, was published by Roth in Giessen as Die Einheit der Wissenschaft aus dem Gesichtspunkt der Lehre vom Leben. The English translation followed nine years later, in 1888, and was published in the Popular Science Monthly (in fact, the interest of that British journal in Moleschott’s work started in that period of time) with the title The unity of science.86 85 Cf. Ziche, Wissenschaftslandschaften um 1900, 55. 86 Jacob Moleschott, “The Unity of Science”. Popular Science Monthly, 33 (1888): 520-527.

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Regarding the motivation for the translation and publication of Moleschott’s work, we can refer to the foreword of the Dutch translator of the Einheit des Lebens,87 who underlined the importance of the lecture for Dutch national culture: translating the work of a Dutchman into Dutch, after it had already been published in two languages, Italian and German, was something unusual, he remarked, explaining the situation with the motto nemo propheta in patria (“no-one is a prophet in his own land”, which he expressed in Dutch).88 He then went on by describing the high value of Moleschott’s speech as an introduction to “the discipline of life”, that is, the study of physiology and biology, and praising not only its precise information, but also its style.89 It is not known who the translator was; he defined himself as “a convinced admirer of Moleschott” (“eene ijverige vereerder van Moleschott”), having the duty to translate his speech and make it available for his compatriots. It is a typical feature for the reception of Moleschott’s work and thought that more than one country presented him as a national hero. In this way, even long after his departure from the Netherlands and when he was already an affirmed professor in Turin, after having worked in Heidelberg and Zürich, he was regarded as an important piece of national culture and science in the Netherlands.

M OLESCHOTT AS M EDIATING F IGURE BETWEEN N ATIONS AND C ULTURES Moleschott did not seem to be disturbed by the fact that more than one nation claimed him and his work as a national product: on the contrary, in the speech he gave for the five-hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg, he presented himself as an Italian citizen, but at the same time as a former member of the University of Heidelberg (which shows that he still had good relations with that University, even though in his autobiography and in his letters to Feuerbach he had accused the whole University of obscurantism). 87 Cf. Vincent J.B.M. Peeters (ed.), Jacobus Molechott. De eenheid des levens (Baarn: Ambo, 1989), 129-130, note 75, where Peeters reports the preface of the anonymous translator of Moleschott’s L’unità della vita into Dutch. 88 Ibidem: “Het zal wel zelden gebeurendat het werk eens Nederlanders, in twee vreemde talen geschreven (Italiaansch en Hoogduitsch), in het Nederduitsch moet worden vertaald. Ik vond het mijn pligt, als eene ijverige vereerder van Moleschott, zijne denkbeelden ook in ons land algemeen bekend te maken. Dat geen profeet in zijn eigen land geëerd is, geldt ook van hem.” 89 Ibidem: “In nevensgaande rede schildert de geleerde physioloog, in schoone bloemrijke taal, helder en sierlijk de geschiedenis van het tegenwoordig standpunt der leer van het leven.”

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As early as when he gave a speech in honor of Friedrich Schiller as a delegate from Italy in 1862, he had used that occasion in order to underline the deep relationship between Italian and German cultures: he presented both countries as taking up the ideals of ancient Greece, whereas Germany was seen as the legitimate heir of the Italian Renaissance.90 In a similar way as we have seen it in Moleschott’s speeches on penal law, dating about twenty years later, Moleschott presented Italy as being the cradle of culture and literature, which it inherited from ancient Greece and which recognized Germany as its successor. Having given the first part of his speech “in the name of Georg Forster”, Moleschott continued “in the name of Italy”: “Da ich nicht aus mir selber rede, muß ich Eure Geduld noch einige Minuten länger in Anspruch nehmen. Ich bringe Euch nicht bloß den Gruß eines großen Todten [sic], ich bringe Euch noch den Gruß eines großen Lebendigen. Italien, die Amme der Kunst, deren Wiege Griechenland gewesen, erkennt in Euch das Volk, bei welchem sein liebster Pflegling die liebreichste Aufnahme gefunden hat; Italien verehrt und liebt Euren Dichter, der durch eine große Künstlerin des ruhmreichen und schönheitsvollen Landes auch jenseits der Alpen eine blühende dramatische Gestaltung gewonnen hat; ich bringe Euch den Gruß des Landes, das in seinem Dante und Ariost den Faust und die Iphigenie, die Balladen und Romanzen von Schiller und Göthe [sic], den ureigensten Stolz der deutschen Dichtung, gleichsam im Keime vorgebildet enthält; des Volkes, das Euch wie einen Bruder kennt – ein Bruderpaar, das in der Lapidarschrift der Geschichte das Sprichwort wiederholt, daß was sich liebt, sich necket; ein Bruderpaar, das, je mehr es dem Gipfel seiner Entwicklung sich nähert, um so mehr jenes großartige Necken in edle selbstbewußte Hochachtung verwandeln wird – um einträchtig mächtig zu werden, – um die Wahrheit mit vereinten Kräften durch Schönheit eindringlicher zu machen, um die Kunst selbständig zu halten durch den tiefen Gehalt, den auch Albion in seinem Shakespeare aufweist; um endlich frei und unabhängig dazustehen unter den übrigen Völkern, die mit oder trotz ihren Regierungen, den von Schiller verkündeten Idealen nachstreben.ˮ91 90 On the role of the celebrations in honor of Friedrich Schiller in 1859 (in Germany as well as in Europe and in the Unites States) and their role in the medial construction of the German nation, cf. Thorsten Logge, Zur medialen Konstruktion des Nationalen: die Schillerfeiern 1859 in Europa und Nordamerika (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2014); on the “Schillerfeiern”,

cf.

also

Rainer

Noltenius,

Dichterfeiern

in

Deutschland:

Rezeptionsgeschichte als Sozialgeschichte am Beispiel der Schiller- und FreiligrathFeiern (München: Fink, 1984). 91 Jacob Moleschott, Begruessung Schillerʼs im Namen Johann Georg Forsterʼs und im Namen Italiens (Wiesbaden: Limbarth, 1862), 5-6. In 1861-1862, a monument of Friedrich

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As we can see, he depicted Italian poetry from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the model for German national poetry (Goethe and Schiller): in this way, the two countries appear as deeply bound in the roots of their literary traditions and high culture, as “two brothers” who shall now start to respect and admire each other instead of behaving as if they would despise each other. Above all, they shall recognize their common task, namely to discover “truth” and to make this easily understandable (i.e. to popularize it) through “beauty”. This is a crucial point in Moleschott’s idea of science: for him, the work of the scientist was not detached from that of the poet. Both of them had, in conclusion, a highly important task for their nation, taking part in that program of national education which, above all in Italy, was meant to create a “real” nation after its political unification. However, the nationalist aspect was understood as part of that greater task of educating on the value of “humanity”, that is the same value (or set of values) which should be at the basis of the scientist’s work, as we have seen in the previous chapters. In this sense, we can conclude that Moleschott’s conception of science was inspired by Friedrich Schiller’s conception of “education of mankind” (Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, 1795): according to Moleschott, the natural sciences should not only undertake research in order to uncover “truth”, but they should also be able to communicate their worldview (rather than single results) in a beautiful style. In fact, if the task of the natural sciences was, as Otto Ule expressed it in his first programmatic article in the popularizing journal Die Natur, that of conciliation (“Versöhnung”), this should be reached primarily through a harmonious literary form. As Moleschott wrote to his publisher Emil Roth in Giessen: “Bei solchen Arbeiten ist die Form gar zu wichtig.”92 At the same time, the appeal to beauty (“Schönheit”) should be taken seriously as a programmatic term in Moleschott’s understanding of science and its popularization: as he had already expressed it in a letter to Feuerbach in 1850, the natural sciences comprehended aesthetics. Natural laws were elevated to the ranks of “the idea”, and

Schiller, designed by Johann Baptist Scholl d.J. [the Young], was erected in Mainz: cf. Jörg Gamer, “Goethe-Denkmäler – Schiller-Denkmäler”, in Denkmäler im 19. Jahrhundert. Deutung und Kritik, ed. Hans-Ernst Mittig and Volker Plagemann (München: Prestel-Verlag, 1972), 141-162; the picture of the monument in Mainz is on page 372, n. 14. It was in the framework of the celebrations in honor of Schiller that Moleschott gave this speech. Thomas Nipperdey interprets the monuments erected in the German States since the end of the 1830s in the framework of nationalist ideology, and includes the monuments dedicated to Friedrich Schiller among the monuments expressing a particular “political consciousness” (“Ausdruck eines politischen Selbstbewußtseins”): cf. Thomas Nipperdey, “Zur Denkmalgeschichte in Deutschland”, in Denkmäler im 19. Jahrhundert, 18. 92 Jacob Moleschott to Emil Roth (Turin, January 25, 1863): Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen, Hs NF 729.

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therefore they were at the same time the basis of morality (“sittliche Bestimmung”) and “the highest condition of beauty”: “Die Naturwissenschaft umfaßt für uns auch die Ästhetik. Das wahre Kunstwerk gehorcht denselben Gesetzen innerer Naturnotwendigkeit wie jede Naturerscheinung. Darum enthält auch unsere Naturwissenschaft die höchste und reinste Moral. Sie schafft nicht nur den freien, den sittlichen, sie schafft auch den schönen Menschen. Ihre Frucht ist die vollendete καλοκἀγαθία. Ich hielt es bewußt für meine Aufgabe, ein Werk zu liefern, in welchem das Naturgesetz als Idee, als sittliche Bestimmung, als höchste Bedingung der Schönheit erschiene. Sie erklären mit der genialsten Kühnheit meinen Versuch für gelungen – ich habe mein höchstes Ziel erreicht. –ˮ93

Such an affirmation sounds like an inclusion of the natural sciences within the domain of the “ideal”, precisely the domain from which Hegelianism had excluded them as an expression of the “objective Spirit”. Especially the reference to the ancient Greek concept of καλοκἀγαθία, which includes both aesthetics (καλός, “beautifulˮ) and ethics (ἀγαθός, “goodˮ), stresses the all-encompassing character of Moleschott’s conception of science: not only should the natural sciences undertake research on natural phenomena and the laws governing them, but they should also, at the same time, follow and convey a whole set of values, informing ethics and aesthetics. As Moleschott had written to Ludwig Feuerbach, praising his philosophical work: “Sie haben es zuerst verkündet, daß die begriffene Natur eins ist mit dem Reich der Ideen – Sie haben nicht bloß den theologischen, Sie haben auch den philosophischen, den wissenschaftlichen, kurz, allen Dogmatismus vernichtet.ˮ94 Moleschott therefore understood Feuerbach’s “philosophy of the future” as a broadening of idealism rather than as taking a distance from idealism, where the comprehended, thus objective nature (i.e. the natural sciences) would be included in the higher domain of ideas. This meant, in Moleschott’s interpretation, overcoming every form of dogmatism. Even though Moleschott did not explain this further, we can suppose that the natural sciences were meant to overcome dogmatism and be “elevated to the ranks of ideas” exactly because of their empirical basis. In fact, Moleschott identified Feuerbach as the philosopher who paved the way for the acknowledgement of the natural sciences as the “humanization of philosophy” (“der uns die Bahn geebnet hat, um in der Naturwissenschaft die Menschwerdung der Philosophie zu bewirken”).95

93 Moleschott to Feuerbach (Heidelberg, November 11, 1850), in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), 251. 94 Ibidem. 95 Ibidem.

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But let us turn back to Moleschott’s speech on Friedrich Schiller, more specifically to its concluding part, in which the issue becomes explicitly political. In fact, in these last paragraphs Moleschott broadened the field from cultural and literary topics to explicitly political themes, celebrating both Germany and Italy respectively as stillto-come and newly-established European nation-states: “Empfanget Ihr im Namen Schiller’s diesen Gruße Italia’s und stoßet mit mir an auf die Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit jenes Landes Eurer Sehnsucht, die Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit, die auch die Eure, auch die Unsre ist; erhebt Euch mit mir im Namen Schiller, in dem freudigen Bewußtsein, daß, wenn nicht alles trügt, in nicht ferner Zukunft die Bemühung um die wohlverdiente Machtstellung des deutschen Volkes nicht mehr bloß ein Dichten und Trachten sein wird – sondern Thaten!ˮ96

As we can see, in this passage the shift from the literary to the political level is made quite quickly, and without even a period to separate the two issues. The aspiration to freedom and independence thus became the call to engage not only with the words of poetry, but with the concrete actions of politics, contributing thereby to the achievement for Germany of that political independence which Italy had just reached, i.e. to the establishment of a German nation-state. At the time of this speech, Moleschott’s function as political delegate and a mediator had just begun: in fact, Moleschott would play such a role over the next thirty years. As an example of his mediating function twenty years later, we can mention another speech he gave in Germany on behalf of the Italian government, namely the speech on the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg. These two sources are exemplary both of the transnationality of Moleschott as a public figure and of his engagement in political issues; moreover, they also show Moleschott’s conciliatory attitude, and are particularly representative because of the significant temporal distance (twenty years) separating them from one another. On the one hand, Moleschott tried to underline the continuities between scientific traditions, as well as between science and literature (represented by Forster and Schiller); on the other hand, his speeches had the explicit political function of contributing to positive relations between Italy and Germany. Moleschott expressed his gratitude both in his reply to the invitation from the University of Heidelberg, and to Michele Coppino, Minister of Public Education, who asked him to be the delegate of his Ministry on the occasion of that ceremony. From the copy of the first letter, in German, Moleschott seems to have a good relationship to that University, as well as good memories of his time in Heidelberg:

96 Moleschott, Begruessung Schillerʼs im Namen Johann Georg Forsterʼs und im Namen Italiens, 6.

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“Magnificenz und hochgeehrte Mitglieder des Senats der Heidelberger Universität, Ihre Ehrenvolle Einladung mich an der Stiftungsfeier der Grossherzoglich-Badischen Universität in Heidelberg zu betheiligen, gehört einerseits zu den liebsten Auszeichnungen, die mir in meinem Leben zu Theil werden können und konnten, andererseits begegnet sie einem Lieblingswunsche meines Herzens, dort meinen Dank verkünden zu können, wo die Quellen der Dankbarkeit reichflutend in mein Herz gezogen. Als unser Unterrichts-Minister, Herr Coppino, von Ihrer an mich gerichteten Einladung Kunde erhielt, / fasste er sogleich die Absicht mich überdies mit officieller Sendung zu betrauen. Sein unter dem heutigen an mich gerichtetes Schreiben, das ich beschliesse, legt davon Zeugniss ab. Ich werde mich also bei Ihnen einfinden, als alter dankbarer Schüler und als junger Vertreter eines jugendfrischen Reichs, das durch Wurzeln und Kronen mit Heidelberg verbunden ist.ˮ97

As we can see from the tone and the content of the letter, Moleschott did not hesitate to accept the invite, as “grateful pupil and as young representative of a young kingdom, which is bound to Heidelberg through roots and crowns”; thereby, he most probably referred to the reciprocal cultural legacy binding Italian and German universities, but possibly also to Medieval political connections dating from the eleventh century.98 The very fact that he was invited to the celebrations shows that neither the Rector of the University of Heidelberg nor the Italian Minister of Education had any doubts that Moleschott was the most appropriate person to play the role of official delegate at such a ceremony. Also in his letter to the Minister of Public Education Michele Coppino, Moleschott humbly but readily expressed his will to fulfill the wish of the Minister and to be his delegate at the celebrations in Heidelberg. Thanking him for the “flattering invitation to represent the Ministry of Public Education of the Kingdom of Italy at the feasts which were about to be celebrated in Heidelberg from August 2 to August 7 of the current year, on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the foundation of that famous University”, Moleschott addressed him in the following way:

97 Copy of a letter from Jacob Moleschott to the Rector and the members of the Senate of the University of Heidelberg (Rome, May 13, 1886). BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (previously in A II 4 3). 98 Probably, Moleschott referred to Conrad II (ca. 990-1039), Roman Emperor, King of Germany, King of Italy, and King of Burgundy, who was also Palatine Count of Speyer and Worms, on whose territory Heidelberg was founded in 1170/80. Cf. Egon Boshof, Die Salier (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1987), 33-92. The fact that Conrad II died in Utrecht makes it even more probable that Moleschott referred to him.

