Democratization of mathematics through Cremona's correspondence with foreign colleagues (1860--1901)
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Democratization of mathematics through Cremona's correspondence with foreign colleagues (1860--1901)
zbMATH Open document ID: 1428.01017
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-73577-1_13
author: Giorgio Israel
author: Ana Millán Gasca
author: Luigi Regoliosi
publication date: 2019-07-19T00:00:00Z
review text: This article surveys the edition of 1221 letters written to the Italian mathematician Luigi Cremona [Correspondence of Luigi Cremona (1830--1903). Edited by Giorgio Israel. In 2 volumes. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers (2017; Zbl 1384.01003)]. These letters were found by Giorgio Israel, in 1982, at the library of the mathematical institute of ``La Sapienza'', the university of Rome. Luigi Cremona (1830--1903) is an outstanding figure of 19th-century mathematics in Italy and Europe, both for his scientific and his institutional role. He graduated in 1853 in Pavia as a civil engineer and architect and in 1860 was appointed to the new chair of higher geometry at the University of Bologna. In 1879, he was nominated senator of the Italian Kingdom, and actively took part to projects of reform in school and university programs. Cremona's correspondence treated in this article -- only a part of a larger and partially unexplored corpus -- offers a precious vista on the process of internationalization of mathematics in the second half of the 19th century through the direct voice of its protagonists. The article under review makes a brief survey of Cremona's letters preserved in Rome and in Genoa, describes certain themes discussed in them, mainly regarding the teaching and transmission of mathematics, for instance through translations of Cremona's works, and makes a description of the geographical distribution of the correspondents. The majority of the letters from abroad came from Europe (69 from Germany, 36 from France and 20 from the UK), but Cremona's network was wider, as he had exchanges with correspondents in the US, Australia and Canada. Equally represented is Eastern Europe, with countries such as the Czech territories and Hungary (at the time still part of the Habsburg empire) as well as Romania and Russia. Of particular interest are the linguistic choices made within the European network of Cremona's correspondents. As the authors remark: ``a surprising inter-European…
reviewed by: Davide Crippa
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A55
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A70
zbMATH DE Number: 7083396
zbMATH Keywords: scientific correspondence
zbMATH Keywords: 19th-century mathematics
zbMATH Keywords: mathematics education
MaRDI profile type: MaRDI publication profile
full work available at URL: 978-3-319-73577-1 13
OpenAlex ID: W2944867085
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description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 7083396