the italian didactic tradition

Starting with a historic overview highlighting the increasing interest and involvement of the community of mathematicians in educational issues, the chapter outlines some of the crucial features that shaped Italian didactics and, more specifically, the emergence of research studies on mathematics education. Some of these features are related to local conditions, for instance, the high degree of freedom left to the teacher in the design and realization of didactic interventions. The specificity of the Italian case can also be highlighted through a comparison with the reality of other countries. The fruitfulness of this comparison is presented by reporting on collective and personal collaboration experiences between the French and Italian research communities. A final contribution, coming from East Asia, puts the Italian tradition under the lens of a completely new eye, and invites reflection upon historical and institutional aspects of the Italian tradition

Pasquale del Pezzo, Duke of Caianello, Neapolitan mathematician

This article is dedicated to a reconstruction of some events and achievements, both personal and scientific, in the life of the Neapolitan mathematician Pasquale del Pezzo, Duke of Caianello

"Maestro nella scienza, pur libero e delicato nella coscienza”. La personalità di Augustin-Louis Cauchy

Viene descritto il carattere del matematico Augustin-Louis Cauchy. Come nel caso di Newton, la sua personalità presenta aspetti interessanti, e le sue vicende personali si legano agli avvenimenti politici francesi della prima metà dell'Ottocento

Secondary school mathematics teachers and their training in pre- and post-unity Italy (1810-1920).

This paper traces the evolution of the profession of mathematics teacher in Italy during the transition of the country from a cluster of small, individual states to a single, unified nation. Our focus will be on the plans carried out for teacher training in the period from 1810, when the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa was created to train prospective teachers, to 1920, when the Scuole di Magistero (Teacher Training Schools) were suppressed. In particular, we have set two objectives: (a) to show how the idea changed of what disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge was useful for training future teachers, (b) to illustrate the contributions of a significant group of mathematics teachers who worked along several different lines for the improvement of education