Higher education, dissemination and spread of the mathematical sciences in Sardinia (1720--1848) (Q286033)

The author investigates the spread of scientific and mathematical knowledge in Sardinia from 1720 to 1748. In the second section, entitled ``Historical background: education and scientific culture in Spanish Sardinia'' (pp. 174--175), he addresses the condition of mathematical education in Sardinia during the Spanish rule. It is in this period that both the universities of Cagliari (1620) and Sassari (1617) were founded. In 1720, Sardinia, following the Treaty of The Hague, was ceded to Savoy, who treated Sardinia as a colony (p. 173), not on the same footing as the mainland (Piedmont). The two universities of Cagliari and Sassari were re-founded from the Savoys in 1764 and 1765, respectively. Unfortunately, Sardinia was not touched by Napoleon's reforms in the field of education, as other states of Italy were. For this and other reasons, we can safely say that the educational system is Sardinia was worse than in any other peripheric state in the mainland, as the examples of Lombardy, Sicily and Naples testify. Attempts of changing occurred, but they were isolated and had no consequences on the long run. Things underwent a strong and swift change under Charles Albert's kingdom from 1848 onwards. Radicati (1846) and Dettori (1847) wrote the first mathematical textbooks printed in Sardinia (p. 187), while the first treatise on differential calculus, authored by Tito Usai (1838--1905), was published in Sardinia in 1879. But for the first chair of mathematics we had still to wait until 1924, when such a chair was established at the Cagliari University.