Antonio Banfi e Daria Malaguzzi Valeri Personal Library

The volumes, acquired along with the archival collection in December 2011, include works by Antonio Banfi, his speeches in Parliament, and texts by authors and scholars with whom he was in contact (Adelchi Baratono, Remo Cantoni, Mario Dal Pra, Dino Formaggio, Clemente Rebora…). Many of the items feature handwritten dedications.

Biography of Antonio Banfi

Antonio Banfi (1886–1957) graduated in Literature from the Royal Scientific-Literary Academy of Milan in 1908, under the supervision of Francesco Novati, with a dissertation in Romance philology on Francesco da Barberino. In 1909 he earned a doctorate in Philosophy with a thesis entitled “Critical Essays on the Philosophy of Contingency,” on the thought of Boutroux, Renouvier and Bergson, which he discussed with Piero Martinetti, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the same academy. Thanks to a scholarship, he enrolled with his friend Confucio Cotti in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Friedrich Wilhelms Universität in Berlin, where he became friends with the socialist Andrea Caffi. In 1911 he returned to Italy and took part in various competitive exams, securing teaching posts in several cities (Lanciano, Urbino, Jesi), and eventually at the Piana Secondary School in Alessandria, where he remained from 1913 until 1926, the year he transferred to the Parini Secondary School in Milan. In 1925 he was one of the signatories of Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. While continuing to teach, Banfi devoted himself to intense scholarly work, earning his habilitation on 9 December 1924. In the spring of 1923, he met Edmund Husserl during a visit to Italy and remained in contact with the philosopher for the rest of his life.

In 1931, he won the competition for the Chair of History of Philosophy at the University of Genoa. The following year, he was appointed to the same chair in Milan, where he was also entrusted with the teaching of Aesthetics. In Milan, Banfi attracted a group of philosophers and writers (Cantoni, Paci, Preti, Sereni, Anceschi, Rognoni, Abate) known as the “Milan School”.

In 1940 he founded the journal Studi filosofici and in 1941 joined the underground Communist Party. After the fall of Fascism, he was one of the promoters of the Manifesto for the Abolition of Racial and Political Discrimination. As President of the University CLN (National Liberation Committee), he founded a clandestine teachers’ association, collaborated with Eugenio Curiel in establishing the Youth Front, and wrote for the underground newspapers l’Unità and La nostra lotta.

After 1945, Banfi founded the Fronte della cultura (from which the Casa della cultura in Milan later originated), combining his academic work with political engagement. In 1948, standing for the “Popular Democratic Front”, he was elected senator for the Abbiategrasso constituency. He was a member of the Senate’s sixth commission for Public Education. On 7 June 1953, he was re-elected to the Senate for the second Cremona constituency. During these years, he undertook numerous political and study trips to Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Poland, as well as the USSR and China.

Until his death, he combined his university teaching with many other roles: Milan city councillor, member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party, member of the Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, academician of the Lincei, Vice President of the International Federation of Teachers’ Trade Unions, President of the sociological section of the Social Prevention Centre, Vice President of the Italian Philosophical Society, member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, board member of the European Society of Culture, President of the Italy–USSR Association, member of the Study Centre for China, and member of the Thomas Mann Committee. He passed away in Milan in the summer of 1957, surrounded by his wife, son, and closest students.

Essential bibliography by Antonio Banfi

• La filosofia e la vita spirituale, Milano, Isis, 1922.
• Principi di una teoria della ragione, Firenze, la Nuova Italia, 1926.
• Pestalozzi, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1929.
• Vita di Galileo Galilei, Lanciano, R. Carabba, 1930.
• Sommario di storia della pedagogia, Milano, A. Mondadori, 1931.
• I classici della pedagogia: Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Capponi, Gabelli, Gentile, Milano, Mondadori, 1932
• Studi filosofici. Rivista trimestrale di filosofia contemporanea, Milano, 1940-1949
• Saggio sul diritto e sullo Stato, Roma, Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto, 1935.
• Per un razionalismo critico, Como, Marzorati, 1943.
• Lezioni di estetica raccolte a cura di Maria Antonietta Fraschini e Ida Vergani, Milano, Istituto Cisalpino, 1945.
• Vita dell'arte, Milano, Minuziano, 1947.
• Galileo Galilei, Milano, Ambrosiana, 1949.
• L'uomo copernicano, Milano, A. Mondadori, 1950.
• (con M. Dal Pra - G. Preti - P. Rossi), La crisi dell'uso dogmatico della ragione, Milano, Bocca, 1953
• La filosofia del settecento, Milano, La Goliardica, 1953.
• La filosofia critica di Kant, Milano, La Goliardica, 1955.
• La filosofia degli ultimi cinquant'anni, Milano, La Goliardica, 1957
• La ricerca della realtà. v. 1, Firenze, Sansoni, 1959
• La ricerca della realtà. v. 2, Firenze, Sansoni, 1959
• Saggi sul marxismo, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1960 (postumo)
• Filosofia dell'arte (a cura di Dino Formaggio, postumo), Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1962

For further studies, see: R. Salemi; introduzione di Mario Dal Pra, Bibliografia banfiana, Parma, Pratiche, 1982.

Essential bibliography on Antonio Banfi

• F. Papi, Il pensiero di Antonio Banfi, Firenze, Parenti, 1961
• F. Papi, Banfi Antonio, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 5 (1963)
• P. Rossi, L'umanità e la filosofia di Antonio Banfi in “Critica marxista”, n. 6 (1977)
• Antonio Banfi tre generazioni dopo. Atti del convegno della Fondazione Corrente, Milano, maggio 1978, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1980
• 1986: Centenario della nascita di Antonio Banfi, Reggio Emilia, Istituto Banfi, 1986
• L. Sichirollo, Attualità di Banfi, Urbino, QuattroVenti, 1986
• L. Eletti, Il problema della persona in Antonio Banfi, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1985
• G. D. Neri, Crisi e costruzione della storia. Sviluppi del pensiero di Antonio Banfi, Napoli, 1988 (seconda edizione)
• P. Valore, Trascendentale e idea di ragione. Studi sulla fenomenologia banfiana, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1999
• G. Trebisacce, La pedagogia tra razionalismo critico e marxismo, Roma, Anicia, 2008
• Id., Antonio Banfi e la pedagogia, Cosenza, Jonia, 2005
• S. Chiodo e G. Scaramuzza (a cura di), Ad Antonio Banfi cinquant'anni dopo, Milano, Unicopli, 2007
• F. Papi, Antonio Banfi. Dal pacifismo alla questione comunista, Como, Ibis, 2007
• A. Di Miele, Antonio Banfi Enzo Paci.  Crisi, eros, prassi, Milano, Mimesis, 2012
• M. Gisondi, Una fede filosofica. Antonio Banfi negli anni della sua formazione, Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2015
• E. Scolozzi, L’archivio segreto di Antonio Banfi. Inventario, Milano, Mimesis, 2024