Paolo Mantegazza (Monza, 1831 – San Terenzo, 1910) was an Italian Senator, patriot, and convinced Darwinian who worked as a pathological physician, anthropologist, hygienist, and writer.
Born in Brianza to Laura Solera, a notable philanthropist, he participated with his mother in the Five Days of Milan. He earned his medical degree at age 23 from Pavia University, then traveled extensively throughout Europe and South America, focusing on anthropology. In Latin America, he practiced medicine for five years among indigenous populations.
Upon returning to Pavia, he established Europe’s first pathology laboratory at the university and studied animal grafting. He subsequently obtained the first anthropology professorship in Italy at the University of Florence, which he assumed in 1870. He founded both an anthropological-ethnographic museum and the journal Archivio di antropologia ed etnologia.
Mantegazza corresponded with Charles Darwin for several years and actively promoted Darwin’s ideas in Italy. Initially a deputy, he became a Kingdom Senator in 1876.
As a writer, he published “Testa” in 1887, a children’s book written as a counterpoint to Edmondo De Amicis’s “Cuore.”