(October 10, 2016) Why Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, decided to sign a very compromising inscription to Mussolini, the leader of Italian fascism, the dictator who did not hesitate to eliminate his opponents, resorting sometimes to the extreme of murder? The book by Roberto Zapperi "Freud and Mussolini. Psychoanalysis in Italy during the fascist regime" (published by Franco Angeli in 2013, translated into German in 2016) answers this question, explaining why Freud signed his inscription and how it did not prove useful at all. The book will be presented on October 11 in a conference at the Italian Institute of Culture in Berlin (19-20.30), in the presence of the author: the meeting will be host- in Italian and German with simultaneous translation - by Gustav Seibt. Shortly after the inscription of the father of psychoanalysis, it appeared on Mussolini's newspaper, The People of Italy, a very polemic article against Freud, even accused of feeding Bolshevik sympathies. This article by Mussolini repeated accusation launched sometime before by the Osservatore Romano, the organ of the Vatican, which had received his cue from one of the fiercest persecutors of Freud, the German father Wilhelm Schmidt. The book tells how wide was the antifreudian opposition across Europe, but also in Italy, where in 1930 the police headquarters in Rome stood out an arrest warrant against Freud, in case he came to Italy, as he did for so many years. The antifreudian campaign involved even the few Italian psychoanalysts, who luckily survived the fascist persecution, until in 1938 the racial laws silenced them too. (Red)

PROFILE / THE AUTHOR

Roberto Zapperi is an historian. For many years he was editor of the Biographical Dictionary of Italians. He has taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the ETH Zurich. He was "fellow" of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin and Warburghaus of Amburg and is a corresponding member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. He wrote several books, translated into six languages. Among these one must remember: Hannibal Carraci. Portrait of a young artist (Turin, 1989); Eros and Counter-Reformation. Prehistory of the Farnese Gallery (Turin, 1994); A life incognito, Goethe in Rome (Turin, 2001); The wild-gentleman (Rome, 2005); Farewell Mona Lisa. The true story of the Mona Lisa (Florence, 2012).