This article traces out part of the history of studies of the genetic bases of thalassemia carried out in Italy. In particular it illustrates the research and discussions that between the late 1920s and the second half of the 1940s led to the description of the genetic basis of beta-thalassemia. The article encountered by Italian research, explaining why, despite the large number of thalassemia cases and data collected for this disease, Italian researchers succeeded in demonstrating its Mendelian transmission only at the same time as the US researchers.
