Giovanni Vailati Personal Library

This collection contains the extensive research library of Giovanni Vailati (1863-1909), a key figure in Italian Pragmatism. After a brief university career, he moved into secondary school teaching.

The collection comprises approximately 2,600 titles reflecting the wide-ranging interests of this thinker. His works span philosophy, mathematical logic, the history of science, and political economy. Included are rare and significant late 19th- and early 20th-century editions, many of great bibliographic value. The most cohesive part consists of works on logic, philosophy of language, and mathematics. Alongside these are a substantial number of general works on philosophy, history and literature in Latin, Italian, English, French, German, and Russian. Of note is the presence of texts by both ancient and modern moral philosophers, as well as religious texts and literary or poetic works, which Vailati used in his research on logical-linguistic structures.

Also part of the collection is a set of 72 serials. Alongside philosophy journals, there are titles in pedagogy, mathematics, natural sciences, as well as social and political sciences. In most cases, these are single issues or annual volumes; only a few titles are represented by more substantial runs. The inclusion of pedagogical journals and numerous school textbooks and didactic-pedagogical studies is explained by Vailati’s involvement, in 1905, in the Ministerial Commission tasked with reforming secondary education.

The collection is listed on the Biblioteche dei Filosofi website, the Italian portal gathering catalogues of modern and contemporary philosophers’ libraries, while the archival section has been recorded in the Archivio storico della psicologia italiana (ASPI).

Biography of Giovanni Vailati

1863: Giovanni Vailati is born in Crema to Vincenzo Vailati and Teresa Albergoni.

1874: He enters the Collegio di San Francesco in Lodi, which was run by the Barnabite Fathers, as a boarder.

1880: He enrols in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Turin, graduating in engineering and pure mathematics.

1888: He returns to Crema and dedicates himself to studying modern languages while cultivating various cultural interests, particularly music, with a preference for Bach and Wagner.

1892: At the invitation of the mathematician Giuseppe Peano, he becomes assistant in infinitesimal calculus at the University of Turin.

1895: He is appointed assistant in projective geometry and later honorary assistant to Prof. Vito Volterra.

1896: He turns his attention to research in the history of science.

1896–1899: He delivers three free courses on the history of mechanics; the programmes and three inaugural lectures remain.

1899: He voluntarily leaves university teaching and requests to work in secondary education. He teaches mathematics at the private high school in Pinerolo, then at the high school in Siracusa. During his time in Sicily, he meets the philosopher Franz Brentano.

1900: At the beginning of the school year, he is transferred to the Technical Institute in Bari. In the summer, he attends the International Congresses of Philosophy and Psychology in Paris.

1901: In October, he is transferred to Como.

1902: He travels to Austria to stay with Franz Brentano’s family for a period.

1903: He takes part in the International Historical Congress in Rome and spends the summer in London and Cambridge.

1904: Alongside Mario Calderoni and Giovanni Papini, he participates in the International Congress of Philosophy in Geneva. He is appointed to teach at the Galileo Technical Institute in Florence and is commissioned by the Accademia dei Lincei to edit the national edition of E. Torricelli’s works.

1905: In November, he is appointed to the Royal Commission for the reform of secondary schools and moves to Rome.

1906: He travels to Paris with Calderoni and Papini.

1908: He attends the International Congresses of Philosophy in Heidelberg and of Mathematics in Rome. In December, he falls ill while in Florence.

1909: Hoping to recover, he moves to Rome, but his condition worsens. He dies on the evening of 14 May.

Bibliography by Giovanni Vailati

Scritti di G. Vailati, 1863-1909, Leipzig, J. A. Barth, Firenze, Successori B. Seeber, 1911
con M. Calderoni; Il pragmatismo; a cura di Giovanni Papini, Lanciano, R. Carabba, 1920
Il metodo della filosofia; saggi scelti a cura di F. Rossi-Landi, Bari, Laterza, 1957
Scritti di metodologia scientifica e di analisi del linguaggio; introduzione e note di Michele F. Sciacca, Milano, Principato, 1959
Epistolario, 1891-1909; a cura di Giorgio Lanaro; introduzione di Mario Dal Pra; con un Ricordo di Giovanni Vailati di Luigi Einaudi, Torino, Einaudi, 1971
Scritti filosofici; a cura di Giorgio Lanaro, Napoli, Rossi, 1972
Antonio Gramsci; testi di Vailati ... [et al.] Scritti 1915-1921. Inediti dal Grido del popolo e dall'Avanti con una antologia dal Grido del Popolo; a cura di Sergio Caprioglio, Milano, Moizzi, 1976
Scritti, a cura di Mario Quaranta, Sala Bolognese, A. Forni, 1987 (3 volumi)
G. Vailati, G. Amato Pojero, Epistolario, 1898-1908; a cura di Antonio Brancaforte, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1993
Il metodo della filosofia. Saggi di critica del linguaggio; a cura di Ferruccio Rossi Landi, Bari, Graphis, 2000
Gli strumenti della ragione; a cura di Mario Quaranta, Padova, Il poligrafo, 2003
Logic and pragmatism. Selected essays, Claudia Arrighi ... [et al.] (a cura di); Claudia Arrighi (tra-dotto da), Stanford, CSLI, 2010
Benedetto Croce, Giovanni Vailati, Carteggio (1899-1905); a cura di Cinzia Rizza, Roma, Bonanno, 2006
Scritti dal Leonardo; a cura di Luca Natali, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 2024

