Aldo Mieli

Aldo Mieli (4 December 1879 – 16 February 1950) was an influential historian of science, and a pioneer of gay rights. Born in 1879 in Livorno, Italy to a wealthy Jewish family, Mieli was raised on Chianciano, a small spa town in Tuscany, to which his family moved in 1880. In 1904 he obtained a degree in chemistry, followed by six months of study at the University of Leipzig, attending the lectures of the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. His chemistry career continued, and in 1908 he moved to the Sapienza University of Rome to work with Emanuele Paterno. He subsequently became a university lecturer in chemistry at the University. Mieli was a member of the Socialist Party, which led to his election as town councillor in Chianciano in 1901. He left in 1903. Mieli claimed in his autobiography that he left the Socialist movement due to the lack of sincerity and idealism in the movement. Police records, however, showed that Mieli's homosexuality, referred to as 'manifest immorality' was well known in the local area, which would have severely inhibited his political career. Secret police raided his flat in Rome in 1929, just a few months after he had moved to France. Mieli's friend Gino Chiappini, a typographer, and his friend Angelo Pisani were living there at the time. By 1930, police records marked him as a "dangerous socialist". Mieli is now considered one of the founders of the discipline of the history of science, as one of the first to consider it a discipline it its own right. His history of science career began whilst a chemistry lecturer in Rome, building on interest stimulated in his studies in Germany. In 1912, he founded, and briefly maintained, a section in the journal Rivista di filosofia for the history of science. He edited the Italian bibliography for the then new journal Isis, and in 1916, published a pamphlet calling for a chair of history of science to be created in Italian universities. He also wrote several books on history of science topics, and edited a series on classic texts in science and philosophy for Laterza, an Italian publisher.