Rita Levi-Montalcini, one of the most prominent Italian personalities of the twentieth century

Abstract

This was the sentence pronounced by a great number of people on the 2nd January 2013, during the funeral of Rita Levi-Montalcini, in the Monumental Cemetery in Turin, interpreting the opinion of all people in Italy, in Europe and in the World. And in the same way, the Journal Neurological Sciences wants to celebrate and remember her. In fact she was an outstanding personality, that signed our history along all the twentieth century, and after her death at the age of 103, she leaves a memory of symbols to which we have to look as example of life and of high human principles. In fact her humanitarian and scientific activity for all the long life is a special heritage that we have to store in our memory and to transfer to young generations. Born on 22 April 1909 at Turin from an Italian Jewish family, together with her twin sister Paola, she was the youngest of four children. Her parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and Adele Montalcini, an artist. Adamo discouraged his three daughters from attending college, since he was convinced that professional works will give limitations on their lives as wives and mothers. In spite of this, she decided to become a doctor. Remembering when she told to the father her decision, ‘‘He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation,’’ she wrote in her autobiography, ‘‘Elogio dell’Imperfezione’’ (1988). But he also agreed to support her. Rita attended the University of Turin Medical School. During the medical studies, Giuseppe Levi, Professor of Anatomy and Histology, introduced her to the research on developing nervous system. She graduated summa cum laude, and became familiar with two fellow students in the laboratory of Prof. Levi, Renato Dulbecco and Salvador Luria, both of whom were later honored with Nobel Prizes. After graduating in 1936, she worked as Giuseppe Levi’s assistant, and received a specialization in Clinica delle Malattie Nervose e Mentali. Her academic career was stopped by Benito Mussolini’s 1938 Manifesto of Race and by the introduction of laws that did not allowed Jews to attend academic and professional careers. During the Second World War, Rita Levi-Montalcini conducted experiments from a home laboratory, studying the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos, which were the basis of her later research. As Rita says in her book entitled The Saga of the Nerve Growth Factor ‘‘the first attempts to obtain some knowledge of the control mechanisms of the nervous system date back to the beginning of the century.... In 1934, Viktor Hamburger (a student of Hans Spemann) explored the A. Federico (&) Department of Medicine, Surgery and Neurosciences, Medical School, University of Siena, Viale Bracci 2, 53100 Siena, Italy e-mail: federico@unisi.it