Focus: The Black Legend of Maria Montessori

On Tuesday, March 19th, the fourth event of the series of meetings organized by the "Manlio Cecovini Study Society" took place.

The guest of the day was Andrea Dessardo, professor of History of Pedagogy and Children's Literature at the European University of Rome, who delved into a very important aspect of Maria Montessori's figure, namely the "black legend" that flourished around her and formed the basis of the many reservations expressed towards her in Italy in the 1900s.

Dessardo retraced the main biographical stages of Montessori, fundamental to understanding her importance. After graduating in medicine, a training encouraged by her father, in 1899 she turned to pedagogy and joined the Theosophical Society, to which she remained attached in the years to come and which accompanied her until her death in the Netherlands in 1952.

With the shift of her interests towards education, she obtained her teaching qualification in 1904 and in 1906, on the recommendation of Edoardo Talamo, she opened the first "Casa dei Bambini" in Rome. Here she met the barons Alice and Leopoldo Franchetti who encouraged her to put into writing what would later become the first edition of her famous Method. The success was immediate and rapid, both in Italy and abroad, and crossed all political classes occupying positions of power: from eminent figures of Freemasonry (including the mayor of Rome Ernesto Nathan) to positivists, from Catholic modernists to fascists who initially supported her only to oppose her later, forcing her to leave Italy in 1934.

Moving to India as a guest of the Theosophical Society, Montessori drew some insights for her later works from Theosophy, including the key concept of "cosmic education."

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