MANTEGAZZA, PAOLO. – Anthropologist, hygienist, and writer, born in Monza on 31 October 1831, died at S. Terenzo (Liguria) on 26 August 1910. After graduating in medicine at Pavia, he travelled through Europe and Latin America to study customs and races. Having obtained a chair at the University of Pavia, he founded there the first laboratory of general pathology and, after moving to Florence, the first museum of anthropology.
Through popular writings, almanacs, and journals, he disseminated his theories. He was a convinced supporter of Darwinism, which he applied in his research and advocated in his writings; but some of his scientific lessons amounted to an Epicurean sensualism. He achieved a certain success, and it seemed, wrongly, that his pages represented a victory of secularism over clerical prejudices; in the end, however, they harmed the rigor of science. He advocated neo-Malthusianism and free love, accepted divorce, polygamy, and also polyandry.
A deputy from 1865 to 1876 and subsequently a senator, he left autobiographical material in Ricordi politici di un fantaccino di Montecitorio (1896). He wrote two novels: Un giorno a Madera and Il Dio ignoto (1876). Of his other works, the following are expressly placed on the Index: Elementi d'igiene, decree of 22 March 1869; Gli amori degli uomini, decree of 25 June 1886; Fisiologia dell'amore, decree of 25 June 1886; Igiene dell'amore, decrees of 25 June 1886 and 14 July 1892; L'arte di prender moglie, decree of 14 July 1892; Fisiologia dell'odio, decree of 14 July 1892; Fisiologia della donna, decree of 14 July
