Giovanni Battista Guccia: Pioneer of International Cooperation in Mathematics

Abstract

1855-1914), Sicilian nobleman and mathematician, was a man with a vision.In 1884, he founded and bankrolled the Circolo Matematico di Palermo in an effort to correct what he described to Luigi Cremona as "the miserable state of abandonment of the studies of mathematics in Palermo" (p.94), his hometown.Four years later, he had succeeded in turning what had been a pamphlet detailing the society's activities into a new mathematical research journal, the Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo.And, by at least 1904, he had conceived the idea of transforming the Circolo into an international mathematical society that would, in his words, "spread and disseminate mathematical production worldwide, making use of the progress achieved by modern civilization in the field of international relations" (p.158).