Bibliography on Giovanni Vailati

Giuseppe Peano, In Memoriam di Giovanni Vailati, in “Bollettino di matematica”, 8 (1909), pp. 206-7.
Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Nota introduttiva a Giovanni Vailati, Il metodo della filosofia. Saggi di critica del linguaggio, Bari, Laterza 1957.
Eugenio Garin, Giovanni Vailati nella cultura italiana del suo tempo, in “Rivista critica di storia della filosofia”, n. 3, 1963, pp. 275-293.
Antonio Santucci, Il pragmatismo in Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1963.
Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Giovanni Vailati, in P. Edwards (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Collier Macmillan, 1967.
Giorgio Lanaro, Introduzione a Giovanni Vailati, Scritti filosofici, Napoli, Fulvio Rossi, 1972.
Mario Dal Pra, Studi sul pragmatismo italiano, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 1984.
E. Bianco, Il problema morale nella coscienza filosofica di Giovanni Vailati, in “Filosofia oggi”, 1985, pp. 655-692.
Mario Quaranta (a cura di), Giovanni Vailati nella cultura del '900, Sala Bolognese, A. Forni, 1989.
Maria Assunta Del Torre, Mauro M. De Zan, Luisa Ronchetti, Su Giovanni Vailati, in “Rivista di storia della filosofia”, 2000, pp. 105-111.
Ivor Grattan-Guinness, The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870–1940, Princeton University Press, 2000.
Roberto Spirito, Giovanni Vailati. Il senso della scienza, Roma, SEAM, 2000.
Mauro De Zan (a cura di), I mondi di carta di Giovanni Vailati, Milano, F. Angeli, 2000.
Fabio Minazzi (a cura di), Giovanni Vailati intellettuale europeo, Atti del Convegno di Spongano (Lecce), 12 aprile 2003, in appendice il carteggio inedito di Giovanni Vailati con Vito Volterra, Milano, Thélema, 2006.
Massimo Ferrari, Non solo idealismo. Filosofi e filosofie in Italia tra Ottocento e Novecento, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2006, pp. 141-204.
Mauro De Zan, 1909-2009 : cent'anni di edizioni di studi vailatiani, in “Annuario del Centro studi Giovanni Vailati”, 2008-2009, pp. 75-93.
Ivan Pozzoni (a cura di), Cent'anni di Giovanni Vailati, Villasanta, Liminamentis, 2009.
Mauro De Zan, La formazione di Giovanni Vailati, Galatina, Congedo, 2009.
Massimo Ferrari, Heidelberg 1908. Giovanni Vailati, Wilhem Jerusalem e il pragmatismo americano, in “Giornale critico della filosofia italiana”, 2010, pp. 9-31.
C. Arrighi, P. Cantù, M. De Zan, P. Suppes (a cura di), Logic and Pragmatism. Selected Essays by Giovanni Vailati, CSLI, Stanford, California, 2010.
Gabriella Sava, La psicologia tra Vailati e Brentano, in “Il Veltro”, n. 1-2, gennaio-aprile 2010 (LIV), pp. 41-59.
Martina Del Castello, Giulio. A. Lucchetta (a cura di), Papini, Vailati e la Cultura dell'anima: Atti dei convegni di studio, Chieti, maggio 2009 e gennaio 2010, Lanciano, Carabba, 2011.
Fabio Minazzi, Giovanni Vailati epistemologo e maestro, Milano, Mimesis, 2011.
Massimo Mugnai, VAILATI, Giovanni, in «Treccani. Il Contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Filosofia», Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012.
Giovanni Maddalena Giovanni Tuzet, Giovanni Vailati and the Art of Reasoning in Giovanni Maddalena and Giovanni Tuzet, (a cura di), The Italian Pragmatists. Between Allies and Enemies, Brill, 2020, pp. 1-16.