420 | J ACOB M OLESCHOTT : A T RANSNATIONAL B IOGRAPHY “If the too kind words which Thou employ with regard to me could make me shy and insecure, it does comfort me the great love with which I could follow the lively stream of sympathy and reverence, that Italy and Germany emulate to nourish science, and it does encourage me the sentiment of profound gratitude which I feel with regard to the Institutions of Italy and for the teachings which, during the years of youth, I could enjoy at the University of Heidelberg.ˮ99

During the celebrations, on May 20, 1886, Moleschott gave a speech in German which mirrored the tones of these two letters: he depicted Italy as the cradle of scientific culture and research tradition, and Germany as its legitimate heir, in a way which recalls the speech he had given on the occasion of the celebrations for Schiller’s jubilee twenty years earlier.100 He also stated what he himself fostered and maintained in his Senate speeches on higher education, namely that Germany was a model for Italy, as far as the shaping of university education was concerned: “Denn es gibt kein Land, das mit größerer Ehrenbindung, mit innererer Teilnahme den Fortschritt deutscher Wissenschaft huldigt”, there is no country which, in everything that concerns “das Universitätsleben”, “sich lieber bei Ihnen Rath und Vorbild holte, als Italien.”101 Finally, he referred to both German and Italian “national” cultures: he first applied Garibaldi’s motto (translated into German, “Immer Vorwärts”, underlined in the original) to the future of the University of Heidelberg, interpreting its history as a continuous progress;102 then, he finished his speech with a poem by Goethe,103 here 99

Copy of a letter from Jacob Moleschott to Michele Coppino ([Rome], May 13, 1886). BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (previously in A II 4 2): “Se le parole troppo cortesi che la S. V. usa a mio riguardo potrebbero rendermi timido e titubante, mi conforta il grande amore col quale ho potuto seguire la viva corrente di simpatia e riverenza colla quale lʼItalia / e la Germania emulano a fecondare la scienza, e mʼincoraggia il sentimento di profonda gratitudine che io nutro per le Istituzioni dʼItalia e per gli ammaestramenti dei quali in balda gioventù potei godere nellʼUniversità di Eidelberga.”

100 Manuscript of the speech by Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (May 20, 1886), [1]. 101 Manuscript of the speech by Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (May 20, 1886), [2]. 102 Manuscript of the speech by Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (May 20, 1886), [4]. 103 Manuscript of the speech by Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (May 20, 1886), [6]. The poem is Um Mitternacht (written in 1818, published in 1821 in Carl Friedrich Zelter’s Neue Liedersammlung), probably chosen by Moleschott because it represents the poet’s relation both to Italy and to Germany (represented by the verse “Gestirn und Nordschein über mir im Streite”: cf. Benno von Wiese,

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once again stressing the continuity between the work of the scientist and the work of the poet for the sake of the nation-building.104 Interestingly, in this speech he stated that he was addressing his audience in the name of the German poet (i.e. Goethe), explaining that, even if science does not have a fatherland, the poets do (“Denn wenn die Wissenschaft kein Vaterland hat, der Dichter hat ein Solches”).105 This statement makes clear that Moleschott considered science as the fruit of international cooperation, but that he nevertheless conceived his political engagement for the national cause (i.e. in spreading nationalist ideology) as a central element of his public function. Surprisingly, in this speech Moleschott was referring to the same University about which, in 1853, he had complained, writing to Feuerbach that, although missing his teaching activity and some of his students, he was not regretting at all that he did not belong to such an institution and its teaching staff anymore: “Zwar kann ich nicht leugnen, daß der Abschied von meiner Lehrtätigkeit und von einigen guten Schülern anfangs mit großer Aufregung für mich verbunden war, da ich dem Lehren mit Leib und Seele anhing. Allein der Abschiedsschmerz wurde bald überwunden von der Freude über die Ablösung von einem so feigen, charakterlosen, geistesträgen Lehrkörper, wie sie jetzt an unseren Hochschulen ein im Zimmer eingesperrtes Pflanzenleben führen. Man kann aus einer solchen Scheidung nur geläutert hervorgehen.ˮ106

Back then, he had explained to his friend Ludwig Feuerbach that he had developed a great “Ekel” towards university life, and that it looked as if, for the time being, his rejection was insurmountable. Even though, at the time of his departure from the University of Heidelberg, Moleschott perceived this institution as something he did not want to have anything to do with, in the speech he gave during the celebrations thirty years later, there is no trace of such bad memories and feelings. Summing up, we can state that Moleschott’s mediating function became more and more important

“Lebenslauf in drei Strophen”, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1000 Deutsche Gedichte und ihre Interpretationen, ed. Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel-Verlag, 1994), 399. 104 On the role of the poet as a figure of Italian nationalism, cf. Robert Lukenda, Die Erinnerungsorte des Risorgimento: Genese und Entfaltung patriotischer Symbolik im Zeitalter der italienischen Nationalstaatsbildung (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012), 47 ff. 105 Manuscript of the speech by Jacob Moleschott: BCABo, FSM, 114.2 (new): “Heidelberger Stiftungsfeier” (May 20, 1886), [5] 106 Moleschott to Feuerbach (Heidelberg, November 20, 1854), published in Feuerbach, Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), 79-80.

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during his time in Italy, since he then was a public figure whose fame always increased, at least until he became a member of the Senate. His mediating function was so central as to express judgments that were juxtaposed against the ones he had expressed in his young years.

Moleschott as a Translator The translation and adaptation of texts and ideas, however, did not take place univocally: not only in the reception of Moleschott’s ideas, but also in their genesis, translation played a central role. Indeed, as we have already seen in the previous chapters, Moleschott himself partly financed his studies through his translation of scientific and philosophical texts from German into Dutch and vice versa. In the next paragraphs, I will summarize Moleschott’s activity as a translator, interpreting it as an essential part of the development of his own ideas and as being exemplary of Moleschott’s role of mediator from the beginning of his career. Among the texts he translated, we can differentiate scientific articles from publications with a more general popularizing and philosophical content. As far as the first category is concerned, we can mention the translations of Johannes Mulder’s “General Physiological Chemistry” from Dutch into German,107 and one year later of Mulder’s lecture given on the occasion of the inauguration of the chemical laboratory of the University of Utrecht and entitled “Lecture on the world of matter as means to higher evolution”.108 In the same year, Moleschott also translated into German the second edition of the handbook of zoology by Jan van der Hoeve:109 as he himself explained, he did that “partly for outer reasons, partly in order to learn” from it.110 Doubtlessly, Moleschott’s activity as a translator was not dissociated from his scientific research: in fact, he cooperated with all of the scientists whose books he translated. He worked in Johannes Mulder’s laboratory in Utrecht precisely in the time he translated his works, and published scientific articles in the journal edited by the 107 Gerrit Jan [=Johannes] Mulder, Versuch einer allgemeinen physiologischen Chemie; translated from Dutch by Jac[ob] Moleschott (Heidelberg: C. F. Winter, 1844). 108 Gerrit Jan [=Johannes] Mulder, Rede über die Welt der Materie, als ein Mittel zu höherer Entwickelung: gehalten bei der Einweihung des chemischen Laboratoriums der Universität zu Utrecht, am 22. September 1845; translated from Dutch by Jac[ob] Moleschott (Düsseldorf, Utrecht: Bötticher, 1845). 109 Jan van der Hoeve, Handbuch der Zoologie; translated after the second Dutch edition by Jac[ob] Moleschott (Düsseldorf: Bötticher, 1845). 110 Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Heidelberg, February 10, 1848): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65: “[…] zum Theil aus äußeren Gründen, zum Theil um bei der Gelegenheit zu lernen […]ˮ.

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Dutch naturalists Jan van der Hoeve and Willem Hendrik de Vriese, the Tijdschrift voor natuurlijke geschiedenis en physiologie, “Journal for natural history and physiology”.111 As Moleschott explained in a letter to Gabriel Gustav Valentin, he contributed to this journal because publishing in Dutch was necessary for the development of his career in Holland.112 It was probably the translation of Johannes Mulder’s popularizing book on nutrition De Voeding in Nederland in verband tot den volksgeest (“Nutrition in the Netherlands with relation to the national spirit”) that was most significant with regard to the further development of Moleschott’s interests: in fact, it was in those years that he started to work on his handbooks on dietetics. Moleschott translated Mulder’s book into German under the title Die Ernährung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeist.113 As we can see, part of the title was thus left out, and in the German translation of the book the subject was no longer limited to a geographical area (“The Netherlands”). Moleschott then ended his activity as a translator of scientific texts only shortly before starting the publication of his own most famous popularizing books, a new phase which started in 1850 with the publication of the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. Regarding the second category, including books with a general philosophical, non-scientific content, we can list Moleschott’s very first publication, namely the translation of a book by Karl Christian Philipp Snell, Philosophische beschouwingen der natuur (“translated from the High German of Karl Snell by Jac. Moleschott”) and published in ’s-Hertogenbosch (the hometown of the Moleschott’s family) by the publishing house Palier in 1842. But it was while translating either Vischer’s book Dr. Strauss und die Württemberger or, possibly, Strauss’s Friedliche Blätter (two translations that, as we have seen, were never published), that he for the first time expressed some ideas about religion: he did that when writing some comments in the margin of the manuscript, indicating it as “comment of the translator”. Significantly, this publication dealt with pantheism, so that we can argue that at this very early point in his career, Moleschott had already adopted a pantheist and monist worldview, most 111 The articles were both published in 1846 and were entitled respectively “Nieuwe bijdrage tot de kennis der fijne stuctuur van de longen”. Tijdschrift voor natuurlijke geschiedenis en physiologie, 12 (1846): 225-232, and “Bijdrage tot de leer der ademhaling en van het korrelig pigment (Körniges Pigment, Henle)”. Tijdschrift voor natuurlijke geschiedenis en physiologie, 12 (1846): 140-157. 112 Jacob Moleschott to Gabriel Gustav Valentin (Heidelberg, February 22, 1845): Burgerbibliothek Bern, Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65. 113 Gerrit Jan [=Johannes] Mulder, Die Ernährung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeist. Eine Uebers. von Gerard Johannes Mulderʼs Schrift: de Voeding in Nederland in verband tot den volksgeest. Translated from Dutch by Jac[ob] Moleschott (Utrecht, Düsseldorf: Bötticher, 1847).

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probably supported by his father, whom he defined as “a freethinker”. In these lines, in fact, he explained his vision of pantheism, according to which “the whole is God”, and declared to be erroneous the view identifying the motto of pantheism with “all of the things are gods”: his pantheism thus coincided with a form of monism, according to which “all is divine”, but where this “all” is “one” (“il vero è uno”, as Lombroso expressed it in one of his letters).114 In one of his “remarks of the translator”, Moleschott wrote a quite long comment, which can be read as a declaration of Spinozism, in which he criticized a widespread but, in his opinion, incorrect conception of pantheism: he did not agree, he wrote, with the assumption that pantheism refuses the idea of creation, that “everything is, nothing has become”. He then explained his own version of pantheism, according to which it was not true that there is no creation; instead, he presupposed that there was a creation, and also a God, but that these were eternal and always becoming, and that such a God must be identified with the totality of nature (“τὸ πᾶν θεός”): “the God of philosophy is eternal”, he maintained, and this not only because it never dies, but because its life is constituted by its continuous activity (“niet alleen volgens een dood zijn, maar volgens een levend werkend”). For this reason, “creation is eternal, and there is nothing which has never become, or, with other words, only the becoming exists”, as “already Heraclitus taught”.115 As far as the definition of pantheism is concerned, Moleschott maintained that it should not be identified with its popular definition as “πάντες [θεοί]” or “πάντα θεοί” (which would rather describe polytheism): the only correct definition should be that “everything [i.e., the whole of nature] is God”. Such a conception was perfectly fitting with the one he expressed in his Kreislauf des Lebens, and with its central assumption that everything becomes in nature and that there are no superior or inferior forms, but everything is interconnected and interchangeable, and that the whole of nature is divine.116 Thus, we can suppose that Moleschott’s activity as a translator was of central 114 Lombroso to Moleschott (Genoa, March 7, 1862), in Patrizi, Addizioni al “Dopo Lombroso”, 208. 115 Cf. Moleschott’s manuscript in BCABo, FSM, A III 7 (“Aanmerking van den vertaler” on page 164): “daarom is de schepping eeuwig, en niets is wat niet geworden is, of met andere worden alléén het worden is. Dat leerde reeds Heraclitus […]”. In the archive, the manuscript (fragmented, albeit pretty long) is described as a manuscript on Christian doctrine (“Ms. sulla dottrina cristiana”); whereas I first tended to identify it with parts of the translation of Snell’s book, now I would rather suggest that it could be identified with some pieces of the translation of either Strauss’s or Vischer’s book. 116 As we have seen, for instance, in the sketches for his Anthropologie, he quoted the French scientist Cabanis: “Les anciens disaient que si la vie est le même de la mort, la mort, à son tour, enfante et éternise la vie; c’est à dire, en en écartant les métaphores, que la matière est sans cesse en mouvement, qu’elle subit des changements continuels.ˮ In the same note, he added another quote by Cabanis, maintaining that the order of the universe

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importance for the development of his ideas. Of course, the cultural, religious, and scientific environment in which he grew up and studied significantly contributed to his appropriation of the ideas that he would later on popularize. Certainly, Moleschott did not absorb pantheistic ideas exclusively from the translation of this book: on the contrary, the fact that he was commenting on them is a sign that he was already acquainted with such a worldview. However, the translation of Snell’s, Vischer’s, and Strauss’s works allowed him to have a closer and better look at this question. We can compare Moleschott’s activity as a translator with Carl Vogt’s translations of scientific texts from German into French: Vogt was born in Giessen and, having studied medicine there, had to emigrate to Switzerland due to his radical democratic ideas and pursued his career in Geneva; he was thus considered as a native speaker of both French and German. In this sense, his case has some similarities with Moleschott’s “exile”, first in Switzerland and then in Italy, as well as with his being a polyglot scientist and popularizer. Helga Jeanblanc identifies Vogt’s activity as a translator with that of a cultural broker (“médiateur culturel”), since the advantage of speaking like a native speaker in both languages allowed him to be a good translator in a time when the “explosion of scientific [book] production” implied a higher demand for good translators, which could not always be satisfied by a sufficient offer. This also implied that an increasing number of scientists had to fulfill the task of translators.117 Whereas Vogt’s translations from German into French contributed to an intensified transfer of knowledge from Germany to France, Moleschott contributed, in the early stage of his career, to the intensification of knowledge transfer between the Netherlands and Germany (the exchange being, in this case, not univocal but mutual, as we have seen above). In the later stage of his career, while being a professor in Italy, Moleschott contributed to the cultural and scientific exchanges between Germany and Italy (as well as, in a more restricted form, with the other European countries in which his writings were translated). This also involved political and diplomatic aspects, made possible by his well-established connections with the German cultural and scientific environment. As already noted, Moleschott himself had

is constituted precisely by its eternal becoming and the continuous transformations of its beings: “Il n’y a point de mort pour la nature: sa jeunesse est éternelle, comme son activité et sa fécondité. La mort est une idée relative aux être périssable, à ces formes fugitives sur lesquelles luit successivement le rayon de la vie, et ces sont ces transmutations non interrompues, qui constitue l’ordre et les marches de l’univers.” Cf. Moleschott, “Anthropologie”: BCABo, FSM, B V 3 (manuscript). 117 Helga Jeanblanc, “Carl Vogt et la propagation du matérialisme scientifique en Franceˮ, in Carl Vogt: Science, Philosophie et Politique (1817-1895), ed. Jean-Claude Pont, Daniele Bui, Françoise Dubosson, and Jan Lacki (Chêne-Bourg: Georg, 1998), 193.

