IL METODO DELLA PEDAGOGIA SCIENTIFICA Applicato ALL'EDUCAZIONE INFANTILE Nelle CASE DEI BAMBINI. Seconda Edizione accresciuta ed ampliata. Con molte tavole e figure.

(THE METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC PEDAGOGY Applied to CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN CHILDREN'S HOMES. Second edition expanded and enlarged. With many plates and figures.)

ROMA: Ermanno Loescher & Co., 1913. Second Edition.

SIGNED and INSCRIBED TWICE by MARIA MONTESSORI to her TRUSTED LAWYER & FINANCIAL ADVISOR ALFREDO BRUNO - ONCE on the Dedication Page and ONCE on the a blank prelim page:

"Al Dottore Alfredo Bruno mio avvocato / affidandogli con la più affettuosa stima la sfera di questa opera. / Maria Montessori / Roma Gennaio 1912".

(To Doctor Alfredo Bruno my lawyer / entrusting him with the most affectionate esteem the entirety of this work / Maria Montessori / Rome January 1912)

"All'Avv, Alfredo Bruno / La Seconda Edizione / Maria Montessori".

(To Lawyer Alfredo Bruno / The Second Edition / Maria Montessori)

Hardcovers, red cloth covered boards, gilt titles on front cover and spine, 8x11 inches (20x27.5 cm), 283 pages plus 23 b&w photographic plates at the rear.

GOOD Condition, the covers have some darkening to the spine and margins, the spine covering was professionally restored, overall the covers are solid and attractive. Internally, the front inner hinge has been reinforced with white cloth tape, the text pages are toned/browned as normal (cheap paper), there is foxing to the first and last few pages of text, the first plate has some foxing at the top, otherwise the plates are bright, clean and clear. Overall a solid, complete, presentable copy.

ALFREDO BRUNO was MARIA MONTESSORI'S lawyer and advisor during the years that PEDAGOGIA SCIENTIFICA first appeared and the "Montessori Method" was taking off internationally. As such he was greatly responsible for the early diffusion of Maria Montessori's work. As Montessori states in her inscription to Bruno she entrusted him with "the entirety of this work".

Below are a few of the references to Maria Montessori and Alfredo Bruno found on the Internet (these from the Lilly Library; "America's Early Montessorians" by Gerald and Patricia Gutek; and an Italian Doctoral Thesis from the Università di Bologna):

******From 1911 on, requests for translations came to Montessori from all over the world. The lawyer ALFREDO BRUNO handled all correspondence, and all issues related to finance - contracts, copyright, royalty payments, etc. In the collection held in the archives of the Association Montessori Internationale in Amsterdam, are collected the letters SENT TO HIM between 1912 and 1914 from every part of the globe. The documents show on the one hand the international interest in the Montessori experiment, on the other the criteria Bruno and Montessori used in deciding to whom to entrust her work.*****

******She refused to sign the Montessori Company contract and her lawyer, ALFREDO BRUNO, told S. S. McClure that the proposed Montessori Company was dead: "Dr. Montessori has examined the contract plan prepared by you...relative to...the Montessori Company of America recently established, but she will not in any way feel obligated in such a broad and open-ended way."******

******On May 24, the lawyer Alfredo Bruno, Maria Montessori's lawyer for all matters related to the publications of the texts and the sale of the material, wrote to Heinemann: Dear sir, Doctor Montessori told me about your proposals which reached her via a letter sent to Mrs. Tasker. May I, as Montessori's advisor, request that all communications be sent to ME or to Dr. Montessori personally?******