Exchanges between German and Italian Mathematicians: from Leibniz’s Iter Italicum to the 20th Century
speaker: Gert Schubring (Bielefeld University)abstract:
The relations and exchanges between German and Italian mathematicians have always been vivid and productive, but the foci as well as the direction of main impact did change. During Humanism, it was Italy, which represented a leading centre for the development of mathematics and from where achievements – mainly in algebra – became transmitted to Germany, among other countries. The next remarkable period is characterized by Leibniz’s Iter Italicum familiarizing Italian mathematicians with the new research into the infinitesimal calculus.
The nineteenth century proved to become a period of most extensive exchanges, initiated firstly by the stays of Jacobi, Dirichlet, and Steiner in the 1840s and intensified by Riemann in the 1860s. Eventually, it was the reception of Weierstraß’s new rigorous analysis, which gave an essential impact to the Italian research on foundations of mathematics.
The first World War constituted a rupture in this intense development, but it was the Italian initiative to invite German mathematicians to participate at the International Congress of Mathemaiticians in Bologna 1928, which broke the ban on them imposed by the Entente and thus reopened scientific exchange.
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