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very good contacts with the publishing house of Emil Roth in Giessen, which published both the journal he edited and the translations of his lectures. Moreover, he gave speeches as a delegate of Italian institutions (e.g. in Heidelberg, on the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of the University), but also as a Dutch delegate on the occasion of the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno in Rome (where he gave both a speech in Dutch and one in Italian). Moleschott was a multilingual, transnational scientist, and continued to be such even after he attained Italian citizenship and later on became a member of the Italian Senate. It was precisely in this period, while fully adhering to and also spreading the ideology of the nation-state, that he was, at the same time, given the task of an official intermediator, but also that of an official delegate. In fact, he identified himself as being the representative of several national cultures at once. Another interesting similarity between Moleschott and Vogt is that both scientists were represented as joining in their character and in the expression of their ideas the qualities of the languages they mastered: the language was immediately identified with a “national character”. As Jeanblanc reports, Vogt was seen as a mediator by a journalist who described him as follows: “Vous êtes, Monsieur, grâce à votre esprit si éminemment français pour la souplesse, la rapidité et la clarté de l’expression, l’un des hommes que nous devons le plus rechercher pour mettre notre entreprise à la hauteur de nos projets: vous pensez avec la profondeur de l’Allemagne et vous écrivez avec l’esprit et la lucidité française. Ce serait manquer tout à la fois à l’Allemagne et à la France que de ne point chercher à vous attirer dans la rédaction de notre revue […]. Je sais que vous possédez la langue française aussi bien que votre langue maternelle, et ce ne sera point pour nos lecteurs un médiocre plaisir que cette heureuse alliance en vous de deux nationalités.ˮ118

Just like Vogt, Moleschott was also understood by his contemporaries as a mediator between Italy and the other European countries – especially Germany. This was one of the reasons for De Sanctis to get him to Turin, and it was also one of the reasons for the commission to appoint him president of the technical commission of the International Sanitary Conference in Rome. Like Vogt, Moleschott was praised because he could master Italian and German as if he were a native speaker, joining the clarity of the German language with the elegance of Italian. Thus, language seems to be an essential element both in the genesis and in the reception of Moleschott’s ideas. As far as the genesis of these ideas is concerned, we can suppose that learning and speaking several languages starting from his childhood 118 Genève, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire, Ms. fr. 2188, fol. 365-366 (November 22, 1857), quoted after Jeanblanc, “Carl Vogt et la propagation du matérialisme scientifique en France”, 194-195.

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also contributed to his awareness of cultural difference, and that this contributed to his conception of science as being influenced by both subjective and environmental factors. As we can read in some of his notes – themselves written in different languages – during his lectures on physiology, Moleschott explained to his students that perception depended on one’s subjective experience and what they have already learned before.119 In a note from his Quaderni, entitled “Influence of preformed ideas”, he wrote that “women see better than men what is under the microscope, literature or theology students see better than medicine students.”120 In fact, Moleschott was deeply convinced about the essential influence of subjective states, such as feelings and emotions, but also of cultural preconception and assumptions, on our perception of the world, and therefore on our knowledge of it (including the results of scientific experiments and science itself).121

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Summing up, translation was an essential element in the reception of Moleschott’s thought, as well as in his and Lombroso’s strategies of scientific popularization. Analyzing the correspondence between these two scientists has shed new light not only on the Italian translation and reception of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens, but also on the processes of negotiation, adaptation, and transfer of knowledge, which are implied in the translation of a work, and which shape its reception. It emerged that the reasons that pushed Lombroso to translate the Kreislauf were diverse and surely 119 Cf. for instance Jacob Moleschott, “Unendliche Nachdauer der erlittenen Eindrücke” (manuscript): BCABo, FSM, A II 3 b. 120 Cf. Jacob Moleschott, “Fisica dell’organismo” (manuscript), [30]: BCABo, FSM, A II 3 a. 121 Moleschott reflected deeply about this topic, as we can see from the notes and quotations he collected for his “Anthropologie”: BCABo, FSM, 68 (new), entitled: “1. Allgemeines über die Sinne”, in particular 68.6 (new), containing “Erkenntnißquellen. Sinnliches Urtheil”, a folder including collections of notes on the following themes: “Sinnliche Eindrücke sind die Quellen der Erkenntniß”, “Die Stimmung des Gehirns übt ihren Einfluß auf die sinnlichen Eindrücke”, “Sinnliches Urtheil”. Here, too, he quoted Cabanis at length, but also the work of German and French physiologists such as Jacob Henle, Joseph Delboeuf, Johannes Müller, Wilhelm Wundt, the zoologist Ernst Heackel, the popularizing work by Ernst Kapp, “Philosophie der Technik” (Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik. Braunschweig: Westermann, 1877), and a poem by Ariosto (Orlando Furioso, XLIV, 39 and 43). Even in his notes, and not only in his speeches, Moleschott cited poets and literati: once more it is clear that, to him, these did not have a mere rhetorical, but also an epistemic function.

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cannot be reduced to scientific interests only. In fact, Lombroso wanted to popularize Moleschott’s work for different reasons: he wanted to create a possibility for himself and for his own research and thoughts to reach a broader audience, and to be associated with the name of a renowned scientist such as Moleschott. He pursued the aim of secularization and “political education”, two central goals for the Italian nationstate seeking independence from the influence of the Catholic Church and for building a “real” national unity. Lombroso thus conceived of his activity as a translator as part of the “civilizing mission” of science, in a similar way as Moleschott did for his popularizing activity in general. From the discussion between Moleschott and Lombroso about how single words or sentences should be translated we could observe, once more, the centrality of formal literary aspects, such as style and rhetorical imageries, as essential popularizing strategies. We could also notice that they were both well aware of the meaning of literary form for the success of their respective works and translations: Moleschott had explicitly stated this in the correspondence with his publisher Emil Roth in Giessen, and Lombroso argued for or against specific words on the basis of their being evocative of the style of renowned (national) poets. Literary form was far from being a matter of style only: it was not only a means of popularizing a worldview, but also a strategy for constructing a national identity by means of reference to literary authors. As Moleschott expressed it in his speech during the celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg, science has no fatherland, but poets do. In spite of their disagreements on the translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens, Moleschott and Lombroso both tried to reach a broad audience and thereby to educate the middle class to national sentiments, i.e. to contribute to the creation of a national identity. Further, we have discussed the role of translation of Moleschott’s Italian speeches into other European languages, and how they were adapted and modified according to the country where they were published. If this has helped us clarify the role of translation in the reception of Moleschott’s thought, it has also shown Moleschott’s role as a mediating figure between Italy and other European nation-states, above all between Italy and Germany: in fact, he was not only popularizing science, but also, at least since the early 1860s (when he delivered the speech in honor of Friedrich Schiller), shortly after his coming to Italy, propagating the very idea of an Italian nation and speaking not only in the name of the Universities of Turin and of Rome, but also of the Ministry of Public Education (on the occasion of the anniversary of the University of Heidelberg).

Celebrating Moleschott, Remembering Moleschott

Whereas in the last chapter we have approached the issue of the reception of Moleschott’s work through the translation of his works, in the next pages we will have a look at the accounts about Moleschott in the period shortly preceding and following his death. In particular, we will consider the feast held in his honor at La Sapienza in Rome, in 1892, as well as the commemorations that were pronounced after his death both at the Senate and at the Universities of Turin and Rome. Through the approach of memory studies,1 we will see how the image of Moleschott was constructed; at the same time, the letters and telegrams that were addressed either to him, in order to congratulate him, or to his family and the institutions where he worked, in order to express condolences for his death, allow an insight in the internationality of his renown. Thus, both networks and representations will be at the center of this section.

C ELEBRATING M OLESCHOTT : T HE F ESTE G IUBILARI IN 1892 On June 25, 1892, the Faculty of Medicine at La Sapienza and the Academy of Medicine in Rome “unanimously deliberated” to celebrate the anniversary of their member, Jacob Moleschott.2 In fact, on August 9 of that year, Moleschott had his seventieth birthday, and on December 16 the thirty-first anniversary of his first lecture in Turin occurred. A committee was instituted with the aim to collect the sum necessary to dedicate a bronze bust to Moleschott at the Institute of Physiology of the University 1

Cf. for instance the volume by Aleida Assmann and Dietrich Harth (eds.), Mnemosyne. Formen und Funktionen der kulturellen Erinnerung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1991).

2

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott (Roma: Tip. delle Mantellate, 1894), [7] (“Feste giubilari in Roma”; Rome, September 9, 1892).

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of Rome (the bust was created by Ettore Ferrari, the same sculptor of the statue of Giordano Bruno in Campo dei Fiori),3 as well as to invite his colleagues and former students from Turin in order to celebrate his first opening lecture.4 According to what Angelo Mosso said in his speech, it was Moleschott himself who expressed the wish that the celebrations be held not on his birthday, but on the day of the anniversary of the first lecture he had given in Turin.5 At the same time, the letters sent to him from all over Europe were collected in one volume, which is the main historical source testifying to this event. The celebrations took place in the aula magna of La Sapienza in Rome on December 16, 1892. Besides “the entire academic corpus”, personalities from the government and the parliament, foreign delegations, and representatives from other universities and from scientific associations were present at the celebrations, together with his “friends, colleagues, students and admirers”.6 The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Davide Toscani, gave the first speech, welcoming the international audience, which he took as a demonstration that science had no borders,7 whereas the president of the Academy of Medicine underlined the fact that Moleschott, although having been born in another nation, had shown with his words and deeds that he was an Italian.8 Luigi Pagliani, his former assistant at the laboratory of physiology in Turin, gave a speech as director of Public Health of the Kingdom, thanking and praising Moleschott for having transmitted to his students “profound love” and “fruitful enthusiasm […] for science and truth”.9 The ambassador for the Netherlands in Rome (Mr. de Westenberg) gave a speech in Italian, celebrating him in the name of the country where he was born and where he “first studied and worked” (probably hinting at Moleschott’s time at Mulder’s lab in Utrecht), and also conceived of the reign of science as a supranational territory, where scholars collaborated beyond borders.10 The Minister of Public Education, Ferdinando Martini, also celebrated Moleschott’s commitment to science,11 and his colleague at the Faculty of Medicine, Giuseppe

3

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 10.

4

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, [7].

5

Angelo Mosso, speech given at the School of Physiology of the University of Turin [December 16, 1892], in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 103.

6

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 9.

7

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 11.

8

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 13: “[…] quantunque nato in altra e gloriosa nazione, da trenta anni, pensa ed opera italianamente”. Italics in the original.

9

In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 15-16.

10 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 17-18. 11 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 19. Martini gave Moleschott the “Merito civile” in the name of the government.

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Colasanti, handed him the congratulations and the presents from the Italian and international universities, as well as from various scholars and international associations (including the Dutch freethinkers’ society “De Dageraad”, the University of Amsterdam, the Dutch Academy of Sciences, and the Dutch Medical Society), celebrating him as a positivist and as an experimental scientist.12 Finally, Moleschott gave his speech in front of the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Giuseppe Zanardelli, the Rector of the university, the Dutch ambassador, as well as the ambassadors of Switzerland and of Argentina, and other authorities and academics.13 As we have mentioned in the previous chapters, in that speech Moleschott took up the main motifs of his conception of science, which he had expounded upon in most of his public lectures. He focused on the “ideal” leading scientific research, which he represented through the metaphor of the ship, and the idea of the “unity of science”. He also told his audience what each nation had given to him: if Germany had transmitted to him the idea of the “unity of science”, Switzerland had given him the fruits of liberty, and had allowed him to teach, whereas in Italy he had “found all [kinds of] freedom: political freedom, freedom of thought, which implies the freedom of teaching, and the rarest kind of freedom, which lacks in certain countries, I mean social freedom”. Finally, Moleschott celebrated the harmonic cooperation between the arts and the sciences in Italy.14 The delegations of several Italian universities were present at the celebrations, whereas the Academy of Medicine in Rome and the Dutch society “De Dageraad” dedicated special issues of their journals to him (the latter containing contributions by Ernst Haeckel and Emil Du Bois-Reymond); Ludwig Büchner and Hendrik de Vries (as we have seen, he was one of the editors of the Tijdschrift voor natuurlijke geschiedenis en physiologie, a Dutch journal on physiology) dedicated single articles to him.15 The gifts that were presented to him from Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy also showed the internationality of Moleschott’s renown, and referred to the cooperation between countries: for instance, his students in Rome presented to him a laurel crown with intertwined ribbons with the colors of the Italian and Dutch flags.16 Another characteristic of the commemorations was the idea of freedom, underlined for instance by the Dutch committee congratulating him for his birthday on August 9, 1892: there, Moleschott was called a “tireless fighter for the freedom of word and of thought”, and he was recognized as a master of the German, Italian and Dutch

12 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 20. 13 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 21-27. 14 Speech by Jacob Moleschott, printed in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 26. 15 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 28-29. 16 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 30.

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tongues.17 In the telegram they sent on the same occasion, the presidents of this commission brought their wishes in the name of his Dutch admirers and friends to “Senatorem Romanum – scrutatorem naturæ indefessum, Philosophum impavidum, Patriæ decus”.18 This is probably the most concise definition of the way in which Moleschott was considered in the 1890: a politician in Rome, a natural scientist, a thinker without fear, and an honor for the fatherland – where the last word meant the Netherlands for the Dutch, and Italy for the Italians. For the celebrations of the anniversary of his first lecture, he also received telegrams and letters from Italian and foreign universities (including a telegram from Kiev), from his former students and followers, and from his publishers or their families (Otto Roth from Giessen and Sophie Loescher from Turin); finally, he received collective letters from the freethinkers’ society “De Dageraad” and the “Masonic Lodge L’Union Fraternelle”, both from Amsterdam, which recognized Moleschott’s principles and ideals as being their own.19 Summing up, Moleschott was honored as a freethinker, as a symbol for the freedom of thought, as a representative of experimental science and positivism, and as an international, polyglot scholar.20 Among the

17 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 40. 18 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 45. 19 In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 47, 49, 50; the letters are reported both in Dutch and Italian, respectively on pages 52-53 (J. van den Ende to Jac[ob] Moleschott, Amsterdam, July 30, 1892) and 56-57 (L.M. Schönberg and J.B. van Steenbergen in the name of the society “l’Union fraternelle” to J[acob] Moleschott, Amsterdam, August 6, 1892). 20 Cf. the letters from the Academy of Medicine of Genova (Genova, August 8, 1892), from the “Società ligustica [=Ligurian] di Scienze Naturali e Geografiche” (Genova, August 8, 1892), from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Amsterdam (“Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam”, August 31, 1892), from the Senate of the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, August 1892), from the Rector of the University of Catania (Catania, January 6, 1893), from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Turin (signed by Luigi Pagliani, Turin, December 13, 1892), from the University of Greifswald (signed by L[eonard] Landois, Professor of Physiology, s.d.; Moleschott had written a preface to the Italian translation of Landois’s handbook of physiology: Leonard Landois, Trattato di Fisiologia dellʼuomo con Istologia, Anatomia Microscopica e considerazioni speciali di Medicina Pratica; trad. migliorata e accr. del dottore Balduino Bocci; con pref. del prof. Jac Moleschott (Milano: F. Vallardi, 1883)), from the “Provinciaal Utrechtsch Genootschap von Kunsten en Wetenschappen” (Utrecht, December 10, 1892), and from the Senate of the University of Utrecht (Utrecht, December 13, 1892). These letters are all printed (together with their Italian translations, if originally written in Dutch or German) in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, respectively: 58, 59, 66-67, 70-71, 74-75, 76, 77, 80-81, 86-87, 90-91.

