Ernesto Buonaiuti’s First Lecture and Last Lesson

This essay analyses Ernesto Buonaiuti’s work as a teacher and trainer by examining two significant episodes in his life, one at its beginning and one at its end. The first episode explores his relationship with Antonio Labriola to show that Buonaiuti was not present at the 1896 lecture L’Università e la libertà della scienza. The second episode concerns Buonaiuti’s relation- ship with Tullio Gregory, who was one of the most attentive scholars of the persecution suffered by Ernesto. However, despite being in the audience at his final lectures, Gregory recognised the fundamental difference between Buonaiuti’s theology and the nouvelle théologie that found itself at the centre of a controversy which erupted in 1946, year of Buonaiuti’s death.