I then decided to build a small research unit at home and installed it in my bedroom. The two alternatives left then to us were either to emigrate to the United States, or to pursue some activity that needed neither support nor connection with the outside Aryan world where we lived. After a short period spent in Brussels as a guest of a neurological institute, I returned to Turin on the verge of the invasion of Belgium by the German army, Spring 1940, to join my family.
#RITA LEVI MONTALCINI PROFESSIONAL#
The manifesto was soon followed by the promulgation of laws barring academic and professional careers to non-Aryan Italian citizens. In 1936 Mussolini issued the “Manifesto per la Difesa della Razza”, signed by ten Italian ‘scientists’. In 1936 I graduated from medical school with a summa cum laude degree in Medicine and Surgery, and enrolled in the three year specialization in neurology and psychiatry, still uncertain whether I should devote myself fully to the medical profession or pursue at the same time basic research in neurology. We are indebted to him for a superb training in biological science, and for having learned to approach scientific problems in a most rigorous way at a time when such an approach was still unusual. All three of us were students of the famous Italian histologist, Giuseppe Levi.
Two of my university colleagues and close friends, Salvador Luria and Renato Dulbecco, were to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, respectively, seventeen and eleven years before I would receive the same most prestigious award. In eight months I filled my gaps in Latin, Greek and mathematics, graduated from high school, and entered medical school in Turin. At twenty, I realized that I could not possibly adjust to a feminine role as conceived by my father, and asked him permission to engage in a professional career.
#RITA LEVI MONTALCINI FULL#
She became one of the most outstanding women painters in Italy and is at present still in full activity. He therefore decided that the three of us – Anna, Paola and I – would not engage in studies which open the way to a professional career and that we would not enroll in the University.Įver since childhood, Paola had shown an extraordinary artistic talent and father’s decision did not prevent her full-time dedication to painting. He loved us dearly and had a great respect for women, but he believed that a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother. It was, however, a typical Victorian style of life, all decisions being taken by the head of the family, the husband and father. Both parents were highly cultured and instilled in us their high appreciation of intellectual pursuit. The four of us enjoyed a most wonderful family atmosphere, filled with love and reciprocal devotion. But things were to take a different turn. Ever since adolescence, she has been an enthusiastic admirer of the great Swedish writer, the Nobel Laureate Selma Lagerlöf, and she infected me so much with her enthusiasm that I decided to become a writer and describe Italian saga “à la Lagerlöf”. Our sister Anna, five years older than Paola and myself, lives in Turin with her children and grandchildren. Our older brother Gino, who died twelve years ago of a heart attack, was one of the most well known Italian architects and a professor at the University of Turin. Our parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician, and Adele Montalcini, a talented painter and an exquisite human being. M y twin sister Paola and I were born in Turin on April 22, 1909, the youngest of four children.
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