Abstract
In light of recent historiographic guidelines that have identified machines as the prime means by which the Industrial Revolution spread to the Italian countryside, this article explains the works and studies of Antonio Lo Re (1857-1920). With his ability to combine teaching, scientific research, and technological applications in a complex district like the Italian Captainate, Lo Re played a leading role not only in the agrarian science of his times, but also in related technologies, with particular attention to the machinery that the increasingly flourishing European—and, to a more modest extent, also Italian—industry in the second half of the 19th century devoted to agricultural production. Moreover, his manuals contain valuable sketches and drawings useful in reconstructing the history of agricultural machinery of the period.
Highlights
In light of recent historiographic guidelines that have identified machines as the prime means by which the Industrial Revolution spread to the Italian countryside, this article explains the works and studies of Antonio Lo Re (18571920)
With his ability to combine teaching, scientific research, and technological applications in a complex district like the Italian Captainate, Lo Re played a leading role in the agrarian science of his times, and in related technologies, with particular attention to the machinery that the increasingly flourishing European—and, to a more modest extent, Italian—industry in the second half of the 19th century devoted to agricultural production
Traetta scholar was so involved (Lo Re, 1898b); placing a bust with a memorial plaque in the atrium of the Pietro Giannone Institute where Lo Re taught for more than three decades; and lastly dedicating a classroom to him at the University of Foggia’s Department of Agricultural Sciences. Known among his contemporaries for his studies in the field of agronomy and for his commitment in the political and social fields, in addition to his long career as a teacher in high schools, which saw him working as the author of school manuals that were widely adopted in the classrooms of a large number of Italian institutes, Antonio Lo Re had a deep interest in technologies related to agricultural sciences, with particular attention to the machinery that the increasingly flourishing European—and, to a more modest extent, Italian—industry in the second half of the 19th century devoted to agricultural production, in the most authentic spirit of Positivism
Summary
“A highly intelligent man, well-educated in science and the humanities, an enthusiastic scholar with a vast knowledge of the climatic, geological, historical, and social conditions of the entire region of Apulia and of the Captainate in particular”— did Benedetto Biagi, an intellectual from Foggia, describe Antonio Lo Re—whom he had known personally—shortly after the latter’s death (Biagi, 1930: p. 11). Traetta scholar was so involved (Lo Re, 1898b); placing a bust with a memorial plaque in the atrium of the Pietro Giannone Institute where Lo Re taught for more than three decades; and lastly dedicating a classroom to him at the University of Foggia’s Department of Agricultural Sciences Known among his contemporaries for his studies in the field of agronomy and for his commitment in the political and social fields, in addition to his long career as a teacher in high schools, which saw him working as the author of school manuals that were widely adopted in the classrooms of a large number of Italian institutes, Antonio Lo Re had a deep interest in technologies related to agricultural sciences, with particular attention to the machinery that the increasingly flourishing European—and, to a more modest extent, Italian—industry in the second half of the 19th century devoted to agricultural production, in the most authentic spirit of Positivism. It is to this sector of his research that this contribution looks, which aims to shed light on a front of Lo Re’s works still rather in the shade, so as to fully reconstruct the multifaceted personality of man and scholar
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