Antonio Berti and the early history of aphasia in Italy

Whilst the debate about cerebral localisation of articulate speech was raging in France in the 1860s and in particular with reference to the observations of Paul Broca, there were also some Italians who attempted to make a contribution on the subject. Among those was the physician Antonio Berti, who in 1865 furnished some interesting observations on the association of aphasia with the frontal lobe. In this paper we intend to revive this forgotten episode that represents one of the early Italian observations on the issue of cortical localisation of speech.