Emilio Bodrero at the crossroads of fascism and the crisis of psychology

: This article aims to analyze how fascism influenced the crisis of Italian psychology, a phenomenon already highlighted in historiographical literature (Hatfield, 2012; Lombardo, 2014, 2015; Mandler, 2011; Mülberger, 2014a, 2014b; Sturm & Mülberger, 2012). Fascism shaped Italian culture by establishing a regime that ultimately denied fundamental constitutional rights, such as freedom of association and political pluralism, and by shifting cultural orientations. Initially rooted in a secular and anticlerical framework, the regime later granted Catholicism a special status, formalized through agreements with the Catholic Church in 1929 (the Lateran Pacts). During this period, key figures in Italian intellectual life, such as Emilio Bodrero (1874-1949)-a nationalist philosopher, rector of the University of Padua, and Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education-rose to prominence. This article will examine his correspondence with psychologists, highlighting how the crisis of Italian psychology was a microhistorical aspect of a broader transformation occurring at the macrolevel across Italian society during the fascist era. Ultimately, the shifts in psychology during Bodrero's tenure coincided with the discipline's wider crisis in Italy. Studying his case may provide an empirical lens for understanding the historiographical concept of crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).