«Per una nuova scienza» alla luce della “biblioteca psicologica” di Fogazzaro [«Per una nuova scienza» in the light of Fogazzaro's "Psychological Library"]

This article re-examines Antonio Fogazzaro's 1895 discourse Per una nuova scienza in the light of the psychological works preserved in the Fondo Fogazzaro at the Abbey of Praglia. It argues that Fogazzaro's engagement with hypnosis, suggestion, double consciousness, and psychical research relied on a direct and informed knowledge of contemporary psychology. The essay approaches the library not as a simple list of readings, but as a documentary basis for reconstructing the set of problems that shaped the author's reflection on subjectivity. The analysis focuses on three main theoretical topics that emerge both from the discourse and from the books owned by Fogazzaro: suggestion, which implies the existence of unconscious mental processes; the splitting of personality, which calls into question the unity of the self; and thought transference, which raises the issue of non-physical forms of causation. Through a close comparison with authors such as Janet, Azam, Ochorowicz, Durand de Gros, and Binet, the article shows that Fogazzaro engages with the empirical data of contemporary psychology while critically resisting both materialist explanations and the hypothesis of a plurality of selves. His position can thus be read as an attempt to rethink the relationship between unconscious processes and personal unity within the broader epistemological tensions of late nineteenth-century psychology.