Scienza a due voci
(The Two Voices of Science)

The project SCIENZA A DUE VOCI (The Two Voices of Science) is the outcome of an historical survey undertaken within the framework of a project for the circulation of scientific culture funded by the Italian Ministry for Higher Education and Research. A project launched by a group of women historians at Bologna University’s Department of Philosophy in 1999.

To date seminars have been held with internationally renowned male and female academics, and two books have recently been published: Olschki: Scienza a due voci (2006) edited by Raffaella Simili and More than pupils. Italian Women in Science at the Turn of the 20th Century (2007) edited by Valeria Paola Babini and Raffaella Simili.

A website had now been set up dedicated to “Italian women scientists” working in the eighteenth, nineteenth and first forty years of the twentieth centuries.

Women’s contribution to the development and circulation of scientific knowledge has received scant cultural attention and research interest and there is little general public awareness. For this reason the website is designed as a tool to draw attention to women in science in a national setting and offers access to the first bibliographical dictionary or popular encyclopaedia of “Italian women scientists” available on the Internet for a specialist and general readership.