Gino Loria by Eugenio Togliatti

Eugenio Togliatti wrote the following article for the 90th birthday of Gino Loria in December 1952. It was published in Italian in La Rassegna Mensile di Israel (3) 18 (12) (1952), 499-505. Below we give an English translation but first we give the information which Togliatti gives about the content of the article.

Sources of the 90th birthday article, by Eugenio Togliatti.

The biographical information published in this article was kindly provided to me by the grandchildren of Prof Loria, the Engineer Mario Loria and Professor Giorgio Rabbeno, whom I sincerely thank here.

The information of a more strictly scientific nature reproduces, with additions, what I said on 10 December 1926 at the meeting held at the University of Genoa to celebrate Gino Loria's fortieth anniversary of teaching; this information comes from a speech given by Loria himself on 10 June 1926 at the Ligurian Section of Mathesis. An extensive and carefully written biographical note on Gino Loria can be found in volume 7 of the journal Osiris directed by G Sarton; some biographical notes on him can also be read in the Treccani Encyclopedia.

Finally, I thank the Director of this journal who contacted me asking me to draft this article.

Gino Loria: 90th Birthday, by Eugenio Togliatti.

On 19 May, Professor Gino Loria, formerly Professor of Higher Geometry at the University of Genoa and currently Professor Emeritus of that University, celebrated his ninetieth birthday. He has not taken an active part in the university life of Genoa for several years; nevertheless, his name and the memory of him are still very much alive in the city where he taught for many years. His fame as a scientist, moreover, is widespread. It may therefore be pleasant for the readers of this Journal to know something about him, his life and his works; to know the reasons why his name is so well known wherever mathematical sciences are cultivated.

Gino Loria was born in Mantua on 19 May 1862, into a wealthy Jewish family that by centuries-old tradition has always felt the most lively attachment to the Jewish religion. Since the time of Austrian domination, the Loria family had always taken part in the public life of that city and the surrounding province. The young Gino attended the Technical Institute in Mantua, obtaining his diploma in 1879; in the years spent at the Technical Institute of Mantua, his natural tendency towards mathematical studies was particularly developed by the teaching of Prof Fattorini, a modest teacher, but very capable didactically and full of enthusiasm for his science. In the four years from 1879 to 1883 Loria followed the courses required for the award of the degree in mathematics at the University of Turin, which was awarded to him in 1883. The supervisor of his thesis, entitled "Geometry of the sphere", was Prof Enrico D'Ovidio. The years spent at the University of Turin date back to his friendship with Corrado Segre, then his fellow student, a friendship that soon became an intimacy, and which later also led to scientific collaboration. On 1 November 1886, after two years of assistantship at the University of Turin under Prof D'Ovidio, he obtained by competition the chair of Higher Geometry at the Faculty of Science of the University of Genoa, a chair that he occupied without interruption for a good forty-nine years, until the end of October 1935, when, due to the law on the lowering of the age limit for university professors, he had to leave the chair that he had been worthily occupying for half a century. He then took on the teaching of History of Mathematics, and delivered courses for some years, until the beginning of racial persecution in Italy forced him to stop all university activity. In 1942, due to the worsening of racial persecution, he left Genoa, his home, his beloved library, to move to Torre Pellice, where he found the most affectionate welcome from courageous and devoted people, in the midst of that proud and kind population accustomed for centuries to the struggle for freedom. Thus he was able to miraculously escape a tragic fate, continue his studies and return to Genoa after 25 April 1945, resuming his occupation with greater serenity.