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people who sent him personal messages and presents, we can find diplomats, members of the Italian Senate and of the Parliament, his colleagues (or their widows or families), the most important criminal anthropologists (Cesare Lombroso and Enrico Ferri), but also physiologists from Germany and the Netherlands (e.g. Hermann Vierordt from Tübingen), the members of the Strecker-family in Mainz, and other members of European high society (including several aristocrats, at least some of them most probably belonging to the circle of his patients), as well as the famous Dutch architect Hendrik Berlage from Amsterdam.21 On the same day, Moleschott was also celebrated at the University of Turin, where Angelo Mosso and Luigi Pagliani, his former assistants at the laboratory of physiology, gave speeches in his honor. Their speeches also reflected the interpretation of Moleschott as an emblem of “the most liberal ideas, in politics and in philosophy”, one of those thinkers whose ideas were too liberal for the German universities and government at that time.22 Mosso’s speech was mainly an account of Moleschott’s life and work, including the first bibliography of his most important writings “in the field of science, literature, and philosophy”.23 In fact, Mosso praised Moleschott’s writings as “the happy reunion of scientific exactness with literary tendency”, mentioning Alexander von Humboldt’s works as his source of inspiration; at the same time, he identified Moleschott as a “materialist philosopher”, as one of the representatives of a stream which, according to him, had started with Lucretius and went up to the eighteenth-century materialist and mechanist Paul Henry Thiry d’Holbach (Paul Heinrich Dietrich d’Holbach, 1723-1789), the mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange (Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia, 1736-1813), the naturalist Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis, and Moleschott’s contemporary Carl Vogt, but also recognized the influences of the critique of religion of Ludwig Feuerbach and David Friedrich Strauss.24 Therefore, he said, it was an honor for Italy to welcome Moleschott, whose thinking was too liberal for the German States, Prussia, Austria, and 21 Cf. In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 92-100. Although Berlage is reported with the initials “H.B.” instead of “H.P.”, I would tend to identify him with Hendrik Pieter Berlage, especially since it is specified “architect” as profession and “Amsterdam” as provenance. Berlage (1856-1934), famous above all for his project of the Beurs in Amsterdam, was a student of Gottfried Semper in Zürich. Cf. Sergio Polano, Hendrik Petrus Berlage. Opera completa (Milano: Electa, 1987). 22 Angelo Mosso, speech given at the School of Physiology of the University of Turin [December 16, 1892], in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 104. 23 Angelo Mosso, speech given at the School of Physiology of the University of Turin [December 16, 1892], in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 105; for the bibliography: 105117. 24 Angelo Mosso, speech given at the School of Physiology of the University of Turin [December 16, 1892], in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 119-120.

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even Switzerland, where the “wind of reaction” tried to repress it.25 At the same time, however, Mosso took care to underline that positivism respected religion (as we have seen, a central motif in Moleschott’s speeches from at least the 1880s): in fact, the laboratory of physiology in Turin was situated in a former Franciscan convent, but the “image of the Holy Spirit” in the “old chapel” had been “preserved untouched in order to show our respect for religion”.26 However, an open attitude vis-à-vis religion and its inclusion in the positivist worldview was not the only element that Moleschott’s disciples took up from his speeches, and which is reflected in the speeches given in his honor. In fact, as we will see in the next paragraph, a few months later, after his death, Moleschott was remembered as a true scholar, encompassing the natural sciences and the arts: Moleschott was thus described as the personification of that ideal of science, which he had himself contributed to spreading in his lectures.

R EMEMBERING M OLESCHOTT : M OLESCHOTT ’ S C OMMEMORATIONS AND AT THE U NIVERSITY

AT THE

S ENATE

Jacob Moleschott died on May 20, 1893 of erysipelas, a disease that, according to the accounts of his daughter,27 as well as to the commemorations we will be dealing with, was transmitted to him by a patient. This contributed to the formation of an idea of Moleschott as a martyr of his profession, as a heroic physician whose death was caused by an accident that occurred on duty. The fact that, after his death, he was not buried but burned, is coherent with his ideas on cremation, both as a scientist and as a freethinker.28 In fact, in the Kreislauf des Lebens Moleschott had not only defended cremation as a way to make the fields more fertile through mineral salts, since the

25 Angelo Mosso, speech given at the School of Physiology of the University of Turin [December 16, 1892], in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 121. 26 Angelo Mosso, speech given at the School of Physiology of the University of Turin [December 16, 1892], in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 126. 27 Cf. Elsa Moleschott to Paul Engelmann (Franciscus Donders’ granddaughter), June 12, 1893. The letter, written in Dutch and preserved in BCABo, FSM, is printed in van ter Laage, Jacques Moleschott, 122-124. 28 Cf. Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Davide Toscani (Rome, May 21, 1893), in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 132 (part of: “Discorsi pronunziati sul feretro nel giorno dell’accompagnamento funebre in Roma il 21 maggio 1893”). Patrizi, “Moleschott e Lombroso su documenti inediti e ricordi”, 430, reports that Moleschott’s ashes were laid in Campo Varano, a cemetery in Rome, in the area of tolerated religions (thus, in the nonCatholic area).

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organic body would transform back into inorganic substances, but he had also defined the habit of the ancients, to burn corpses, as “dichterisch”, i.e. poetic.29 On May 21, 1893, one day after his death, speeches commemorating him were given at his funeral: the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Rome, Davide Toscani, praised him as belonging both to the Netherlands and to Italy, his “second fatherland”, underlining his perfect skills in the Italian language.30 Luigi Pagliani, his former assistants, spoke as director of Public Health in the Kingdom and as representative of the University of Turin, depicting Moleschott as a defender of “the most frank liberal principles of science, of patriotism, of humanity in the high circles to which he belonged”.31 Uberto Dutto, assistant to the Chair of Physiology, spoke on behalf of the University of Rome: he described Moleschott as an experimental scientist, as one who joined his abilities as a researcher and as a teacher and dedicated his life to this profession. Ethical and epistemic virtues were thus represented as one and the same thing. In the final sentence of this speech, Dutto implicitly referred to Moleschott’s cremation, using the terms of the discourse on the circulation of matter, which Moleschott himself had shaped: the salts that would remain from his matter, explained Dutto, would “fecundate the most beautiful flower […] on the earth, the flower of science”.32 Angelo Mosso, in the speech he gave for the inauguration of the new Institute of Physiology in Turin and of Moleschott’s bust on June 9, 1893, depicted his former

29 Cf. Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens, 444. For a brief overview of Moleschott’s position on cremation in the context of the views of the Protestant Church regarding this topic in the nineteenth century, cf. Axel Heike-Gmelin, Kremation und Kirche: die evangelische Resonanz auf die Einführung der Feuerbestattung im 19. Jahrhundert (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2013), 48-49. 30 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Davide Toscani (Rome, May 21, 1893), in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 131-132 (part of: “Discorsi pronunziati sul feretro nel giorno dell’accompagnamento funebre in Roma il 21 maggio 1893”). 31 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Luigi Pagliani, representing the University of Turin (Rome, May 21, 1893), in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 133-134 (part of: “Discorsi pronunziati sul feretro nel giorno dell’accompagnamento funebre in Roma il 21 maggio 1893”). 32 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Uberto Dutto (Rome, May 21, 1893), in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 135-136 (part of: “Discorsi pronunziati sul feretro nel giorno dell’accompagnamento funebre in Roma il 21 maggio 1893”). On Moleschott’s cremation, cf. also Patrizi, “Moleschott e Lombroso su documenti inediti e ricordi”, 430-431.

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teacher as a martyr of his profession, who had sacrificed his life and thereby “sanctified his existence”.33 Mosso also depicted Moleschott as an old Oedipus who wandered “without throne, without bread”, accompanied by his daughter (in Moleschott’s case, Elsa, who also edited his partially completed autobiography).34 Mosso not only propagated the myth of a Moleschott who died poor and forgotten (as we have seen, this did not really correspond to reality): he also told that, for Moleschott, “like all materialists”, Christendom was “the fundament of modern society”, although a Christendom without dogmatism, more precisely only its ethics – the respect for truth, virtue, humanity, and family.35 Then, he compared Moleschott to Socrates, when he left the University of Heidelberg, and finally to Giordano Bruno, whose monument Moleschott had contributed to fostering, and which Mosso here interpreted not as “an insult to the Roman Curia”, but as “the apotheosis of those who have fought, and suffered martyrdom and death for the freedom of thought”.36 The fact that Moleschott’s bronze bust was created by the same artist, and that Mosso consciously gave this speech on June 9, on the anniversary of Bruno’s monument, should indicate that Moleschott thereby really became part of the same pantheon of national heroes. Cesare Lombroso, instead, transferred the terms of his own thinking in criminal anthropology to his commemorative speech (similarly to the way in which he had used his own style and words in his translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens): he did not speak about Moleschott, but about his brain, the brain of “more than a genius”, he maintained, a genius who knew and dared to defend his ideas through his powerful rhetoric. His lecture was, at the same time, a summary of the history of physiology and of the natural sciences, in this way mirroring Moleschott’s constant integration of the history of physiology in his opening lectures. It was precisely Lombroso who, with this speech, initiated that interpretation of Moleschott as “a great

33 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Angelo Mosso (Turin, June 9, 1893), in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 137; the speech was originally reported in R[egia] Università degli Studi di Torino, Annuario Accademico per l’anno 1893-94 (Torino: Stemperia Reale, 1894), 177-185. 34 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Angelo Mosso (Turin, June 9, 1893), in R[egia] Università degli Studi di Torino, Annuario Accademico per l’anno 1893-94, 179. 35 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Angelo Mosso (Turin, June 9, 1893), in R[egia] Università degli Studi di Torino, Annuario Accademico per l’anno 1893-94 (Torino: Stamperia Reale, 1894), 180. 36 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Angelo Mosso (Turin, June 9, 1893), in R[egia] Università degli Studi di Torino, Annuario Accademico per l’anno 1893-94 (Torino: Stamperia Reale, 1894), 181-182.

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rebel: a rebel in science, in the arts, in religion and in politics”, which I have mentioned in the introduction.37 Giuseppe Colasanti, who gave a speech on behalf of a delegation from the Faculty of Medicine in Rome, instead underlined the internationality of Moleschott’s career as a scholar, as well as his social engagement as a scientist (in particular, he underlined the importance of nutritional science for solving social problems), listed his scientific activities, and defined him as a “scientist, literato, philosopher”, defending everything which implied “progress for science, humanity and freedom”.38 At the Senate, the commemoration was given first by the president, Domenico Farini, who summarized Moleschott’s international career, whereas the famous Italian politician, president of the Chamber of Deputies, Giovanni Giolitti (1842-1928), underlined his importance not only for scientific research, but also for public administration in Italy, in particular as a member of the commission for public health; another member of the Senate (Francesco Todaro, 1839-1918) praised La circolazione della vita (the Kreislauf des Lebens) as an important popularizing work for the country, which was studied both by students and teachers at Italian universities.39 In this way, Moleschott was celebrated after his death in a way that mirrored all the logics of the fields (in the sense of Bourdieu) in which he was active: the political, the academic, and the scientific. The bust created by Ettore Ferrari is a tangible sign that Moleschott entered the pantheon of academic heroes, but also of political symbols, as a politically engaged scholar (Ettore Ferrari was the official sculptor of the engaged elite and of national symbols). With the narrative related to his death “on duty” – an interpretation which, by the way, would not have been possible without the assumption that erysipelas could be transmitted and without the very conception of infectious disease – he became a hero of medicine. At the same time, the flexibility and adaptability he had demonstrated during his whole life contributed to very different and even divergent representations of his figure; for instance, in the 1920s, Irnerio Patrizi, who had married Moleschott’s daughter Elsa, described him as an enemy of secret freethinkers’ societies and as the perfect personification of Christian virtues.40 37 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by Cesare Lombroso, Professor of Legal Medicine (Turin, June 8, 1893), in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 144-156. 38 Commemoration of Jacob Moleschott by G[iuseppe]Colasanti, in In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 157-165, here 161. Colasanti defined Moleschott as “a true University-man, comprehending in his wide mind a great part of human knowledge. From mathematics to classical music, from the fine arts to literature, from philosophy to biology, he knew everything with admirable precision.” (162, English and italics in the original). 39 Senato del Regno, Atti parlamentari. Discussioni, 20 maggio 1893 (available online: http://notes9.senato.it/web/senregno.NSF/M_l2?OpenPage, “Moleschott Jacopo”, viewed November 30, 2015). 40 Patrizi, “Moleschott e Lombroso su documenti inediti e ricordi”, 432-433.

Conclusion: Jacob Moleschott, a Transnational Actor between Science and Politics

The celebrations and commemorations for Moleschott reflect the multiple roles he played in science and politics. At the same time, they initiated the myth of Moleschott as the scientist martyr of his profession and as a modern Socrates who had to abandon the University of Heidelberg because of his ideas, and propagated the image of Moleschott as a rebel and a genius. In this book, the first academic biography about Moleschott, I have attempted, on the one hand, to reconstruct the path of his life, work and career, and, on the other hand, to deconstruct the discourse about science and society as it is present in his lectures and speeches. In this way, Moleschott’s life path has offered us an interesting perspective both on the entanglement of scientific and political issues and on the circulation of knowledge in nineteenth-century Europe. Moleschott, one of the most important materialists in the nineteenth century, was born a Dutch citizen in ʼs-Hertogenbosch in 1822, studied at Heidelberg and taught physiology in Heidelberg and Zürich, before being appointed a Professor of Physiology in Turin by Francesco De Sanctis; he gained Italian citizenship in 1867 and was appointed Senator of the Kingdom in 1876, and died in Rome in 1893, being honored as a hero both for science and for the fatherland. Thus, his career was eminently international. At the same time, it constitutes an example of the entanglement of politics and science: the politicization and the nationalization of knowledge, but also the role played by science in political arguments, are central aspects of nineteenth-century culture,1 which Moleschott’s biography help to illuminate. Another feature of Mo-

1

On scientificity in politics and the politicization of science (with particular regard to the history of scientific institutions), cf. Rüdiger Vom Bruch, “Wissenschaft im Gehäuse: Vom Nutzen und Nachteil institutionengeschichtlicher Perspektivenˮ. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 23 (2000): 37-49.

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leschott’s career, both as a scientist and as a politician, which is typical for a representative of the nineteenth century, is constituted by his engagement in the spreading of nationalist ideology notwithstanding, or better precisely through, transnational networking: these did not stand in a contrast, but were rather complementary to each other. Moleschott’s central role in translation processes is also only comprehensible if we take into consideration the transnationality of his career. Even though studying abroad was quite common in the nineteenth century,2 his studies and career present some particularities for the following reasons: first, Moleschott’s education happened abroad, more exactly in what was at that time part of Prussia, from the time of highschool; second, Moleschott’s mobility was not limited to one nation, but included three foreign countries, besides his country of origin; finally, his migration process ended in a nation in which he was granted not only the highest academic title, but also full citizenship and, later on, a political position. Thereby, Moleschott became the politician of a new country, wholeheartedly adhering to its national ideology, transmitting it with his speeches and himself shaping its structures. In this sense, his career was quite unique.3 Moleschott was able to make his international career and his “capital” (in Bourdieu’s sense) of transnational experience fruitful, especially during his Italian period: in the debates on the reform of higher education, he was the only political actor who could count on a twenty-year-long experience with several foreign educational systems, instead of basing his arguments on what he had heard from colleagues or what he had experienced in short research stays abroad. The same can be said about Moleschott’s contribution in the debate on physical education: even on that occasion, the knowledge of the German educational system was particularly relevant. In international events such as the sanitary conference in 1885 and the meetings of international associations, it was Moleschott who was given the function of president, declared so because he could speak many languages and was “internationally renowned”. As we have seen, Moleschott often played the role of an official delegate of the Italian State (not only at the celebrations held at the University of Heidelberg in 1886, but also as early as the Schiller feasts in Mainz in 1862), being at the same time a Dutch delegate for the inauguration of the statue of Giordano Bruno and the conference held in 1889. Thus, the feature of transnationality is a constant characteristic of his life and career, which determined the roles he played and the functions that were assigned to 2

On American students in Germany cf. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University.

3

We have examples of many scientists who studied abroad, but most of them carried their knowledge back to their country of origin: for example Justus Liebig, who studied in Paris, as many of his contemporary European colleagues, or Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who went to high-school in the Netherlands and then studied in Switzerland (cf. Horst Kant, “Roentgen, Wilhelmˮ, in NDB, 21 (2003), 732-734).

