ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Fabio Conforto’s historiographic celebration of the Italian School of Algebraic Geometry

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives in Historiography of Science under the Fascist Rule 2

English Abstract

In 1939, on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of the Italian Society for the Advancement of the Science (Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze, SIPS) Fabio Conforto was entrusted by Francesco Severi to prepare a historical and commemorative contribution on the developments of the Italian school of Algebraic Geometry over the past 100 years: “Il contributo italiano al progresso della geometria algebrica negli ultimi cento anni, in Un secolo di progresso scientifico italiano 1839-1939”. (Conforto 1939).
The extremely nationalistic approach of Conforto wanted to shed light over the undisputed primacy of the Italian school of Algebraic Geometry that begun with the works by Luigi Cremona in the second half of the nineteenth century: “The rebirth and the development of mathematics in Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century was mainly due to the influence of some relevant personalities who clearly saw that, in a united, civil, and powerful nation, higher scientific culture and education could not fail to occupy an important place […] Felice Casorati, Enrico Betti, Eugenio Beltrami, and, most of all, Ulisse Dini, Francesco Brioschi and Luigi Cremona, developed a program aimed at disseminating knowledge and engaging with the most lively issues being discussed in the scientific societies of other European nations. With them begins the line of our great masters”. (Conforto 1939, p. 128)
Conforto retraced the main lines of research developed by the Italian school of algebraic geometry, set in the path opened by Cremona, ultimately arriving at the celebration of Francesco Severi, whose figure would dominate the Italian national scene in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Author

• Maria Giulia Lugaresi, University of Ferrara