Resumen de De Sanctis, Binet, and the Intelligence Test in Italy

Elisabetta Cicciola, Renato Foschi, Giovanni Pietro Lombardo

• In recent years, the scientific, cultural and political French context of the first intelligence tests has been the object of systematic historical research (Carson, 2007; Foschi & Cicciola, 2006). Sante De Sanctis (1862-1935) and Alfred Binet (1857-1911), in collaboration with Théodore Simon (1873-1960), introduced their intelligence tests to the scientific community of the time at the Fifth International Congress of Psychology held in Rome in 1905. De Sanctis and his collaborators compared the two tests and used them in the training schools and asylums for children . This paper explores how intelligence testing was introduced into the Italian and, more specifically, Roman context.