Prince Baldassarre Boncompagni-Ludovisi (10 May 1821 – 13 April 1894) was an Italian historian of mathematics, mathematician, and aristocrat. He is considered the founder of the Italian school for the history of mathematics and was one of the most prominent figures in the field in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Biography
Boncompagni was born in Rome into the ancient noble and wealthy Ludovisi-Boncompagni family, as the third son of Prince Luigi Boncompagni Ludovisi and Princess Maria Maddalena Odescalchi. He studied under the mathematician Barnaba Tortolini and the astronomer Ignazio Calandrelli, developing a strong interest in the history of science. In 1847, Pope Pius IX appointed him a member of the Accademia dei Lincei.
Between 1850 and 1862, he produced studies on mathematicians of the Middle Ages. In 1868, he founded the Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche ("Bulletin of bibliography and history of mathematical and physical sciences"), the first Italian periodical entirely dedicated to the history of mathematics. He edited every article that appeared in the journal, which ran from 1868 to 1887 across twenty volumes.
After the annexation of the Papal States into the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, Boncompagni refused further participation in the new Academy of the Lincei and declined the appointment as Senator of the Kingdom offered by Quintino Sella. He did, however, serve as a member of several other Italian and foreign academies.
Scholarly Contributions
Boncompagni is best known for his extensive research and publications on the transmission of mathematical knowledge from the Arab world to Christian Europe, with a particular focus on medieval scholars and mathematicians. He prepared and published the first modern edition of Fibonacci's Liber Abaci (1857), a landmark work in the history of mathematics.
His selected works include:
- Recherches sur les integrales définies (1843), in Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik
- Intorno ad alcuni avanzamenti della fisica in Italia nei secoli XVI e XVII (1846)
- Della vita e delle opere di Guido Bonatti, astrologo e astronomo del secolo decimoterzo (1851)
- Delle versioni fatte da Platone Tiburtino, traduttore del secolo duodecimo (1850–51)
- Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese, traduttore del secolo decimosecondo, e di Gherardo da Sabbioneta, astronomo del secolo decimoterzo (1850–51)
- Della vita e delle opere di Leonardo Pisano, matematico del secolo decimoterzo (1851–52)
- Scritti di Leonardo Pisano, matematico, pubblicati da Baldassarre Boncompagni (2 vols., 1857–62)
- Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche (20 vols., 1868–1887)
Legacy
Boncompagni's personal library, which he spent his final years organizing, was considered by the historian Antonio Favaro to be a unique collection in the world, the result of substantial investment. He died in Rome on 13 April 1894 at the age of 72. His work laid the foundation for the modern Italian school of the history of mathematics.
