Felice Casorati's work on finite differences and its influence on Salvatore Pincherle (Q2339269)

Salvatore Pincherle (1853--1936) and Felice Casorati (1835--1890) were two outstanding Italian mathematicians, who flourished at the end of the 19th century, when modern Italian mathematics reached an absolute international level. This paper gives a detailed description of the influence of Felice Casorati on Salvatore Pincherle with a strong emphasis on the finite-difference calculus. In the appendices, the paper gives the texts of many letters concering the 1880 Grand Prix des Mathématiques (between Casorati and other mathematicians, as Joseph Bertrand, Luigi Cremona, Francesco Brioschi, Émile Picard, Ossian Bonnet, Ludwig Stickelberger) and Pincherle's unpublished note on Tannery's theorem (between Pincherle and Casorati).