Italian scientific biopics experienced a period of extraordinary media hype in the 1970s, when some intellectuals personally committed to bringing the lives of the scientists of the past to television in order to discuss the relationship between knowledge and power in the present. This article aims to reconstruct this history, explaining the reasons for the success of the genre, starting in the 1960s, and the crisis it underwent in the 1980s. To do this, we will focus on Lucio Lombardo Radice, a promoter, scientific consultant, author and presenter of, and sometimes even actor in, some of the most controversial of these scientific biopics.
In the Footsteps of Galileo. History of Science in Italian TV Films and Series in the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
2022-01-01
Abstract
Italian scientific biopics experienced a period of extraordinary media hype in the 1970s, when some intellectuals personally committed to bringing the lives of the scientists of the past to television in order to discuss the relationship between knowledge and power in the present. This article aims to reconstruct this history, explaining the reasons for the success of the genre, starting in the 1960s, and the crisis it underwent in the 1980s. To do this, we will focus on Lucio Lombardo Radice, a promoter, scientific consultant, author and presenter of, and sometimes even actor in, some of the most controversial of these scientific biopics.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