Gino Loria's academic activity at the University of Genoa does not end with his over fifty-year teaching of Higher Geometry and History of Mathematics; at the Faculty of Science of Genoa he also taught Descriptive Geometry for many years; he held other teaching positions at the Royal School of Naval Engineering before the two-year preparatory course of that School was merged with the analogous one of the Faculty of Science. He was Dean of the Faculty of Science; member of the Board of Directors of the University after the reform of 1923; Director of the School of Mathematics when it existed; and Director of the special library of mathematics. Appointed to the Faculty of Science of Genoa just when it was rising to the dignity of a complete Faculty in all its parts, the history of his academic activity is closely related to the development of the Faculty, whose interests he has always supported and defended against bureaucratic misunderstandings and the distrust of neighbouring universities, with active energy and inexhaustible enthusiasm.

Anyone who skims the titles of Gino Loria's over three hundred scientific publications immediately notices the absolute prevalence of writings on historical subjects; a more careful examination confirms the first impression, revealing in him a true passion for this difficult type of study. In 1886 he was preparing to make his debut in Genoa as a professor with an inaugural speech containing a historical review of the development of geometry; such a speech was not then held due to contingent circumstances; but the relative manuscript, appropriately reworked, was included among the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of Turin, then translated into German and Polish, and finally printed in Turin in a volume entitled The past and the present of the main geometric theories, a volume that had three subsequent editions (1897, 1907, 1931). This first historical work had a decisive and permanent effect on Loria's entire subsequent scientific career: it was now clear that he was one of the very few young scientists of that time who felt an interest and showed an aptitude for the history of science. Proof of this is the fact that G Eneström immediately requested Loria's collaboration on his magazine Bibliotheca mathematica; and that Eugenio Beltrami encouraged him to take part in the competition announced in 1894 by the Venetian Institute of Sciences and Letters for a manual of the history of mathematics. But it is not possible, in a necessarily brief review such as this, to follow in detail the path taken by our scholar in historical research. Gleaning from the larger works, we recall the study on The exact sciences in ancient Greece, first contained in a memoir of the Turin Academy of Sciences in 1889, then in a more extensive publication of the Modena Academy in 1893, and reprinted in its definitive form among the Hoepli manuals in 1914. We recall the volume of History of descriptive geometry published among the Hoepli manuals in 1921. And then the monograph on the history of analytical geometry published in 1923 among the memoirs of the Accademia dei Lincei. And then again the Guide to the study of the history of mathematics, another Hoepli manual from 1916, a smaller-scale realisation of a much larger and more grandiose project presented by Loria at the IV International Congress of Mathematicians held in Rome in 1908. And then again the Pages of the history of science, a textbook for middle schools, from 1925. And then the three volumes of History of Mathematics from 1919, 1931, 1933; and the volume Mathematical Methods from 1935. And let's leave aside all the rest: it is an enormous quantity of articles, scattered in various journals, Italian and foreign, on mathematicians of all eras; of research on the conditions of mathematics in this or that country, and on the contribution made to the progress of mathematics by this or that people; of studies on the origins of this or that branch of mathematics: of historical-critical discussions on particular subjects. A selection of these studies was published in 1937, under the auspices of the Mathesis Association of Genoa, in a beautiful volume entitled Writings. conferences, discourses on the history of mathematics, on the occasion of the author's fiftieth anniversary of teaching.

For the seriousness and vastness of the work carried out, for the fame that has rightly come to the author, in Italy and abroad, one cannot hesitate to place Gino Loria in the very first place among the scholars of the history of science; proof of this are the two Binoux prizes awarded to him in 1907 for his historical works in general, in 1914 for the aforementioned volume on the history of descriptive geometry.

Other studies of a historical-encyclopaedic nature, collected in weighty volumes, have also required great effort from Loria. We wish to allude in particular to the volume Spezielle algebraische und transzendente ebene Kurvenen, which is one of the most well-known books in mathematical circles. The origin of this work must be sought in a competition announced in 1896 by the Academy of Sciences of Madrid, for the best methodical exposition of the properties of special curves known up to that time. If one considers that the literature on special plane curves has a truly colossal extension and that properties of special curves are very often found to be lost, as secondary incidents, in works having a completely different purpose, one understands that the task of the competitors for that prize was truly enormous. Loria approached it with enthusiasm; indeed, to respect the rules of the competition, he had to undertake the study of the Castilian language; the work he presented won the prize, and soon had such notoriety that a German translation was published in 1902, reprinted in a second edition in 1910-11. A natural extension of this are the two volumes on Curve sghembe speciali algebraiche e trascendenti published in 1925. Loria's desire that someone would continue his work with a similar treatise on special surfaces induced the Mathesis ligure to put the question to a competition; but the competition had no entries; and special algebraic surfaces still await the enthusiast who dedicates himself to them.

