Abstract
Guglielmo Libri, mathematician, historian, erudite man of letters, collector and seller of antique books, journalist and patriot, was one of the most important and most controversial figures in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century, and, as such, the focus of much scholarly attention. This article is intended to shed some light on Libri’s contribution to the development of the Italian collective identity and a spirit of national unity in the Risorgimento, through his historiographical work, which had its apex in the monumental Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques en Italie published between 1835 and 1841.
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Notes
- 1.
“Whatever the faults of which Libri could be accused in those agitated times, an exile from his fatherland following the movements of ‘31 and persecuted by implacable hatred, no Italian ought ever to forget all that he did for his country and how much the hymn he devoted to the scientific renaissance of Italy has affected our Risorgimento”.
- 2.
Libri, a controversial multi-faceted figure who excelled in many fields, good and bad, has always been the focus of much scholarly attention, and is the subject of several biographies and studies; see, for instance, (Stiattesi 1879), (Bortolotti 1934), (Fumagalli, 1963), (Maccioni-Ruju, Mostert 1995), and (Del Centina, Fiocca 2004, 2010).
- 3.
Since 1832, Libri had been a substitute for Biot, and later for Lacroix, at the Collège de France. In 1833, when he was writing the Discours préliminaire for the first volume of his Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie (Libri 1835), Libri introduced a short course on the history of science into his teaching at the Collège de France, the first course of this sort. See (Fiocca and Nagliati, 2009).
- 4.
Proof of his guilt as regards the French trial was ascertained only in 1878, by Léopold Delisle, General Administrator of the National Library of France, after the death of Count Ashburnham, to whom Libri had sold part of his collection of ancient codices in 1847.
- 5.
In 1832, after Libri’s departure from Marseille, Mazzini wrote two letters to Libri that shed new light on the first publication of the issues of the “Giovane Italia”; see (Mazzini 1835).
- 6.
See (Mazzini s.d.: 24).
- 7.
- 8.
Published in Italian in (Del Centina and Fiocca 2010, 124).
- 9.
Guglielmo Libri to Vieusseux, November 9, 1831, cit. in (Del Centina and Fiocca 2010, 201).
- 10.
“le infinite sciagure, gli spregi, la fame e i tormenti generosamente patiti da chi tanto faticò a Gloria della patria”. (Libri, 1831, 3–4).
- 11.
“Ma poi viene la storia e raccoglie le ceneri dell’Ascolano, e la tovaglia di Galileo, e le membra sparte dell’Oliva, e mostrandole a’ posteri grida: ecco i premi italiani; ma non vi sgomenti l’asprezza della via ché io vi succedo”. Ibidem.
- 12.
The second edition of the first volume of Libri’s Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie was necessitated by a fire that destroyed nearly the entire first edition, which was waiting to be sewn and tied up. For an account of Libri’s conceptions in developing his masterly work and the vicissitudes of the work’s publication, see (Del Centina and Fiocca 2010, third part). For Libri’s scientific patriotism, see also (Durand 2018).
- 13.
See (Magalotti 1723, 31).
- 14.
“le anime generose saranno scosse dalle mie parole. E spero che queste parole faranno qualche bene agli Italiani”. Guglielmo Libri to Rosa Libri, Paris, November 2, 1835, cit. in (Del Centina and Fiocca, 2010, 217).
- 15.
“Tali parole, in fronte ad un’opera così grave debbono mostrare agli uomini che la via dell’ingiustizia è fallace e seminata di spini.” “E pensa che scrivendo quelle fiere parole io sia ispirato dalla memoria della sciagura di tanti italiani che hanno sì lungamente aspettato una penna vendicatrice”. Guglielmo Libri to Rosa Libri, Paris, November 23, 1835, cit. in (Del Centina and Fiocca, 2010, 218).
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
“Lessi, giovane ancora, la storia delle scienze matematiche in Italia, la quale fece in me quell’effetto che i monumenti della patria grandezza imprimono negli animi reverenti, e mi aiutò a intendere i caratteri tradizionali e proprii del pensiero nazionale” Aurelio Saffi to Guglielmo Libri, 28th January 1866, Firenze, Biblioteca Moreniana, Fondo Palagi Libri, filza 433, ins. 92. The letter is cited in (Bucciantini 2011, 356).
- 19.
(Libri 1848–1841, tome II, 118).
- 20.
- 21.
(Libri 1848–1841, tome II, 303).
- 22.
(Libri 1848–1841, tome II, 34–35).
- 23.
(Chasles 1841, 742–743).
- 24.
For Sophie Germain’s letters preserved in Libri’s archive, see (Del Centina ), and for an account of the presently known correspondence of Sophie Germain, as well as the history of its discovery and editing, see (Del Centina and Fiocca ). The correspondence of Sophie Germain with Carl Friedrich Gauss has been published in (Del Centina and Fiocca 2012).
- 25.
- 26.
For the Nuovo Fondo Libri and Carte Libri, see (Del Centina, Fiocca 2004).
- 27.
- 28.
For an account of Abel’s manuscripts in the Libri collection, their history and their fate, see (Del Centina ). The Abel Prize, established in 2012, on the occasion of the bicentenary of Abel, is considered the “Nobel” for mathematics; see https://www.abelprize.no.
- 29.
For Sophie Germain’s studies on Fermat’s last theorem, see (Del Centina 2008).
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Fiocca, A., Del Centina, A. (2022). Guglielmo Libri, Mathematician, Historian, Collector, Patriot, and Liberal. In: Borgato, M.T., Phili, C. (eds) In Foreign Lands: The Migration of Scientists for Political or Economic Reasons. Trends in the History of Science. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80249-3_8
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