Lotte Dann Treves’s Nineteenth-century Trajectory

Abstract

Jew university students’ experience – Italians and, above all, foreign students – and the impact of Italian racist legislation on their studies and destinies are still unknown. Lotte Dann Treves’s biography, considered here as an interesting case-study of this historic phenomenology, is focused on the diverse contexts of Fascist Italy, Italian University and particularly Turin. After a brief period of openness to international scientific mobility, under minister Bottai’s guidance, Italian University chose discrimination and expulsion of precious intellectual resources, such as precisely Lotte Dann and her famous teacher, Giuseppe Levi. In the Europe devastated by World War II, the contingency took Lotte Dann, became Mrs. Treves, back to Italy and its bumpy path of democratic reconstruction.