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him from the very beginning. In fact, even as a student in Heidelberg, Moleschott took upon himself the function of translator from Dutch into German and from German into Dutch. His international mobility and his role of translator were the product of conscious and reflected choices, part of his career strategy as an intellectual, and at the same time the source of his meta-scientific reflections on the relativity of knowledge and sense-perception. Moleschott managed to combine his internationality with nationalism without any problem, and he used international networks for the sake of national and nationalist issues: at the celebrations in honor of Friedrich Schiller held in Mainz, he embraced and propagated both the German and the Italian nationalist causes, in that he “greeted Schiller in the name of Italy”, underlining that the Italian unification should be an example for Germany, and wishing that Germany and Italy should be allied. Nevertheless, joining his internationality with nationalist issues was not the only strategy in Moleschott’s career: in fact, he also joined the private and the professional spheres. Indeed, in Moleschott’s life the private and the public can hardly be separated, as was typical for many academics in the nineteenth century: the scientists he corresponded with were often also his friends, such as van Deen and Donders, or were known to him through his father-in-law and the Strecker family in Mainz, such as Justus Liebig. Other intellectuals he became acquainted with were part of the circle of Christian Kapp in Heidelberg, such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Herrmann Hettner and Berthold Auerbach, and later on he participated in the meetings in the “Oratorio di via Belsiana” in Rome with such literati as Gabriele D’Annunzio. In Zürich, the environment of exiled revolutionaries and nationalists he frequented was the origin of his meeting with Francesco De Sanctis, but also with the musician Franz Liszt, the architect Gottfried Semper, and the geologist Éduard Desor. With Desor, he corresponded about politics, his private financial situation (because Desor had lent him some money), and scientific publications and popularization. In Turin, his academic life was completed by his social and popularizing engagement in the capital of the new Kingdom, which regarded political issues as well as hygienic standards. But the entanglement of private and professional could be found even within the walls of his house, since his wife, Sophie, contributed to the development of his career in a measure which is difficult to quantify, but which was surely very high. Not only did she follow his many transfers across Europe, but, as Moleschott himself wrote to his Dutch friends, she supported him in his decision to leave his position at the University of Heidelberg; her family was for Moleschott a real contact point with other natural scientists, also and above all with the German avant-garde of scientific popularization in the nineteenth century (Otto Ule, the editor of Die Natur, and the chemist Adolf

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Strecker, were both his brothers-in-law).4 In recent years the history of science has turned its attention to women as independent actors, and at the same time as essential elements of scientific research.5 Sophie Moleschott is a clear example of how deeply women were involved in nineteenth-century science: she and her family were, for Moleschott, a link to the academic world of chemistry.6 She took care of the housefinances, as it is clear from her correspondence with Éduard Desor, to whom she was sending the amount of money due on a regular basis, and she was not only often mentioned in the correspondence with scientists, politicians, and friends, but also sometimes wrote some part of the letters in her own hand in order to greet them and their families.7 All in all, the role Sophie had within the Moleschott family mirrors Moleschott’s conceptions of women and their role in society as he expressed them in his Senate speech on women’s right to participate in administrative elections in 1888, as well as in the one concerning the rights of women (or better, of one specific woman) to practice the profession of lawyer. Both at home and in Parliament, Moleschott’s view on women’s rights was, coherently with his overall view of society, liberal and progressive, but still explicitly sticking to traditional values and conceptions: as he declared, he did not like “emancipated” women, and in fact, Sophie’s life was shaped around her husband’s professional and familial needs.8 In general, Moleschott’s view on women can be considered as mirroring both his behavior with his wife and his political views. The latter was represented by his adherence to liberal

4

Otto Ule had married Maria Strecker, whereas Adolf Strecker (1822-1871) had married Lina Strecker; cf. also In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott, 94. For the use of biographies in determining patterns of interpersonal relations of scientists, especially with their wives, cf. Szöllösi-Janze, “Lebens-Geschichte – Wissenschafts-Geschichte”, 28-31.

5

Cf. Naomi Oreskes, “Objectivity or Heroism? On the Invisibility of Women in Science.” Osiris, 11 (1996): 87-113.

6

Cf. Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850): Staatsbibliothek München, Liebigiana II B.

7

Cf. Sophie Moleschott to Édouard Desor, AÉN, Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 56.

8

In this regard, we could make a parallel with the role of the first wife of the German chemist Fritz Habers: cf. Szöllösi-Janze, “Lebens-Geschichte – Wissenschafts-Geschichte”, 29; just like Sophie Moleschott, Clara Immerwahr also committed suicide, which SzöllösiJanze explains as a result of her dissatisfaction with her role as wife and housekeeper. In her article, Szöllösi-Janze also underlines that through a biography other aspects of the life of a scientist such as working rhythm and disease can be illuminated; however, for Moleschott, no sources regarding a specific working rhythm or physical or psychological problems could be found, apart from the closeness of his private and professional lives (also physically, e.g. for a long time in Heidelberg his house, his laboratory, and his lecture hall were situated in the same building).

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positions (which, as was usual in the nineteenth century, espoused a nationalist position) and a defense of progressive ideas of social justice and equality (e.g. the abolition of the grist tax), but at the same time also by the relation to traditional political, ethical, and religious ideas, expressed especially through the reference to the classics. The flexibility of his ideas, deriving from what we have called his conciliatory attitude, is probably the main reason why his thought could be received and re-interpreted by scientists and personalities as different as the anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, and the physiologist Angelo Mosso. In Italy, Moleschott supported the processes contributing to the formation of a national consciousness after the political unification of Italy in 1861, where the socalled “real unity” was still to be achieved and the population of the newly established nation-state was all but homogeneous. I have pointed to Moleschott’s engagement in nationalist issues in his activity as a popularizer, a politician, and a member of international associations of scientists; in particular, I have shown how he attempted to foster the “real unity” of the country through his support of the abolition of the grist tax and the introduction of physical education as a school subject. Through the opening lectures he gave at the University of Turin and his popularizing lectures (such as Un’ambasciata fisiologica, on blood cells, which he gave in Turin in 1864, or his commemoration of Charles Darwin, Rome 1882), he contributed to the construction of a national history of science, and thus, to what Peter Burke has called the “nationalization of knowledge”.9 However, at the same time, his international networks were the precursor not only for his lectures to be published abroad, and thus reach a German-speaking, and in many cases also a French-, Russian-, and English-speaking audience, but also for the very possibility of his giving speeches spreading the idea of an Italian national science abroad. Instead, his speech on Giordano Bruno (1889) can be considered as an example of his engagement in secularizing cultural politics, but also as an interesting case of the intertwinement of Moleschott’s function both as a promoter of the Italian national ideology and as an international delegate (in fact, Moleschott gave a speech in Italian and one in Dutch as a delegate from the Netherlands). In both speeches, Giordano Bruno was presented not only as an Italian scientist and philosopher, but also and above all as a symbol of freethinking and of the repressive character of the Catholic Church. As we have seen, the location of the monument was itself a clear political act, asserting the supremacy of the secularized Italian nation-state over the Vatican.10 9

Peter Burke, From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia, vol. 2 of A Social History of Knowledge (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), 192-197 (subchapter “Nationalizing Knowledge”).

10 On the engagement of scientists and popularizers (especially monists such as Ernst Haeckel, and other popularizers such as Wilhelm Bölsche and Wilhelm Ostwald) in “freethought” as an alternative movement to Christian churches, cf. Kelly, The Descent of Darwin, 92-93.

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In fact, nationalizing science and secularizing culture were the two main motifs of Moleschott’s engagement in the program of the national education of the Italians. For Moleschott, the ability to speak and write Italian almost perfectly was an essential condition for obtaining the “grand naturalization”, i.e. full political rights (as the parliamentary reports show), and finally for being appointed a Senator, since language was one of the most important elements in the strategies of nationalization. These aspects, both nationalization of knowledge and secularization of culture, were evident also in Moleschott’s Senate speeches, which, as I have argued, were often published separately and were, thus, another form of his engagement in scientific popularization. If, as Peter Burke maintains, the “nationalization of knowledge might even be described on occasion as the continuation of politics by other means”,11 Moleschott’s popularization in Germany was also a way to spread political ideas, whereas his speeches at the Senate during his Italian years might be described as a continuation of popularization by other means. For instance, Moleschott’s contribution in the Senate debate on the introduction of physical education at school (1878) was a way of educating the young Italian population and introducing them to common values, national feelings, hygienic standards, and disciplinary rules. As we have seen, both in the debates on physical education and in the debates on the macinato (1880), Moleschott played the role of a scientific expert, but at the same time he transferred and spread knowledge about physiology and nutrition, which he had learned from Mulder in the Netherlands and which he had already popularized during his time in Heidelberg, albeit in another context and in a different form. Both Moleschott’s scientific expertise and his international career conferred upon him political authority, as we have seen in the debate about physical education and, above all, in the Senate debates about higher education, where Moleschott defended the institution of a Philosophical Faculty and justified his views through references to his own experience of the German educational system. Thus, both his scientific and his international “capital” became part of the justification for his authority in the political field. In the debates about higher education, as well as a variety of his opening lectures, we have seen that the “epistemic virtues” (using the expression of Daston and Galison) of scientific research were strictly connected to “ethical values”, but that at the same time “science” (be it criminal anthropology or physiology) was meant to be the basis of the organization and legislation of society. In fact, at the congress on criminal anthropology in 1885, as well as in the documents regarding the organization of the yearly conference of the Association pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales (which was planned, but never took place, in Turin in 1866) and, finally, in his speeches about the “opere pie” and the application of penal law to members of the clergy,

11 Burke, From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia, 192.

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Moleschott maintained that only the natural sciences could form the basis for a correct ruling of society, including penal legislation, but also mutual help associations, the secularization of the legislative system, and of institutions of education and aid to the needy. This was coherent with his conception that the laws of nature are the same universal, necessary, and eternal laws that govern man and society, as he expressed it in his lectures in Turin and in his German publications, especially in his Kreislauf des Lebens. In fact, as Philipp Sarasin has observed with regard to the popularization of hygiene in the nineteenth century, popularizing writings derived their authority precisely from their appeal to natural laws conceived of as immutable universal laws.12 Moleschott’s example shows that this was true not only for popularizing writings, but also for Senate speeches and public lectures: the authority of both popularization and political decisions was an outcome of the “normative power of science”. Moleschott’s activities as a scientist and as a politician were strictly related to each other; in both fields, rhetoric played a central role. Whereas Moleschott’s political views were the expression of nineteenth-century liberalism, as we could see from his many references to “liberal ideas” and liberal values in his Senate speeches, the references to classical culture show his affinity with the ideas of neo-humanism. That classical culture was included in the curriculum of every educated scientist in the nineteenth century is no wonder: with a few exceptions, most of the members of academia and of the bourgeois elite, including natural scientists, had a solid classical education.13 What is striking in Moleschott’s speeches, however, is the central place he assigned to it in academic education on the theoretical level, and the frequency and importance of classical citations on the practical level. Moleschott made classical culture an integral part of his rhetoric – not only in his political speeches, but also in his popularizing books and even in his handbooks: as we have seen, in the Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, whose subtitle was “a handbook on dietetics”, he referred to the Greek origin of the word “protein”, deriving it from πρῶτος, “the first”, “the most important”, and also from the mythological figure of Proteus. Style, then, was an essential element in the diffusion of scientific knowledge. For this reason, Moleschott’s contemporaries considered him not only a natural scientist, but also a literato. Especially in the speech about the abolition of the grist tax, where one would expect pragmatic arguments and a simple tone for discussing an issue which regarded a very basic economic and social problem, concerning above all the lower classes, Moleschott used a large number of Latin and Greek expressions in his argument. Both Moleschott and Lombroso were fully aware of the importance 12 Cf. Sarasin, Reizbare Maschinen, 144-146. 13 Emil Du Bois-Reymond, for instance, also enjoyed a classical education at the Lycée français in Berlin, including French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew: cf. Finkelstein, Emil Du BoisReymond, 11.

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of rhetoric for their popularizing strategies. This does not mean that classical culture had, for Moleschott, just the heteronomous task of making his rhetoric more convincing for his audience: to the contrary, Moleschott had a great respect for classical culture, from the ancient world to Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe and Renan, whom he praised in his writings and whose works most probably appeared in his bookshelves (even though his library has been destroyed, we can infer this from the large number of quotations from their works we can find in Moleschott’s notes, as well as in his speeches and lectures). Thus, rhetoric had a central place in popularization; as we have seen, in the case of Moleschott, the concept of popularization can be broadened to include political speeches, university lectures, and public speeches, which I have considered as the consequent adaptation of his popularizing style and format in a social and political context which was very different from that of Germany in the 1850s. The political dimension of popularization can be seen at different levels: first, Moleschott’s role as an expert in specific issues, such as nutritional issues, which had at the same time a significant political and social impact (such as the grist tax); second, the transmission of national values and ideologies in his speeches and lectures (be they scientific or not). The role of popularization was, thus, decidedly political: the speeches Moleschott gave had specific political aims and can be considered his personal contribution to the program of “national education”. Through Moleschott, the ideas of the Dutch physiologist Johannes Mulder, expressed in the 1840s and 1850s, reached the Italian Senate in the 1880s and became an essential part of the solution to the social problems caused or sharpened by the macinato. As we have seen, this happened through processes of translation to which Moleschott, with his transnational career and his international fame, lent himself very well. Both cultural and linguistic processes of translation are at the center of knowledge circulation, as we have seen in the case of scientific popularization and the translation of Moleschott’s Kreislauf des Lebens by Cesare Lombroso: concrete processes of negotiation, as well as the broad political and nationalist aims and attitudes of author and translator, have been made visible. Moleschott, however, was not only translated: since the beginning of his career, he was himself a translator of several works, from philosophical works on religion to scientific manuals to more specific publications on physiology and nutrition. Later, his work was itself translated into several languages: his German books into the most important European languages, including Russian, and his Italian speeches and lectures into German, as well as French and English. Popularization itself can be seen as a process of translation in a broader sense: we can distinguish the process of diffusion, where results of scientific research were made available to a broader audience, and the process of simplification of the language, which was also connected with a stylistic change towards a more poetic and literary language. Moleschott’s own popularizing style also underwent processes of transformation, from the German handbooks to his Italian lectures and public

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speeches. Finally, Moleschott was himself a cultural mediator, a go-between, being an official delegate for more than one country at the same time, and many of the speeches he gave starting from the end of the 1870s can be understood as exemplifying his role of cultural broker – including the Senate speeches on the reform of the university, which, to a great extent, had the aim of bringing his own experience of foreign systems of higher education, especially the German system, into the Italian Parliament. In many cases, the cultural and the linguistic aspects of the processes of translation were integral to each other. Moleschott’s biography exemplifies the life of a scholar who engaged in nationalism but whose career and networks were transnational, and of a scientist whose adherence to materialism did not impede the expression of ideas that were, to a certain extent, close to idealism. Just as it was the case for the popularization of Darwinism in Germany, Moleschott’s popularizing writings and lectures conceived of nature as an organic unity, a “unity of life” where man was a microcosm in the macrocosm. Thus, despite refusing teleology and Romantic Naturphilosophie, Moleschott stuck to its organicist conception of nature.14 In this biography, I have also considered overt contradictions inherent to his views. For instance, in his Kreislauf des Lebens, Moleschott expressed the anti-racist idea that the blood of both white and black people is composed of the very same elements, and that according to the infinite transformation of imperishable matter, the blood of the one could become in the future the blood of the other, whereas in Italy in the 1880s he favored the colonial enterprise, as is evident from the words he pronounced in his commemoration of the Senator Francesco Magni. Thus, I have attempted to show the different and sometimes contrasting shades of Moleschott’s lifepath and of his ideas, as well as to contextualize them in the nineteenth-century scientific and political landscapes. I have focused on Moleschott’s role as a scientific expert, showing how, in his Senate speeches and in his public lectures, his scientific expertise espoused the “religion of the fatherland”, displaying the deep entanglement of science and politics in nineteenth-century Europe.15 The most striking aspect of Moleschott’s lifepath is, undoubtedly, the transnational mobility and the outstanding ability to adapt his scientific theories, his popularizing style, and his research topics to different national

14 On the popularization of Darwinism in Germany and its taking up images from Romantic Naturphilosophie (in particular, with reference to Wilhelm Bölsche and Ernst Haeckel), cf. Kelly, The Descent of Darwin, 40-41. 15 On expert cultures and the political role of experts, cf. Kohlrausch, Steffen, and Wiederkehr (eds.), Expert Cultures in Central Eastern Europe, as well as Kohlrausch, Building Europe on Expertise. On politically involved scholars in nineteenth-century Germany, cf. Gramley, Propheten des deutschen Nationalismus.

