PARRAVICINI, Luigi ALESSANDRO. - Pedagogue, born in Milan in 1800, died in Venice on 4 August 1880.
Director for 16 years of the elementary schools in Como, he spent three autumns (1837-39) in the Canton of Ticino, called there by that government to give lessons in methodology.
Parocchi, Lucido Maria - Portrait.
Then in 1842 he was transferred to Venice, where he became director of the technical school. He certainly played an important part in the educational movement of the Risorgimento, though without any particular political overtones. The fruit of his teaching is the *Manuale di pedagogia e metodica generale* (2 vols., Locarno 1842-45), in which he echoes the recent doctrines of Girard, Pestalozzi and Milde; and in a purely empirical manner, but with much good sense and experience, he was the first to outline a systematic picture of the doctrine of education and to lay down detailed rules for a total education of all the pupil’s faculties, within the ordinary framework of physical, intellectual, aesthetic and moral education. Greater fame, however, came to him from *Il Giannetto* (Como 1837), which won the competition announced in 1833 by the Società Fiorentina for an elementary schoolbook that would serve “as a means of reading and moral instruction.” Indeed, with real-life figures and vivid recollections drawn from our history, it seeks to instil in children the desire to perfect themselves, overcome difficulties and follow new discoveries. Yet the moral aim is too much superimposed, without blending, on the instructional aim. Among Italian and foreign editions it reached over 65, remaining the most widely used and effectively formative textbook for youth in schools until the appearance and propagation of *Cuore* by E. De Amicis.