Renzo Canestrari (1924-2017) was one of the most eminent Italian psychologists of XX century. He was full professor of General Psychology at the School of Medicine of the University of Bologna from 1960 to 1999. In keeping with the degrees in Education and Medicine and Surgery obtained in 1946 and 1951, respectively, he investigated several topics of experimental and developmental psychology, namely visual perception (using Gestaltist and functionalist paradigms) and the functioning of cognition and emotion in children and adolescents. He also played an important role in fostering collaborative studies (using diagnostic, psychometric and instrumental techniques) between psychologists and medical clinicians on the relationship between emotional distress and symptoms of some psychosomatic diseases, so that also Clinical Psychology grew in Italian Schools of Medicine. Since the late 1960s he provided many young researchers the opportunity to carry out experimental and clinical studies in his Institute of Psychology, where there was a wide number of laboratory rooms and ambulatories for diagnostic and psychotherapeutic activities on children and adolescents.
The most important outcome of his long teaching activity was the inclusion of General Psychology and Clinical Psychology in the core curricula of the current MD and healthcare degree courses.