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and social contexts. In particular, the form of his scientific popularization varied according to the historical, social, and political contexts in which he worked: in this sense, not only his lectures in Turin, but also his Senate speeches are, as Moleschott himself declared, a form of popularization, perfectly joining his scientific expertise with the diffusion of political ideas. All this proves the deep entanglement of science and politics in nineteenth-century nation-states and, in particular, the central role of transnationally mobile scientific actors in the very process of nation-building, as well as in practices of transnational knowledge transfer and communication.

Bibliography

A RCHIVES ( WITH A BBREVIATIONS ) Unprinted sources Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Roma (ACS): Cartella Numero 42, M[inistero] P[ubblica] Istruzione – Personale 1860-1880, busta 1396 [“Giacomo Moleschott”]. Archivio “Cesare Lombroso”, Università degli Studi di Torino: Fondo Cesare Lombroso, Corrispondenza ricevuta 1861-1921: Jacob Moleschott to Cesare Lombroso (Turin, November 1, 1863). Archives de l’État de Neuchâtel (AÉN): Fonds Édouard Desor, Carton 13, D 55-56. Archivio Storico dell’Università di Roma “La Sapienza”: Fascicolo “Moleschott Jacopo M.C. Prof. Ordi. Di Fisiologia Sperimentale”, AS 169. Archivio Storico dell’Università degli Studi di Torino (ASUT): IV.1-2, Circolari rettorali 1857-1869; Registro degli avvisi rettorali e di segreteria 1873-1883. VI.12-17, Lettere ministeriali 1860-1876. VII.6-9, Verbali delle adunanze, Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia 1860-1880. XIV.B.45-71, Affari ordinati per classi (Corrispondenza – Carteggio 1861-1878, classi I, IV, VIII)

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Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna (BCABo): Coll. Autogr. CI Posiz. 23450 [Ruggiero Bonghi, President of the Consiglio Centrale of the Società Dante Alighieri, to Giuseppe Ceneri (Rome, October 2, 1893)]. Fondo Speciale Moleschott (also known as Archivio di Jakob Moleschott) (FSM).1 Mss. Landoni XIV.7 [Ruggiero Bonghi to Emilio Broglio (Rome, April 30, 1875)]. Burgerbibliothek Bern: Nachlass Valentin, Korrespondenz an Valentin, Mss hh.XXVIII.65 Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (DLA Marbach): A: Auerbach; Z3430 (microfiche). A: Seidel, Ina: 94.170.10. [Jacob Moleschott to Mainzer Kunstverein (Heidelberg, June 26, 1854)] Fondo Angelo Mosso, Sezione di Fisiologia del Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università degli Studi di Torino: “Laboratorio di Fisiologia (attività scientifica)ˮ (1863 – 1934): Quaderni di laboratorio I serie (1884-1889), Quaderni di laboratorio II serie (1885 – 1897). 20.2. Quaderni delle lezioni di Jakob Moleschott 1865-1867 28.3. Corrispondenza 1865 Freies Deutsches Hochstift / Frankfurter Goethe-Museum, Handschriftenabteilung: Hs-19761, Jacob Moleschott to Georg Heinrich Otto Volger Handschriftenabteilung Universitätsbibliothek Gießen: Hs NF 158-5(1) [Jacob Moleschott to Ludwig Noack (Heidelberg, March 9, 1855)]. Hs NF 729 [Jacob Moleschott to Emil Roth (Turin, January 25, 1863)]. Nachlass Baer, Briefe, Bd. 16 [Jacob Moleschott to Karl Ernst von Baer (Turin, December 25, 1865)].

1

I have consulted this archive before the current catalogue was published in April 2014. On my last visit, in September 2013, the archivist, Patrizia Busi, allowed me to use a preliminary version of the current catalogue: the manuscripts I viewed at that time are thus quoted according to the current call number; I have signaled it by adding “(new)” to the reference. In the other cases, I have referred to the document by the provisory inventory number identifying them at the time of consultation. Due to the inventory work, the correspondence that I viewed in March 2012 had no call number at that moment; for this reason, I referred to it by mentioning the name of the author. In both cases, these denominations allow searching the document even in the current catalogue.

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Staatsbibliothek München: Autogr. X., Jacob Moleschott [Jacob Moleschott to Ernst von Siebolt (Heidelberg, May 1, 1849)] Liebigiana II.B [Jacob Moleschott to Justus Liebig (Heidelberg, January 24, 1850)]. Halmiana VII [Jacob Moleschott to Julius Braun (Turin, January 4, 1865)] Staatsarchiv Zürich (StAZH): U 106 c, 1a [Einzelne Professoren. Wahlen, Urlaub, Entlassung, Besoldung, Personelles] 17 [Herm. (v) Meyer (1852-1889)] and 21 [Jacob Moleschott (18561861)]. UB Amsterdam, Bijzondere Collecties: hs. E.f. 66-69,71-78,80-103,105-110 [Jacob Moleschott to Isaac van Deen]. hs. E.f. 114-146 [Jacob Moleschott to Franciscus Cornelis Donders]. Universitätsarchiv Heidelberg (UAH): Akten der Medizinischen Fakultät, 1845-1853: UAH, H-III-111/51-60. Personalakte “Jakob Moleschott”: PA 2010. Universitätsbibliothek Mainz (Dauerleihgabe in der Wissenschaftlichen Stadtbibliothek Mainz): Peter-Cornelius-Archiv, PCA B XXXI Me 1 and PCA B XXXI Mj 1-4.

Senate Reports: Biblioteca del Senato della Repubblica (BSR) Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII.Sessione del 1876-77. Tornata del 1 Maggio 1877, Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: “Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero” – Discorsi del Senatore Mauri contro il progetto, del Senatore Moleschott in favore, 793-802. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 2° sessione 1876-77. Tornata del 19 Giugno 1877. Discussione del bilancio del Ministero di Pubblica Istruzione, 1549-1557. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII. Sessione 1878. Tornata del 2 Luglio 1878, [sull’insegnamento della ginnastica nelle scuole], 681-702. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XIII.Sessione del 1878-79-80. Tornata del 17 Gennaio 1880, Seguito della discussione generale del progetto di legge per l’abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano, 2809-2827.

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Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 20 Novembre 1886. Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7, 219-226. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 29 Novembre 1886. Ripresa della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7, 200-209. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 29 Novembre 1886. Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge per modificazioni alla legge sulla istruzione superiore, 217-226. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 1° sessione 1886. Tornata del 15 Dicembre 1886. Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7 sulla istruzione superiore, 305-328. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 20 Gennaio 1887. Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7, 507-536. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 1° sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 21 Gennaio 1887. Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge N. 7, 537-560. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1886-87. Tornata del 23 Giugno 1887, Discussione del progetto di legge N. 51, “Istituzione di cattedre dantesche”, 1233-1253. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. Sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 13 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione del progetto di legge: “Facoltà del Governo di pubblicare il nuovo Codice penale”, 2307-2311. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 2° sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 26 Novembre 1888. Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), 2587-2618. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 2°sessione 1887-88. Tornata del 27 Novembre 1888, Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865” (N. 131), [del diritto delle donne di prendere parte alle elezioni amministrative], 2640-2645. Atti parlamentari della camera dei senatori. Discussioni. Legislatura XVI. 4° sessione 1889. Tornata del 24 Aprile 1890. Seguito della discussione sul progetto di legge: “Sulle istituzioni pubbliche di beneficenza” (N. 6), 598-604.

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1842 Translation of: Snell, Karl Christian Philipp. Philosophische beschouwingen der natuur; uit het Hoogduitsch van Karl Snell vert. door Jac. Moleschott. ʼs-Hertogenbosch: Palier, 1842. 1844 Translation of: Mulder, Gerrit Jan [=Johannes]. Über den Werth und die Bedeutung der Naturwissenchaften für die Medicin. Heidelberg: Winter, 1844. Translation of: Mulder, Gerrit Jan [=Johannes]. Versuch einer allgemeinen physiologischen Chemie. Aus d. Holländ. übers. von Jac. Moleschott. Heidelberg: C. F. Winter, 1844. “Vorwort des Uebersetzers”, in Gerrit Jan [=Johannes] Mulder, Über den Werth und die Bedeutung der Naturwissenchaften für die Medicin. Translated from Dutch by [Jacob] Moleschott, 3-6. Heidelberg: Winter, 1844. 1845 “Anatomisch-physiologische beschouwing van het emphysema pulmonum vesiculare.” Nederlandsch lancet van Donders, Jansen en Ellerman, 1 (18451846): 142-161. De Malpighianis pulmonum vesiculis. Dissertatio anatomico-physiologica. Heidelberg: Groos, 1845. Het wezen van aardappelziekte en de middelen ter voorkoming en genezing van dezelve (with E. H. von Baumhauer). Utrecht: August Bötticher, 1845. Kritische Betrachtung von Liebig’s Theorie der Pflanzenernährung. Haarlem: Teyler’s Genootschap; De Erven François Bohn, 1845. “Pathologisch-anatomische aantekeningen over neuroma”. Nederlandsch lancet van Donders, Jansen en Ellerman, 1 (1845-1846): 265-274. Translation of: Hoeven, Jan van der. Handbuch der Zoologie. Nach der 2. holländischen Ausg. übers. von Jac. Moleschott. Düsseldorf: Bötticher, 1845. Translation of: Mulder, Gerrit Jan [=Johannes]. Rede über die Welt der Materie, als ein Mittel zu höherer Entwickelung: gehalten bei der Einweihung des chemischen Laboratoriums der Universität zu Utrecht, am 22. September 1845. Aus dem Holländ. übers. von Jac. Moleschott. Düsseldorf-Utrecht: Bötticher, 1845. 1846 “Bijdrage tot leer der ademhaling en van het korrelig pigment (Körniges Pigment, Henle)”. Tijdschrift voor natuurlijke geschiedenis en physiologie, 12 (1846): 140157. 2

The following bibliography, ordered chronologically and partly based on the bibliography by Peeters, Jacobus Moleschott, 135-143, is an attempt at a complete listing of Moleschott’s publications; therefore, note that it includes a few titles (especially of scientific publications) that have not been previously quoted in this book.

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“De overgang der chyllbolletjes in bloedligchaampjes”. Nederlandsch lancet van Donders, Jansen en Ellerman, 1 (1845-1846): 314-324. “Een woord over den aard der wezelen in den wand der Malpighische longblaasjes”. Nederlandsch lancet van Donders, Jansen en Ellerman, 1 (1845-1846): 446-472. “Eene door Nuhn ontdekte klier in de punt van de tong”. Nederlandsch lancet van Donders, Jansen en Ellerman, 1 (1845-1846): 399-400. “Eine von Donders gemachte Beobachtung einer Lähmung der Muskeln des Kehlkopfs und der Zunge”. Zeitschrift für rationelle Medicin, 4 (1846): 219-230. Holländische Beiträge zu den anatomischen physiologischen Wissenschaften. Ed. by Moleschott, van Deen and Donders. Düsseldorf-Utrecht, 1846-1848. “Nieuwe bijdrage tot de kennis der fijne stuctuur van de longen”. Tijdschrift voor natuurlijke geschiedenis en physiologie, 12 (1846): 225-232. 1847 “Bilin im Blute”. Zeitschrift für rationelle Medicin, 6 (1847): 387-393. Translation of: Mulder, Gerrit Jan [=Johannes]. Die Ernährung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeist. Eine Uebers. von Gerard Johannes Mulderʼs Schrift: de Voeding in Nederland in verband tot den volksgeest. Nach dem Holländ. von Jac. Moleschott. Utrecht, Düsseldorf: Bötticher, 1847. 1848 “Die an Basen gebundene Kohlensäure des Bluts”. Holländische Beiträge zu den anatomischen physiologischen Wissenschaften, 1 (1848): 163-174. “Die medicinischen Lehranstalten an den Hochschulen Niederlands”. Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde, 7 (1848): 472-479. “Über die letzten Endigungen der feinsten Bronchien”. Holländische Beiträgezu den anatomischen physiologischen Wissenschaften, 1 (1848): 7-19. “Untersuchungen über die Blutkörperchen” (with F. C. Donders). Holländische Beiträgezu den anatomischen physiologischen Wissenschaften, 1 (1848): 360-378. “Versuche zur Bestimmung des Wassergehalts der vom Menschen ausgeathmeten Luft”. Holländische Beiträge zu den anatomischen physiologischen Wissenschaften, 1 (1848): 86-99. 1849 “Über die Fehlerquelle in der Andral-Gavarretʼschen Methode der Blutanalyse”. Zeitschrift für rationelle Medicin, 7 (1849): 228-236. 1850 De la alimentacion y del regimen. Madrid: El Globo, 1850. De physiologie der voedingsmiddelen. Een handboek der diaetetica. Amsterdam: Sulpke, 1850. Leer der voedingsmiddelen voor het volk. Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon, 1850. Lehre der Nahrungsmittel: für das Volk. Stuttgart: Enke, 1850. Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel. Ein Handbuch der Diätetik. Darmstadt: Leske, 1850. 2nd edition: Giessen: Roth, 1850.

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1851 Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren. Ein Handbuch für Naturforscher, Landwirthe und Aerzte. Erlangen: Enke, 1851. 1852 “Chemische und mikroskopische Notizen über die Milch”. Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde, 11 (1852): 696-708. Der Kreislauf des Lebens. Physiologische Antworten auf Liebigs ‘Chemische Briefe’. Mainz: von Zabern, 1852. Further editions: 1855, 1857, 1862, 1887. “Käsestoff im Blut”. Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde, 11 (1852): 105-110. “Untersuchungen über die Bildungsstätte der Galle”. Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde, 11 (1852): 479-495. 1853 “Georg Forster”. Die Natur, 2 (1853): 205-208. “Neue Beobachtungen über die Beziehung der Leber zu den farbigen Blutkörperchen”. Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 3 (1853), 14: 209-213. “Neue Untersuchungen über das Verhältniss der Leber zur Menge der ausgeathmeten Kohlensäure”. Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 3 (1853), 11: 161-165. “Über die Bildungsstätte des Zuckers im Thierkörper”. Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie (1853): 86-87. “Über die Entwicklung der Blutkörperchen”. Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie (1853): 73-85. “Versuche zur Bestimmung der Rolle, welche Leber und Milz bei der Rückbildung spielen”. Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie (1853): 56-72. 1854 “Der Übergang kleiner fester Theilchen aus dem Darmkanal in den Milchsaft und das Blut” (with F. Marfels). Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 4 (1854), 54: 817822. Georg Forster. Der Naturforscher des Volks. Zur Feier des 26 November, 1854. Frankfurt am Main: Meidinger, 1854. “Über das Verhältniss der farblosen Blutzellen zu den farbigen in verschiedenen Zuständen des Menschen”. Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 4 (1854), 8: 113117. 1855 “Über den Einfluss des Lichts auf die Menge der vom Thierkörper ausgeschiedenen Kohlensäure”. Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 5 (1855), 43: 681-689. “Über die mikrochemische Reaction auf Cholesterin und Corpuscula amylacea”. Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 5 (1855), 9: 129-133. “Über ein Hülfsmittel, ruhende Samenfäden zur Bewegung zu bringen” (with J. C. Ricchetti). Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 5 (1855), 18: 273-276.

