Augusto Alfani was born in Florence in 1844. After spending his early years at the Scuole Pie in Florence, he studied mathematics and physics at the Istituto tecnico, but then graduated in philosophy at the Istituto Fiorentino di Studi Superiori under the supervision of Augusto Conti, with whom he continued to have a very close relationship and whose biography he wrote after his death. He was also a pupil of Luigi Ferri, Raffaello Lambruschini, Pasquale Villari, Ruggero Bonghi, Giambattista Giuliani and Gregorio Ugdulena. He soon started to publish educational articles on the use of language in specialised journals, such as “Letture di famiglia” and “La gioventù”, which impressed Niccolò Tommaseo.
In 1872 he became a member of the Accademia Colombaria and founded “La scuola”, a journal based on Catholic principles, which, besides an educational purpose of a general nature, was particularly aimed at the schools of Florence. The journal, which was seen as a mouthpiece of a liberal Catholic tradition that was too conservative, became the target of those who supported the evolutionist Alessandro Herzen who had started “Nuovo Galileo”, in opposition to all metaphysical concepts. “La scuola” closed down two years after it started, when Alfani succeeded Giacomo Barzellotti as a teacher of philosophy at the Liceo Dante.
He continued to write, nevertheless, and, as well as educational texts aimed at young people and the lower classes, produced a volume entitled Il carattere degli Italiani, in which he expressed the opinion that the Italian character had not yet reached maturity because of the winds of materialism blowing from Northern Europe. This book won the Carlo Ravizza Prize. Alongside the major liberal Catholic intellectuals, for a long time he wrote for the “Rassegna nazionale” of Manfredo da Passano.
His work, which battled against anticlericalism on one side and Catholic fundamentalism on the other, aimed at a reconciliation between the Church and the new Italy, in line with the political programme of the so-called “Conservatori nazionali”, in whose ranks he served a long time, partly as advisor and then counsellor for education in the municipality of Florence.
In 1885 he gave up teaching and became academic editor of the Vocabolario of the Accademia della Crusca, although he did not abandon the publication of his own Dizionario della lingua italiana for use in schools. He died in Florence in 1923. During its short life, his journal “La scuola” hosted various writings by Raffaello Caverni, which represented the earliest publication of his work.
