Periodical press for University professors in Italy between war and post-war period (1939-1960)

This contribution intends to introduce and to analyse the origin, the development and the main topics published in the most important journals for University professors in Italy between the Second World War and the Second Post-War period. In particular, the author examines three periodicals which can be considered as the indispensable reference point for Italian academic world during the other following periods. They deal with «Gli Annali della Università d’Italia» (1939-1943) [The Annals of the University of Italy], edited by Giuseppe Giustini and founded by the Fascist Minister of National Education, Giuseppe Bottai, with the declared aim «at examining the study of our University in the multiple aspects of its structures and functions»; «L’Università italiana» (1946-1949) [The Italian University], edited by Giuseppe Caronia and mainly inspired by Nicola Spano, immediately considered the national journal of the entire academic community and «faithful mirror of the different currents of thought and material and spiritual needs of all the Italian universities»; and «Il Giornale dell’Università» (19511960) [The University Journal], as the expression of the National Association of Professors and the «journal of the Italian university life in the multiplicity of its aspects». Through a careful and meticulous analysis of the contents of several issues for the three publications examined – that are important communication tools within the academic world, as well as a sounding-board of university problems within the society of the time –, it is possible to reconstruct the most significant steps of a delicate period for the Italian university from a historical and legislative point of view: first, between anxieties and fears linked to the difficulties of the Second World War, then in the urgent need for moral and material reconstruction of the entire university system.