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1856 Licht en leven. Redevoering bij de aanvaarding van het opentljik leeraarsambt, tot navorsching van de natuur des menschen, aan de hoogeschool van Zürich. Utrecht: van der Post, 1856. Licht und Leben. Rede beim Antritt des öffentlichen Lehramts zur Erforschung der Natur des Menschen, an der Züricher Hochschulegesprochen am 21 Juni 1856. Giessen: Roth, 1856. Luce e vita. Translated by Luigi Stefanoni. Milano: Brigola, 1856. The chemistry of food and diet. Translated by Edward Bronner. London: s.n., 1856. 1857 “Erneuter Beweis für das Eindringen von festen Körperchen in die kegelförmigen Zellen der Darmschleimhaut”. Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, 2 (1857): 119-136. Kreislauf des Lebens. Physiologische Antworten auf Liebig’s Chemische Briefe. Dritte, vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage. Mainz: von Zabern, 1857. “Über den Einfluss der Wärme auf die Kohlensäure-Afscheidung der Frösche”. Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, 2 (1857): 315-344. “Über den Einfluss des Lichts auf die Reizbarkeit der Nerven” (with W. Marmé). Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, 1 (1857): 15-51. “Über die Lebensdauer der Blutkörperchen” (with F. Marfels). Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, 1 (1857): 52-60. Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere (abbreviated as: Untersuchungen). Volumes 1-15 (1857-1895). Frankfurt am Main: Verlag von Meininger Sohn & Comp.; from 1860, Giessen: Roth. “Vergleichende Untersuchungen über die Menge der ausgeschiedenen Kohlensäure und die Lebergrösse bei nahe verwandten Thieren” (with R. Schelske). Untersuchungen, 1 (1857): 1-14. 1858 De l’alimentation et du régime, par Jacques Moleschott; traduit de l’allemand sur la 3. ed. par Ferdinand Flocon et revu par lʼauteur. Paris: Masson, 1858. “Zur Untersuchung der verhornte Theile des menschlichen Körpers”. Untersuchungen, 4 (1858): 97-123. Keyser, Carl Johan Jakob (trans.). Om mat och dryck: populär framställning af läran om wåra wanliga näringsmedel. Fri öfvers. av [...] Moleschotts “Lehre der Nahrungsmittel” med bearb. och tillägg af C. Joh. Keyser. Upsala: Leffler, 1858. 1860 “Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der glatten Muskeln”. Untersuchungen, 6 (1860): 381401. “Über einige Punkten betreffend den Bau des Haarbalgs und der Haare der menschlichen Kopfhaut” (with P. Chapuis). Untersuchungen, 7 (1860): 325-352. “Untersuchungen über den Einfluss der Vagus-Reizung auf Häufigkeit des Herzschlags”. Untersuchungen, 7 (1860): 401-468.

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1861 “Ein Spaziergang. Physiologische Skizze”. Album von Combe-Varin. Zur Erinnerung an Theodor Parker und Hans Lorenz Küchler, 51-78. Zürich: Schabelitz, 1861. Physiologisches Skizzenbuch. Giessen: Roth, 1861. 1862 Begrüssung Schillers im Namen Johann Georg Forsters und im Namen Italiens. Tischrede am Tage d. Enthüllung d. Mainzer Schiller-Denkmals, 18. Oct. 1862 gesprochen von Jac. Moleschott. Wiesbaden: Limbarth, 1862. Del metodo nella investigazione della vita: prima prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 16 dicembre 1861. Torino: Loescher, 1862. “Der bewegungsvermittelnde Vorgang im Nerven kann auch von einer positiven Schwankung des Nervensstroms begleitet sein”. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 1-35. “Der Vagus als Bewegungsnerv des Herzens gegenüber den neuesten Angriffen vertheidigt”. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 601-618. “Die Reizung des verlängerten Marks und des Rückenmarks in ihrem Einflusse auf die Pulsfrequenz” (with Hufschmid). Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 572-600. “Ein histochemischer und ein histologischer Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Nierenˮ. Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 213-224. “Experimenteller Beweis der Theorie, nach welcher der Vagus ein Bewegungsnerv des Herzens ist” (with Hufschmid). Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 52-120. Iets over de methode van het physiologisch onderzoek. Redevoering ter aanvaarding van het hoogleraars-ambt in de physiologie aan de hoogeschool van Turijn. Translated from German by C. de Jong. Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon. “Intorno alla presenza di biforcazioni nelle fibre muscolari liscie” (with G. PisoBorme). Archivio per la zoologia, l’anatomia e la fisiologia, 2 (1863), 2: [331]336. “Untersuchungen über den Einfluss der Sympathicus-Reizung auf die Häufigkeit des Herzschlags” (with Roberto Nauwerck). Untersuchungen, 8 (1862): 36-51. Vorträge. Giessen: Roth, 1862. Zur Erforschung des Lebens: Rede beim Antritt der Professur für Physiologie an der Hochschule zu Turin. Gehalten am 16. December 1861. Giessen: Roth, 1862 1863 “Dell’influenza del midollo allongato e del midollo spinale sulla frequenza del polso”. Memorie della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, serie 2, 20 (1863): 171-176. Die Grenzen des Menschen: Vortrag bei der Wiedereröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule, 24. November 1862. Giessen: Roth, 1863. Uchenie o pishche, obshcheponyatno izlozhennoe Ya. Moleshottom. Translation of the 3rd German edition. Sankt-Peterburg: Serno-Solov’evich, 1863.

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1864 De eenheid des levens. Redevoering bij de heropening der physiologische lessen aan de hoogeschool te Turijn. Kampen: van Hulst, 1864. Dei limiti della natura umana: seconda prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino letta dal Professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 24 novembre 1862. Torino: Loescher, 1864. Die Einheit des Lebens. Giessen: Roth, 1864. “Discours d’ouverture – De la méthode en physiologie” (traduit de l’italien par Eugène Mir). Revue des Cours Scientifiques de la France et de l’étranger, 1 (1864), 7: [73]-78. Eene physiologische zending. Rotterdam: Stoeller, 1864. Eine Physiologische Sendung: in der Turiner Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche und litterarische Vorlesungen am 21. März 1864 vorgetragen. Giessen: Roth, 1864. Fiziologicheskie eskizy. Translation with annotations by A. Pal’khovskiy. Moskva: V. Grachev i A. Cherenin, 1863 and 1865. L’unità della vita: terza prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Università di Torino, letta dal prof. Jacob Moleschott il 23 novembre 1863. Torino: Loescher, 1864. “L’unité de la vie” (Cours de M. J. Moleschott de l’Université de Turin: III). Traduit de l’italien par M. Odysse-Barot. Revue des Cours Scientifiques de la France et de l’étranger, 1 (1864), 40, 41, 42. Un’ambasciata fisiologica esposta nella società torinese per letture scientifiche e letterarie, il dì 21 marzo 1864. Torino: Loescher, 1864. 1865 Estestvoznanie i meditsina. Rech’, chit. 28 noyabr. 1864 g. pri otrkytii novogo kursa lektsiy fiziologii. Sankt-Peterburg: M. O. Vol’f, 1865. Fisiologia e medicina: quarta prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. università di Torino letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 28 novembre 1864. Torino: Loescher, 1865. Fiziologicheskaya lektsiya: Chit. 21 marta 1864 g. v Turin. o-ve uchen. i lit. chteniy. Sankt-Peterburg: Buynickiy, 1865. “La physiologie comme base de la médecine”. Revue des cours scientifiques, 3 (1865), 5: 81-88. Natur und Heilkunde. Vortrag bei der Wideröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule am 28. November, 1864 gehalten. Giessen: Roth, 1865. Sechs Vorträge. Giessen: Roth, 1865. “Sull’azione riflessa che l’eccitamento del pneumogastrico spiega sul cuore e sui cambiamenti disparati nella frequenza della respirazione e del polso”. Memorie della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, serie 2, 22 (1865): 74-76. “Studi sull’embriologia del pulcino”. Atti della Regia Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 1 (1865): 135-140.

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Uchenie o pishche, obshcheponyatno izlozhennoe Ya. Moleshottom. Translation of the 3rd German edition by A. Smirnov. Sankt-Peterburg: K. Shamov, 1865. “Über das Vorkommen gabelförmiger Theilungen an glatten Muskelfasern” (with G. Piso-Borme). Untersuchungen, 9 (1865): 1-6. “Über den Einfluss des Vagus auf die Häufigkeit der Athemzüge”. Untersuchungen, 9 (1865): 59-72. “Über die reflectorische Erregung des Herzens, die vom Vagus ausgeht” (with C. Peyrani). Untersuchungen, 9 (1865): 72-92. “Über ungleichsinnige Veränderungen in der Häufigkeit der Athemzüge und der Pulsfrequenz” (with A. Moriggia). Untersuchungen, 9 (1865): 172-182. “Vie et Lumière” (translated by F. Papillon). Revue des cours scientifiques, 12 (1865), 43: 698-703 [followed by a review by Ludwig Büchner, “Vie et Lumière”, 703-705]. “Zur Embryologie des Hünchens”. Untersuchungen, 10 (1865): 1-47. 1866 Consigli e conforti nei tempi di colera diretti alle singole persone ed in specie ai padri di famiglia. Torino: Loescher, 1866. Krugovorot zhizni: Fiziolog. otvety na “Pis’ma o khimii” Yustusa Libikha. Translated (from the 4th edition) and ed. by Iv. Shchelkov. Khar’kov: A. Zalenskiy i E. Lyubarskiy, 1866. La circulation de la vie. Lettres sur la physiologie en réponse aux lettres sur la chimie de Liebig. Translated by E. Cazelles. Paris: Ballière, 1866. Pathologie und Physiologie: Vortrag bei der Wiedereröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule am 2. Dezember 1865 gehalten. Giessen: Roth, 1866. Patologia e fisiologia: quinta prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Universita di Torino, letta dal professore Jac. Moleschott il dì 2 dicembre 1865. Torino: Loescher, 1866. Rath und Trost für Cholerazeiten. Giessen: Roth, 1866. “Sulla forma dell’arresto del cuore in seguito alla sopraeccitazione del nervo pneumogastrico”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 1 (1866): 312321. Sulla razione giornaliera di viveri ordinata per le truppe italiane sul piede di guerra: considerazioni. Torino: G. Favale, 1866. 1867 “Commemorazione del prof. Filippo De Filippi, con elenco de’ suoi lavori.” Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 3 (1867): 431-453. “De la causalité en biologieˮ. Revue des cours scientifiques, 4 (1867), 51: 801-807. Della causalità nella biologia: sesta prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella R. Universita di Torino, letta dal prof. Jac. Moleschott il dì 8 gennaio 1867. Torino: Loescher, 1867.

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“Tentativi per imitare in grande il movimento de’ corpuscoli del sangue nei più minuti vasi sanguigni”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 3 (1867): 363-373. “Une ambassade physiologique. Les globules du sang”. Revue des cours scientifiques, 4 (1867), 11: 167-176. Ursache und Wirkung in der Lehre vom Leben: sechster Vortrag zur Wiedereröffnung der Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Turiner Hochschule, gehalten am 8. Januar 1867. Giessen: Roth, 1867. Vrashchenie zhizni v prirode: Pis’ma Ya. Moleshota [sic]. Sankt-Peterburg, Moskva: M. O. Vol’f, 1867. 1868 Prichiny i deystviya v uchenii o zhizni. Translated from German by V. Svyatlovskiy. Moskva: Tip. S. Orlova, 1868. “Studi embriologici sul pulcino”. Memorie della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, serie 2, 21 (1868): 237-275. Uchenie o pishche, obshcheponyatno izlozhennoe Ya. Moleshottom. Ed. by Sorokin. Sankt-Peterburg: Cherkesov, 1868. 1869 La circolazione della vita. Lettere fisiologiche in risposta alle lettere chimiche di Liebig. Translated by C. Lombroso. Milano: Brigola, 1869. Presentazione della bachetta acustica del dottore Paolo Niemayer. Torino: V. Vercellino, 1869. “Sull’elettrotono primario e secondario dei nervi”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 5 (1869): 166-179. “Über primären und secundären Electrotonus”. Untersuchungen, 10 (1869): 649-657. 1870 Dei regolatori della vita umana: discorso pronunciato nel solenne riaprimento della Regia Università di Torino addì 16 novembre 1870 da Jac. Moleschott. Torino: Stamperia Reale, 1870; Milano: E. Treves, 1871. Osservazioni sugli effetti terapeutici dell’idrato di cloralio. Lettera al dottore Aliprando Moriggia. Torino: V. Vercellino, 1870. 1871 Dell’alimentazione. Trattato popolare. Translated by Giuseppe Bellucci. Milano: Treves, 1871. “Les régulateurs de la vie humaine”. Revue des cours scientifiques, 2ème série, 1 (1871): 486-491. “Sulla condrina, osservazioni di Jac. Moleschott e S. Fubini” (with Simone Fubini). Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 7 (1872): 269-294. Sulla preparazione e conservazione dell’epitelio vibratile (with G. Piso-Borme). Torino: V. Vercellino, 1871. “Über die Darstellungsweise und die Aufbewahrung des Flimmerepithels” (with G. Piso-Borme). Untersuchungen, 11 (1871): 99-103.

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Von der Selbststeuerung im Leben des Menschen. Rede zur Wiedereröffnung der Turiner Hochschule am 16. November, 1870 gehalten. Giessen: Roth, 1871. Von der Selbststeuerung im Leben des Menschen, Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe (Turin, October 27, 1870), [no page numbers]. 1872 Bud’te zdorovy! Popul.-med. Besedy d-ra Boka, d-v Moleshotta, Yu. Libikha, Nimeyera, Val’da, Direnfurta i dr. Translated from German, ed. by dr. M. M. Shershevskiy. Sankt-Peterburg: V. E. Genkel’, 1872. Sulla vita umana. Prolusioni e discorsi (1861-1867). Torino: Loescher, 1872. Pagliani, Luigi, ed. Saggio sullo stato attuale delle cognizioni della fisiologia intorno al sistema nervoso su annotazioni raccolte alle lezioni del prof. J. Moleschott lʼanno 1871-72 ..., pel dottor Luigi Pagliani. Torino: stamperia dei compositoritipografi A. Oddenino e c., 1872. 1873 “Sugli effetti emodinamici della recisione dei nervi pneumogastrici. Sunto comunicato dall’autore Jac. Moleschott alla Regia Accademia di Medicina di Torino nella seduta del 14 novembre 1873”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 8 (1873): 691-711. Surin, Fedor Iosifovich. Sokhranenie i razvitie uma i energii: (Gigiena). K. Aar [Pseudonyme]. Po soch. Grizengera […], Darvina, Moleshotta, Sechenova […] i dr. Kazan’: F. I. Massal’skiy-Surin, 1873. 1874 Georg Forster, narodnyy estestvoispytatel’: Ego zhizn’ i kratk. izvlech. iz nekotorykh ego soch. Translated from the second German edition. Sankt-Peterburg: A. Sazanovich, 1874. 1875 “Intorno all’azione che si deve attribuire al cervelletto nelle funzioni dipendenti dall’influenza de’ centri nervosi”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 10 (1875): 635-636. “Sull’azione della bile e di alcuni suoi componenti nei peptoni”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 10 (1875): 911-939. “Über die Einwirkung der Galle und ihrer wichtigsten Bestandtheile auf Peptone”. Untersuchungen, 11 (1875): 504-521. 1876 Dell’indole della fisiologia: parole dʼintroduzione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nellʼUniversità di Torino, pronunziate il 12 dicembre 1875 da Jac. Moleschott. Torino: Loescher, 1876. “Über den Blutdruck nach Vagusdurchschneidung”. Untersuchungen, 11 (1876): 310-326. “Zur Kenntniss des Chondrius” (with S. Fubini). Untersuchungen, 11 (1876): 104128.

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1877 Discorso del senatore J. Moleschott pronunziato al Senato del Regno nella tornata del 1. maggio 1877 (Disposizioni penali contro gli abusi dei ministri dei culti nell’esercizio del loro ministero). Roma: tipografia del Senato di Forzani e C., 1877. Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato al Senato del Regno nella tornata del 19 giugno 1877: Bilancio del Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione. Roma: Tipografia del Senato, 1877. “Sull’acqua contenuta nei tessuti cornei del corpo umano”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 13 (1877): 963-979. 1878 “Sull’accrescimento delle formazioni cornee del corpo umano e sulla perdita d’azoto che ne risulta: esperimenti e studi di Jac. Moleschott”. Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 14 (1878): 25-90. Sullʼinsegnamento della ginnastica nelle scuole: Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato al Senato del Regno nella tornata del 2. luglio 1878. Roma: Tipografia del Senato, 1878. 1879 Die Einheit der Wissenschaft aus dem Gesichtspunkt der Lehre vom Leben: Antrittsrede zur Eröffnung seiner Vorlesungen über Physiologie an der Sapienza in Rom, gehalten am 11. Januar 1879. Giessen: Roth, 1879. Edinstvo nauki s tochki zreniya ucheniya o zhizni: Vstup. lektsiya k kursu fiziologii, chit. Yak. Moleshottom 11 yanv. 1879 v Sapientse, v Rime. Translated from German. Sankt-Peterburg: tip. E. Mettsiga, 1879. La fisiologia e le scienze sorelle: prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale nella Sapienza di Roma, pronunziata il dì 11 gennaio 1879 da Jac. Moleschott. Torino: Loescher, 1879. “Über das Wachstum der Horngebilde des menschlichen Körpers und die damit verbundene Stickstoffausgabe”. Untersuchungen, 12 (1879): 187-238. “Über den Einfluss gemischten und farbigen Lichtes auf die Aufscheidung der Kohlensäure bei Thieren”. Untersuchungen, 12 (1879): 266-428. “Über den Wassergehalt einiger Horngewebe des menschlichen Körpers”. Untersuchungen, 12 (1879): 175-186. “Sull’influenza della luce mista e cromatica nell’esalazione di acido carbonico per l’organismo animale: ricerche istituite nel laboratorio di fisiologia dellʼUniversità di Torino da Jac. Moleschott e S. Fubini” (with Simone Fubini). Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 15 (1879): 55-219. Published also separately (Torino: Stemperia Reale, 1879). 1880 Abolizione graduale della tassa di macinazione del grano: discorso pronunziato al Senato nella tornata del 17 gennaio 1880 da Jacopo Moleschott. Roma: tip. del Senato, 1880.

