Creativity in Italy

According to an oft-quoted statement by Ebbinghaus, psychology has a long past and a recent history. Even though psychological topics have been explored by historians, philosophers, theologians, religious and spiritual guides, poets, and novelists from the early stages of Western culture, the scientific investigation of such topics began only in the nineteenth century. A similar comment could be made about the psychological study of creativity in Italy, as well as, presumably, in other countries (see Albert & Runco, 1999). Italian research on creativity has a recent history but a long past. Indeed, even though studies explicitly analyzing, assessing, and promoting creativity only appeared in Italy in the 1960s, issues associated with creativity were pondered earlier, under different labels within more general theoretical topics