On their fathers’ trail: Cesare Lombroso and Benedetto Croce in the words of Gina Lombroso and Elena Croce.

Aspects, models, the construction of the other, and of oneself

Abstract

The power of paternal evocation comes together in this biography as told by two daughters: the intellectuals Gina Lombroso and Elena Croce, who had great impact on the Italian cultural debate between the 19th and 20th centuries. Through the delineation of the personalities of Cesare Lombroso and Benedetto Croce, as emerges from their life experiences as scholars, through the distictive lexis of paternal love. In this analysis of the two biographies (G. Lombroso, Cesare Lombroso, storia della vita e delle opere, 1915; and E. Croce, Ricordi familiari, 1962) the paternal relationship is investigated from two perspectives, one specifically related to paternal pedagogy and its role in the intellectual education of Gina ed Elena respectively, and the second, no less important, reveals the subtle intertwining of biography and autobiography, as it emerges through the lengthy narration. The revisitation of the paternal experience as a means of the reconstruction of both personality and creative individuality (the individual finding itself in the work and through the work itself, as hoped for by Croce in Lo specchio della biografia, 1960), at same time has an almost ‘collateral effect’ of providing testimony and a valuable autobiographical insight. So that their studies not only reflects the urgency of providing written testimony of the paternal impact, but in so doing, also provide vivid insight into themselves, as intellectuals, as daughters and as 'etero - auto -biografe'. This interaction with the model in a play of identification and differentation thereby creating a fascinating outline which reveals the evolution of the literary genre of the autobiography in the period between the 19th and 20th centuries, captured in the highly unique setting of two daughters, each ‘looking for’ their father.