Fra filologia e storiografia: la difficile allenza fra de Martino e Pettazzoni

The relationship between Ernesto de Martino and Raffaele Pettazzoni, probably the two greatest historians of religion in 20th-century Italy, was a complex one. Pettazzoni, a generation older, supported de Martino in his intellectual and academic career, and de Martino felt in some ways that he was his “disciple”; however, the latter's philosophical and historicist training always prevented him from identifying with his mentor's predominantly philological approach. In this article, we will examine their relationship from four perspectives: a) the role Pettazzoni played in de Martino’s intellectual training and in his choice of ethnology of religions as his field of study; b) the importance of the dialogue between the two scholars in the gestation of Il Mondo magico, and on the other hand, Pettazzoni’s criticism of the book; c) the collaboration between the two in the battle for secularism not only in the history of religions, but in Italian society as a whole; d) de Martino's explicit criticism of Pettazzoni in the more mature phase of his thinking.