Giuseppe Sergi

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Giuseppe Sergi
Giuseppe Sergi
Born	(1841-03-20)March 20, 1841 Messina, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Died	17 October 1936(1936-10-17) (aged 95) Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Nationality	Italian
Known for	Mediterraneanism
Parent(s)	Paolo Sergi and Alessandra Sergi (née Brigandì)
Scientific career
Fields	Biological anthropology
Institutions	University of Bologna Sapienza University of Rome

Giuseppe Sergi (March 20, 1841 – October 17, 1936) was an Italian anthropologist of the early twentieth century, best known for his opposition to Nordicism in his books on the racial identity of Mediterranean peoples. He rejected existing racial typologies that identified Mediterranean peoples as "dark whites" because they implied a Nordicist conception of Mediterranean peoples descending from whites who had become racially mixed with non-whites which he claimed was false. His concept of the Mediterranean race, identified Mediterranean peoples as being an autonomous brunet race and he claimed that the Nordic race was descended from the Mediterranean race whose skin had depigmented to a pale complexion after it moved north. This concept became important to the modelling of racial difference in the early twentieth century.