The conference took place on December 6, 2024, in Florence at the Department of Education, Languages, Interculturality, Literatures, and Psychology (FORLILPSI). Ernesto Codignola was a follower and collaborator of Gentile and a central figure of pedagogical idealism in Italy.
He was a professor of pedagogy at the University of Florence, where in 1950 he launched the internationally renowned journal “Scuola e città”, developed under the guidance of Lamberto Borghi (an exile in the USA, where he was a fine and attentive interpreter of John Dewey’s thought).
Codignola founded, together with his wife, Scuola-Città Pestalozzi in 1945. This school is still considered a pioneering model of active schooling, as it combined disciplinary teaching with the direct participation of students in the life of the school, structured like a mini-city with its own activities, problems, and relationships. Codignola gathered around him a group of democratic pedagogues who collaborated with him and were the driving forces behind the publishing house “La Nuova Italia,” including Visalberghi, Laporta, Cives, and later Santoni Rugiu, among many others.
Thus, with Codignola and Borghi, a democratic, activist, and critical model of pedagogy took hold in Florence, which, we might say, partially but profoundly drove the postwar renewal of Italian pedagogy.
Ernesto Codignola’s contribution to 20th-century Italian pedagogy and to the Florentine school constitutes a legacy that remains valuable and relevant for understanding and interpreting contemporary society and culture and for promoting a radical, critical, and secular-progressive pedagogy.
His rich and complex research, encompassing political engagement, teaching practice, and publishing, points to a path yet to be developed for a socializing education and school system based on the interaction of individuals with their environment and society.
