Experimental psychology at Padua University before the arrival of Vittorio Benussi

It is well known that the establishment of both the teaching and the laboratory of Experimental psychology at the University of Padova dates back to the arrival of Vittorio Benussi in 1919. Benussi, a pupil of Alexius Meinong, previously worked as Privatdozent at the University of Graz, becoming one of the leading psychologists for his key investigations on perceptual illusions, timing and emotional states. Therefore, the current historiography of psychology tends to pay little attention to the academic context already existing in Padua at the very beginning of the 20th century. However, recent archival research supported the fact that the philosopher Roberto Ardigò, recognized as the father of Italian positivism, and some of his pupils, already cultivated the discipline following an up-to-date, international perspective. In particular, Gino Melati, a young philosopher and former student of Ardigò also trained in physiology, in 1898 was sent to Leipzig at the renowned Institute directed by Wilhelm Wundt, where he spent two years as visiting researcher in the field auditory perception. Moreover, the pedagogist Giovanni Marchesini, the anthropologist Enrico Tedeschi, and the physiologist Aristide Stefani promoted the discipline in their respective Institutes and, subsequently, together helped Benussi to equip his laboratory since 1920. In sum, Benussi's contribution to experimental psychology at the University of Padova should be reviewed in the light of a more thorough and complex academic context which connected many of the so-called human sciences.