ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

L’Unione Matematica Italiana and the creation of the series "Opere Scelte dei Matematici Italiani"

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives in Historiography of Science under the Fascist Rule 1

English Abstract

In a notorious meeting held shortly after the promulgation of the Italian racial laws (December 10, 1938), the Italian Mathematical Union, the national mathematical society founded in 1922, voted the following declaration: “The Italian School of Mathematics, which has acquired great renown throughout the scientific world, is the exclusive creation of scientists of the Italic (Aryan) race. Suffice it to recall: Cremona, Dini, Betti, Casorati, Beltrami, Bianchi, Veronese, Cesàro, Arzelà.” At the same meeting, the Italian Mathematical Union decided to establish a new series: Opere dei Grandi Matematici. President Luigi Berzolari, in particular, hoped to publish “the works of mathematicians who in recent times illustrated our science, ensuring Italian mathematics’ undisputed primacy; in particular, we recall the names of Dini, Bianchi, Veronese, Peano, Ricci-Curbastro, Cesàro, Arzelà, ....”. A comprehensive project was thus outlined, identifying the Italian mathematicians (naturally Aryan) who could coordinate each volume. In this talk, in light of archival sources, the genesis of this series will be reconstructed, with particular reference to the edition of the Works (Opere) of Felice Casorati (1835-1890), an illustrious mathematician from Pavia. Berzolari himself took on the task, and the edition of the Opere dei Grandi Matematici would be inaugurated, after the second World War, with the publication of Casorati's writings (1951).

Author

• Arrigo Pisati