Soil Science in Italy in the Period 1920–1950

This chapter deals with the history of soil science in Italy in the period from 1924 to 1952, i.e. from the foundation of the International Soil Science Society (currently International Union of Soil Sciences—IUSS) to the foundation of the Italian Society of Soil Science (Società Italiana della Scienza del Suolo—SISS). It was a period of difficulties because of the World War I and the outbreak of the World War II. The paucity of funding together with the lack of adequate structures and qualified personnel made it difficult for soil science to proceed towards the new paradigms of genetic pedology. However, individual specialists, scholars with great spirit and brilliant ideas, carried out relevant progresses in the knowledge and the diffusion of information on soils. A great part of the merit for the development of soil science in Italy in this period must be attributed to several outstanding scientists of the first decades of the twentieth century, whose contribution to the diffusion of the new subdiscipline “pedology” (or “geopedology”) within natural sciences was essential. Paolo Principi was a pioneer in genetic pedology and may be considered the actual founder of the school of soil science in Italy, with many scholars who followed his teaching. Other outstanding scientists from different places in north, centre, and south Italy contributed to the progress of soil science, overcoming the historical dichotomy between agrogeology and agrochemistry.