Federigo Enriques (1871--1946): a critical study of \textit{Lezioni di geometria proiettiva} (Q2099364)

This paper describes Federigo Enriques' life and in particular his work in projective geometry. The core of the paper is a detailed discussion of Enriques' classic ``Lezioni di geometria proiettiva''. Enriques' approach to the subject is synthetic. A first version of the text was written in 1894 [Ist. Lombardo, Rend., II. Ser. 27, 550--567 (1894; JFM 25.0965.01)] and afterwards several editions appeared (see e.g. [JFM 29.0453.01; JFM 35.0560.01]). Felix Klein wrote about the book: ``I do not know of any (work) which presented the systematic structure of this discipline in a form corresponding to the current state of science in such a transparent and at the same time complete manner as the present one. The presentation is intuitive everywhere and completely rigorous.'' A German translation of the book was published in 1903 [JFM 34.0584.02]. A French translation appeared in 1930 [JFM 56.0536.01], an English translation in 1933 and a Spanish translation in 1943. The authors point out that according to Enriques for a full understanding of a subject its history should be studied.