The article on special algebraic plane curves with which Loria collaborated in 1914 on the Enzyklopädie der math. Wissenschaften can be compared to the volumes cited above for affinity of content.

Gino Loria should still be remembered as a distinguished treatise writer of descriptive geometry. His first treatise on this subject published in German, in two volumes, in 1907 and 1913, is more than original it is innovative, for the distribution of the material, for the details of the treatment and especially for the elegance and novelty of many demonstrations. The German edition was followed by an Italian edition among the Hoepli manuals, in three volumes that have had many editions. Unfortunately the Hoepli bookshop suffered various bombings during the last war, so that all the volumes published by Loria in the collection of those manuals were destroyed.

The desire to highlight the most characteristic part of Loria's scientific production must not make us forget, finally, his research outside the historical-treatise direction. I recall here his dissertation on the geometry of spheres and the classification of cyclids; then some research on the geometry of the line, one of which in collaboration with Corrado Segre; other research on the geometric applications of elliptic functions; I recall the introduction of the concept of genus of a rational transformation of space; as well as that of panalgebraic curves and surfaces, reproduced in the treatise on special plane curves, which constitutes a first attempt at classifying transcendental curves and surfaces, etc.

I close this rapid review by recalling Loria's collaboration with the Jahrburch über die Fortschritte der Math., which dates from 1885, with the Revue sémestrielle des publ. math., and with the journal Scientia. I still remember the publication of the Bollettino di bibliografia e storia delle scienze matematiche, which later became the historical-bibliographic section of the Bollettino di matematica first, and now of the journal Archimede. And finally, one cannot help but remember his tireless and inspiring activity as president of the Ligurian section of the Mathesis Association; and his constant interest in questions of a didactic nature, which earned him first the nomination as a member of the international commission for mathematical teaching, and in 1936 the nomination as an honorary member of this international institution.

Such a vast and multifaceted work could not fail to arouse the admiration of colleagues, disciples and acquaintances; who wanted to solemnly celebrate his fortieth year of teaching in 1926, and his fiftieth in 1936. After sixteen years, on 19 May, once again, but this time in a completely private and family-like manner, due to the health conditions of the birthday boy, Gino Loria's friends gathered, in very small numbers, at his home, to present him with tributes and good wishes. At this intimate meeting were represented: the University of Genoa (and in particular the Faculty of Science) and the Ligurian Mathesis association, which together collected by subscription the funds necessary for the establishment of a prize, named after him, to be awarded periodically to a mathematics graduate from the University of Genoa; the Ligurian Academy of Sciences and Letters, which is publishing in his honour, in a special issue of its Proceedings, a selection of articles by various authors; the Order of Engineers of the province of Genoa, which offered the birthday boy a gold medal; the Society of Scientific Readings and Conversations of Genoa, which has named him Honorary Member on this occasion, a merit already recognised in the past to Giuseppe Garibaldi, Nino Bixio and Giuseppe Verdi; the Jewish Community of Genoa; and finally the former students.

May the illustrious professor forgive us if we have taken the liberty of writing about him and his life and his works, even though we know full well that he does not like people to talk about his physical person; may he consider this modest writing as an expression of admiration for his scientific work and for his very long career as a teacher, as a tribute to his venerable age, as a reverent recognition of the rectitude, modesty and simplicity that have always inspired his life, and that well deserve to be held up as an example.

Last Updated March 2025