Bonaventura Cavalieri and Bologna (Q1670960)

The article belongs to the section entitled ``The mathematical tourist'' in the `The Mathematical Intelligencer' journal. This type of articles tries to discover places in cities that would have scientific interest such as houses, memorials, old cafés where scientists met, or plaques, statues that have or have had some mathematical relevance. This article achieves this objective perfectly, dealing with Bologna and its relationship with famous mathematicians such as Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598--1647). The authors first describe Bologna's city origins. In fact, in 1088, the oldest university of the world was established in Bologna. The authors enumerate some names of great scientists beginning the list with the mathematician Luca Pacioli (1445--1517), a friend of Leonardo da Vinci (1452--1519) and author of famous and influential books like \textit{Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita} (1494) and \textit{De divina proportione} (1509), and finish with Beniamino Segre (1903--1977). They also quote others mathematicians found in the University of Bologna such as Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625--1712), Vincenzo Riccati (1707--1775), and recently Federico Enriques (1871--1946), who worked there from 1894 to 1922, but the article focusses on Cavalieri and his contributions to the development of infinitesimal calculus. The authors describe the main ideas of Cavalieri's method of indivisibles in his books: \textit{Geometria indivisibilibus continuorum nova quadam ratione promota} (1635) and \textit{Exercitationes geometricae sex} (1647). They also quote other works by him such as \textit{Lo specchio ustorio} (1632) and \textit{Directorium generale uranometricum} (1632), where Cavalieri introduced logarithms in the Italian Peninsula. Then, the authors make a tour around the city describing the statues and plaques referring to Cavalieri, all of them illustrated in the article. They also dedicate the last page to the disappearance of Cavalieri's tomb ending with a suggestion to reposition the bust and plaque of Cavalieri in an accessible place in order that tourists, mathematicians or not, can appreciate the relevance and achievements of this great mathematician. [In the original article Riccati is falsely written Ricatti.]