L’INTERNAZIONALIZZAZIONE DEGLI STUDI MATEMATICI IN ITALIA A METÀ OTTOCENTO

The past few decades have seen several studies carried out by historians of mathematics on mathematics in the post unification period in Italy, further interest being recently stimulated by the celebration of 150 years since the Unification of Italy; this moment brought about a period of renewal of structures and infrastructures suitable for the new state, which, at the same time, required a new institutional organisation on a national level for the scientific community. Before the Unification, during the Restoration and first movements of independence, contacts with the most advanced sectors of European research had already begun and further development would be carried on into the last decades of the XIX century. A greater opening towards the English and German schools of mathematics was seen to take the place of the traditional links with the French school of thought. By means of edited and inedited material, the presence of many foreign scholars in Italy will be examined as well as the journeys that Italian mathematicians undertook abroad. Moreover, the contents of inedited correspondences presented in the Documents will be discussed in relation to the theme of the research, or rather the dynamics which contributed to the return of Italian mathematics to the forefront of European scene. Particular study will be devoted to the case of Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti as an example of the compulsory internationalization of political exile The Brioschi-Tardy correspondence is the main source which concern the politics of the Risorgimento, the organisation of education and research in the post Unification period, and the lines of research which both Brioschi and Betti and their European interlocutors shared: the resolution of fifth degree equations and the invariant theory of binary forms. Another research is studied, carried out mainly by Liouville and some other English mathematicians in the second quarter of the nineteenth century: expansion of differential and integral calculus to non-integer orders. The subject, which had been put aside for several decades, came back to the forefront towards the end of the XX century. Although the influence of the foundation of the Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata was a determining factor in the renewal of scientific research in Italy, several other journals contributed to the dissemination of results and information to Italian scholars. Academic publications also played their part, and a detailed examination is given of the scarcely studied scientific periodicals linked to the University of Pisa during the XIX century.