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Chi è il dottor Simone Fubini? Roma: Forzani e C., 1880. Veder nascere: prolusione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale, pronunziata il 5 novembre 1878 nell’Università di Torino da Jac. Moleschott. Torino: Loescher, 1880. 1881 Kleine Schriften. 1880-1881. Giessen: Roth, 1881. La circulación de la vida: cartas sobre la fisiología en contestación a las Cartas sobre la química de Liebig, por Jac. Moleschott; obra traducida al castellano por A. Ocina y Aparicio. Madrid: Saturnino Calleja, 1881. Sugli attributi generali de’ nervi: introduzione al corso di fisiologia sperimentale, letta il 16 gennaio 1881 da Jac. Moleschott. Torino: Loescher, 1881. 1882 Carlo Roberto Darwin: commemorazione pronunziata a nome degli studenti dellʼUniversità di Roma, nel giorno 25 di giugno 1882 da Jac. Moleschott. Torino: Loescher, 1882. Ein Blick ins Innere der Natur. Giessen: Roth, 1882. “Karel Darwin”. De Gids, 46 (1882): 324-350. Karl Robert Darwin. Denkrede gehalten im Collegio Romano im Namen der Studierenden der Hochschule zu Rom. Giessen: Roth, 1882. “L’uso dello iodoformio nel diabete mellito”. Bollettino della Regia Accademia Medica di Roma, 7 (1882): 83-92. Über die allgemeinen Lebenseigenschaften der Nerven: Rede bei der Eröffnung des neuen anatomisch-physiologischen Instituts an der Universität zu Rom am 16. Januar 1881 gehalten. Giessen: Roth, 1882. 1883 Hermann Hettner’s Morgenroth. Giessen: Roth, 1883. “Prefazione” to Landois, Leonard. Trattato di Fisiologia dellʼuomo con Istologia, Anatomia Microscopica e considerazioni speciali di Medicina Pratica; trad. migliorata e accr. del dottore Balduino Bocci; con pref. del prof. Jac Moleschott. Milano: F. Vallardi, 1883. “Sulla razione del soldato italiano: relazione di Jac. Moleschott”. Rivista militare italiana (1883): 5-31. Sullʼoperato della Commissione giudicatrice del concorso alla cattedra di Clinica medica di Torino e sul successivo cambiamento nel regolamento per lʼelezione di simili Commissioni: parole del senatore Moleschott pronunziate in Senato nella tornata del 7 luglio 1883. Roma: Forzani e C., 1883. 1884 Dobrá rada a útěcha v dobách cholery. Od Jak. Moleschotta; do češtiny přeložil A.K.. V Praze: Tiskem a nákladem knihtiskárny dr. Ed. Grégra, 1884. “Francesco De Sanctis”. De Gids, 48 (1884): 335-338. “Francesco De Sanctis”. Nuova antologia, 73 (1884): 3-6.

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“Sulla reazione chimica dei muscoli striati e di diverse parti del sistema nervoso in istato di riposo e dopo il lavoro” (with Attilio Battistini). Atti della Regia Accademia di Scienze di Torino, 20 (1884): 91-146. Sulla scelta dei professori. Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato in Senato nella tornata del 21 giugno 1884. Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1884. Sulla signorina Lidia Poët e sul diritto delle donne di esercitare lʼavvocatura. Discorso del Senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziato in Senato nella tornata del 23 giugno 1884. Roma: Forzani e C., Tip. del Senato, 1884. 1885 Die internationale Sanitätskonferenz in Rom 24. Mai.-13. Juni 1885. Wien, 1885 [cf. Wiener medicinische Wochenschrift, 36, 37, 38]. La conferencia sanitaria internacional de Roma. Roma: Tipografia Metastasio. La conferenza sanitaria internazionale di Roma 20 maggio-13 giugno 1885 (note sintetiche di Jac. Moleschott). Torino: Loescher, 1885. “L’œuvre de la conférence sanitaire de Rome”. Revue scientifique, 11 (1885): 321323. 1886 Discours prononcés dans la séance d’ouverture (17 novembre 1885) et à la conclusion (25 novembre 1885) du premier Congrès international d’anthropologie criminelle à Rome [opening speech: 1-3 ; concluding speech: 2-5]. Rome: Ippolito Sciolla imprimeur du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, 1886. “Due lettere di Tommasi e Moleschott”, published in Il Corriere del Mattino, Napoli, 4 Gennaio 1883, anno XIV n. 8, and Il Corriere della Sera, Milano, 6 Gennaio 1886, anno XI n. 6 Onori parentali a Filippo Pacini (23 agosto 1885, Pistoia): Discorso. Pistoia: Tip. Cino dei Fratelli Bracali, 1886. 1887 “Bij een feest van de wetenschap”. Redevoering, uitgesproken bij de plechtige heropening der lessen aan de koninklijke Universiteit te Rome, op 3 November 1887. De Gids, 51 (1887): 514-525. Modificazioni alla Legge sullʼistruzione superiore, e commemorazione del senatore Francesco Magni: Discorsi del senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziati in Senato nelle tornate del 29 novembre, 14, 15, 16 e 17 dicembre 1886, 20 e 21 gennaio e 5 febbraio 1887. Roma: Tip. Forzani e C., 1887. Relazione e discorso del senatore Jac. Moleschott sulla istituzione di una cattedra dantesca (15 e 23 giugno 1887). Roma: Forzani e c., tipografi del Senato, 1887. 1888 Commemorazione del senatore Salvatore Tommasi: parole del senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziate nella tornata del 20 luglio 1888. Roma: Forzani e C., tipografi del Senato, 1888. “Francesco Cornelio Donders”. La nuova antologia, 17 (1888): 192-212. “Franciscus Cornelius Donders”. De Gids, 52 (1888): 221-222.

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Franciscus Cornelius Donders: Festgruss zum 27. Mai 1888. Giessen: Roth, 1888. Per una Festa della scienza: Discorso pronunziato nellʼinaugurazione degli studi nella R. Università di Roma addì 3 novembre 1887. Torino: Loescher, 1888. Progetto di modificazioni alla legge comunale e provinciale 20 marzo 1865: sul diritto delle donne di prender parte alle elezioni amministrative. Roma: Forzani e C. tip. del Senato, 1888. Sul codice penale: parole dette in senato da Jac. Moleschott. Roma: Forzani, 1888. “The Unity of Science”. Popular Science Monthly, 33 (1888): 520-527. “Über die chemische Reaction der quergestreiften Muskeln und verschiedener Theile des Nervensystems während der Ruhe und nach der Arbeit” (with Attilio Battistini). Untersuchungen, 13 (1888): 275-326. Zur Feier der Wissenschaft. Rede gehalten bei der Wiedereröffnung der Universität zu Rom am 3. November, 1887. Giessen: Roth, 1888. 1889 “De oprichting van het standbeeld voor Giordano Bruno”. In Giordano Bruno, een martelaar der vrije gedachte. E. Morselli et al.; vrij bewerkt naar het Italiaansch door J. van den Ende; voorw. van Jac. Moleschott, 82-85. Amsterdam: Vereeniging “De Dageraad”, 1889. “Scettici e convinti”. La nuova antologia, 19 (1889): 632 ff. 1890 Opere pie. Parole del senatore Jac. Moleschott pronunziate in senato nella tornata del 24 aprile 1890. Roma: Forzani e C., 1890. “Salvatore Tommasi e la riforma della medicina in Italia”. La nuova antologia, 29 (1891): 610 ff. “Vorwortˮ to Luciani, Luigi. Das Hungern: Studien und Experimente am Menschen. Mit einem Vorwort von Jac. Moleschott. Autorisierte Übersetzung von M. O. Fraenkel. Hamburg-Leipzig: Voss, 1890. 1891 “Salvatore Tommasi und das Aufleben der Arzneiwissenschaft in Italien”. Klinisches Jahrbuch, 3 (1891): 3-31. 1892 “Über die Erzeugung von Nagelstoff an Händen und Füssen”. Untersuchungen, 15 (1892): 1-11. 1893 Hirschberg, Henriette. Ein neues Heilmittel für Magenkranken. 2. Aufl. M. e. Schreiben v. Prof. Dr. Jac. Moleschott-Rom an d. Vf. Berlin: H. Brieger, 1893.

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1894 Discorso del prof. Jacopo Moleschott (Feste giubilari in onore del prof. Jacopo Moleschott, in Roma il giorno 16 dicembre 1892). Roma: Tip. delle Mantellate, 1894. Also published as: “Allocuzione di Jacopo Moleschott pronunciata alla Sapienza di Roma il 16 dicembre 1892 per le feste giubilari in onore di lui”, in Moleschott, Per gli amici miei. Ricordi autobiografici, translated by Elsa PatriziMoleschott, 302-312. Palermo, Milano: Remo Sandron, 1902. Für meine Freunde. Lebens-Erinnerungen von Jacob Moleschott. Giessen: Roth, 1894. Preface to Antisemiten-Hammer. Eine Anthologie aus der Weltlitteratur. Mit einem Vorwort von Jacob Moleschott und einer Einleitung von Josef Schrattenholz, [3]6 (Rome, June 25, 1892). Düsseldorf: Ed. Lintz, 1894. Rede bei seiner Jubiläumsfeier in Rom am 16. December 1892. Giessen: Roth, 1894. 1895 Voor mijne vrienden. Herinneringen uit mijn leven. Translated by R.E. de Haan. Arnhem: P. Gouda Quint, 1895. 1902 Per gli amici miei. Ricordi autobiografici. Translated by Elsa Patrizi-Moleschott. Palermo, Milano: Remo Sandron, 1902.

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--, In memoria di Jacopo Moleschott. Roma: Tip. delle Mantellate, 1894. Anonymous. Die neue Köchin. Von der Verfasserin des Kochbuches “Lina”: Die Köchin wie sie sein soll und muss, bereits in sechs starken Auflagen erschienen; 888 auserlesene Speiserezepte und 84 Speisezettel mit Hinweisung und Berechnung nach jeder Jahreszeit; besondere Anleitungen nach Liebig und Moleschott. Augsburg: Jenisch und Stage, 1857. Bischoff, Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von. Selbstbiographie. Kiel: s.n., 1925. Brewster, David. The Martyrs of Science: Or, The Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1860. Büchner, Ludwig. Darwinismus und Sozialismus, oder der Kampf um das Dasein und die moderne Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Günthers, 1894. Büchner, Ludwig. Forza e materia. Translated by Luigi Steanoni. Milano: Brigola, 1868. Büchner, Ludwig. Kraft und Stoff. Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien. In allgemein-verständlicher Darstellung. Frankfurt am Main: Meidinger, 1855. Büchner, Ludwig. Review of “Vie et Lumière”. Revue des cours scientifiques, 12 (1865), 43: 703-705. Colasanti, Giuseppe. “Jacob Moleschott, der Begründer der ‘Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere’”. Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der Thiere, 15 (1892): 1-11. De Sanctis, Francesco. Epistolario (1861-1862). Torino: Einaudi, 1969. Direzione generale della sanità pubblica. Farmacopea Ufficiale del regno d’Italia. Roma: Tip. delle Mantellate, 1892. Donders, Franciscus C. De harmonie van het dierlijke leven. De openbaring van wetten. Utrecht: Van der Post, 1848. Dr. X [possibly Berthold Auerbach, L.M.]. “Dr. Moleschott’s Lehre der Nahrungsmittel”. Didaskalia. Blätter für Geist, Gemüth und Publizität, 30 (Januar-Juni 1852): [101]-[102]. Du Bois-Reymond, Emil. Reden von Emil Du Bois-Reymond. Mit einer Gedächtnisrede von Julius Rosenthal, ed. by Estelle Du Bois-Reymond, 2nd edition. Leipzig: Veit, 1912. Feuerbach, Ludwig. Briefwechsel, III (1845-1852), vol. 19 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Werner Schuffenhauer. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993. Feuerbach, Ludwig. Briefwechsel, IV (1853-1861), vol. 20 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Werner Schuffenhauer. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993. Feuerbach, Ludwig. “Das Geheimnis des Opfers oder Der Mensch ist, was er ißt” (Leipzig 1866). In Ludwig Feuerbach, Kleinere Schriften, IV (1851-1866), vol. 11 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Werner Schuffenhauer, 26-52. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972.

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Feuerbach, Ludwig. “Die Naturwissenschaft und die Revolution” (Leipzig 1850). In Ludwig Feuerbach, Kleinere Schriften, III (1846-1850), vol. 10 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Werner Schuffenhauer, 347-368. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971. Feuerbach, Ludwig. “Die Unsterblichkeitsfrage vom Standpunkt der Anthropologie” (Leipzig 1847). In Ludwig Feuerbach, Kleinere Schriften, III (1846-1850), vol. 10 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Werner Schuffenhauer, 192-284. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971. Feuerbach, Ludwig. Kleinere Schriften, III (1846-1850), vol. 10 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Werner Schuffenhauer. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971. Feuerbach, Ludwig. Kleinere Schriften, IV (1851-1866), vol. 11 of Gesammelte Werke, ed. Werner Schuffenhauer. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972. Fioretti, Giulio. I pregiudizi popolari su la nuova scuola penale di fronte ai risultati del congresso antropologico. Conferenza detta al Circolo filologico di Napoli il giorno 10 gennaio 1886 da Giulio Fioretti. Napoli: Enrico Detken, 1886. Helmholtz, Hermann von. “On the Conservation of Force; A Physical Memoir”. In Scientific Memoirs, selected from the transactions of foreign academies of science, and from foreign journals. Natural Philosophy. Ed. by John Tyndall and William Francis, 114-162. London: Taylor & Francis, 1853. Helmholtz, Hermann von. Über die Erhaltung der Kraft. Berlin: Reimer, 1847. Herwerden, Marie Anne van. “Een vriendschap tusschen drie physiologen”. De Gids, 78 (1914): 448-498. Hettner, Hermann. Literaturgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. In 3 Teilen. Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1856. Hölderlin, Friedrich. Über den Unterschied der Dichtarten [summer 1800 or later]. In Sämtliche Werke, vol. 4, ed. by Friedrich Beißner, 277-285. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1962. Hoeve, Jan van der. Handbuch der Zoologie; translated after the second Dutch edition by Jac[ob] Moleschott. Düsseldorf: Bötticher, 1845. Humboldt, Alexander von. Alexander von Humboldt über das Universum. Die Kosmosvorträge 1827/28 in der Berliner Singakademie [1827-28], ed. by Jürgen Hamel, Klaus-Harro Tiemann, in collaboration with Martin Pape. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1993. Humboldt, Alexander von. Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung, vol. 1-5. Stuttgart, Tübingen: Cotta, 1845-1862. Humboldt, Wilhelm von. “Über die innere und äußere Organisation der höheren wissenschaftlichen Anstalten in Berlin (1810)”, in Von der Französischen Revolution bis zum Wiener Kongreß 1789-1815, vol. 6 of Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung, ed. by Walter Demel and Uwe Puschner, 382-391. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995. Kapp, Ernst. Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik. Braunschweig: George Westermann, 1877.

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