Baldassare Boncompagni

Baldassare Boncompagni

Baldassare Boncompagni Ludovisi (born May 10, 1821 in Rome , † April 13, 1894 ibid) was an Italian mathematician. Although he did not hold an academic position, he is considered one of the leading mathematical historians of the 19th century.

Live and act

Boncompagni was inherently wealthy and came from an old noble family (he had the title of prince), to which Pope Gregory XIII. , the initiator of the Gregorian calendar reform. He attended the Collegio Romano in Rome, where he attended lectures in mathematics and physics with Barnaba Tortolini (1808–1874). In 1843 his first mathematical work appeared in the Crelles Journal . He then turned to the history of physics and mathematics and was appointed to the newly founded Pontifical Academy of Sciences for his work - after the founding of Italy he declined the invitation to the newly founded Accademia dei Lincei as a competitor . In 1880 he was elected an honorary member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . He was best known for his work on the mathematics of the Middle Ages. In 1851 his book appeared on Plato of Tivoli , a translator of the 12th century, and on Gerhard of Cremona . To print the books that required unusual letters, he set up his own printing house in his Roman palazzo, which also published, for example, the reports of the Pontifical Academy. In particular, he devoted himself to the research of Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), about whom he wrote a biography in 1852 and of which he published some works with facsimiles in 1854. In the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan he discovered lost and unknown manuscripts by Fibonacci (Liber Quadratorum, Flos) and edited them, with additions by the Turin lawyer Angelo Genocchi (Opuscoli di Leonardo Pisano, 2nd edition 1856). In 1857 he published the first printed version of Fibonacci's Liber Abaci with commentaries by Pietro Cossali . His Practica Geometria followed in 1862 . He also published other medieval texts, such as the first printed arithmetic book (Aritmetica di Treviso, 1862 in the files of the Pontifical Academy). In 1868 he founded the magazine "Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche", which he printed and published at his own expense - he sent copies free of charge to many academies, libraries and scholars - until 1887 (a reprint edition appeared in 1968) with which he made a major contribution to the establishment of the history of mathematics as a science. It was finally discontinued because Boncompagni could not find a successor as editor - his favorite Antonio Favaro was busy editing Galileo's works. Boncompagni also amassed an extensive private library of 600 manuscripts and 20,000 books (the catalog of which was published by his secretary Narducci in 1862 and 1892), which was distributed and auctioned after his death.

literature

• Dauben, Scriba (editor) Writing the history of mathematics , Birkhäuser 2002
• Giovanni Codazza Il principe Boncompagni e la storia delle scienze matematiche in Italia , Il Politecnico Vol. 20, 1864, pp. 5-27
• Moritz Cantor : Prince Baldassarre Boncompagni Ludovisi. An obituary. In: Journal of Mathematics and Physics / Historisch-literäre Abt., 39 (1894), pp. 201–203. Digitized Univ. Heidelberg

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 44.