Maria Montessori e gli ambienti milanesi dell'Unione femminile e della Società Umanitaria

This article aims to reconstruct the role played by the Società Umanitaria (Humanitarian Society), based in Milan, for the widespread of the Montessori’s Method. The studied period spans from 1908, which is the year of the initial mediation of the Women’s Union’s members for the creation of the first Children’s Houses in the Humanitarian Society’s district, until 1923, which is the year of Augusto Osimo’s death, the general secretary of this institution. In particular, through the analysis of Maria Montessori and Augusto Osimo’s letters exchange, the complex plot of their fruitful collaboration will be highlighted, which was carried out through the organization of Montessori training courses by the Humanitarian Society. Their cooperation was further reinvigorated by a common cause, which was the intervention in favor of children victims of the war, up till the project of a Montessori law secondary school for young adolescents. This last project was never realized because of Osimo’s severe illness occurred in 1920.