11/01/2018

Salvatore Pincherle (1853-1936): overcame the barriers of war.

Salvatore Pincherle was born into a Jewish family in Trieste, Italy, in 1853 and spent his childhood in Marseille, France. He left France in 1869 to study mathematics at the University of Pisa, where he was a student of Enrico Betti and Ulisse Dini.

In 1877, after winning a scholarship to the University of Berlin (Germany), Pincherle met Karl Weierstrass and contributed to his theory of analytic functions. In 1880, influenced by Weierstrass, Pincherle wrote a notable expository article in the field of analysis. His contribution was of such importance that many authors consider him the founder of functional analysis.

From 1880 to 1928, Pincherle was a mathematics professor at the University of Bologna. In 1922, he founded the Italian Mathematical Union and became its first president, a position he held for 14 years.

In 1928, he became president of the 8th ICM. Pincherle opened the Congress to all mathematicians, regardless of nationality, ending discrimination by the Central Powers and readmitting German mathematicians after a ban imposed following the First World War. Pincherle's policy of openness was widely applauded.

After the Congress, Pincherle retired from the University. In 1953, in honor of the centenary of his birth, the Italian Mathematical Union published a selection of 62 of his notes and treatises.