In Search of Animal Intelligence: The Case of the Italian Psychologist Tito Vignoli (1824-1914)

The Italian anthropologist and comparative psychologist Tito Vignoli (1824-1914) was among the first in Italy to embrace the theory of evolution and to investigate the unknown world of animal inwardness in the light of Darwinian theory. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Vignoli investigated animal intelligence and behaviour in an extended series of simple experiments and observations. He explained his theories in works such as Della legge fondamentale dell’intelligenza nel regno animale. Saggio di psicologia comparata (1877) and Mito e scienza (1879), which were also translated into German and English. According to Vignoli, the objective of comparative psychology was to study the similarities and differences between the psychic activity of humans and that of other animals systematically, in order to transform this discipline into an objective science.