Pestalozzi e il pestalozzismo in Romano Guardini

  • Elsa M. Bruni

Abstract

This article investigates the characteristics of Bildung which in Pestalozzi is represented on the one hand as an itinerary/process of the humanisation of every person and, on the other, as a dynamic of the individual’s open- mindedness towards humanity at large. Commencing with the most obvious aspects of Pestralozzi’s precious legacy, much attention is devoted to the way these incentives were translated into the precise programme for individual development formulated and created by Romano Guardini at the beginning of the 20th century. The two thinkers have many features in common and there are many themes which link their anthropological and educational visions as well as many motives that guided their intense research and attempts to promote the idea of Bildung as a process capable of harmonizing individual development and advancing humanity. From direct references to Pestalozziʼs and Guardiniʼs writings and a critical comparison of their common lines of research, to a consideration of the perils of the moral and social crisis between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the horrors of the two world wars, proposals are suggested to encourage a rethinking of the educational process and the transformation of the individual who is, at present, threatened by new potential forms of crisis.