The debate in Italy on the foundations of quantum mechanics and the discussion of the conceptual problems raised by this theory began, in relatively recent times. It was only in the late sixties that Italian physicists and epistemologists started to discuss, at a considerably high level of theoretical awareness and formal elaboration, the issues connected with the analysis of physical theories, the critical understanding of their basic concepts and principles, the philosophical implications of these concepts and principles, and the clarification of the logical functions of theories, of the open questions that they are expected to be able to solve, of the new conceptual problems they create, of the relationship between different theories and the question of their compatibility.