Prince Baldassarre Boncompagni-Ludovisi (10 May 1821 – 13 April 1894), was an Italian

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and aristocrat.

Biography

Boncompagni was born in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, into an ancient noble and wealthy Roman family, the Ludovisi- Boncompagni, as the third son of Prince Luigi Boncompagni Ludovisi and Princess Maria Maddalena Odescalchi. He studied under the mathematician Barnaba Tortolini and astronomer Ignazio Calandrelli, developing an interest in the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

. In 1847

Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...

appointed him a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. Between 1850-1862 he produced studies on mathematicians of the

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and in 1868 founded the '' Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche''. After the annexation of the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

into the

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(1870), he refused further participation in the new Academy of the Lincei, and did not accept 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. Boncompagni edited ''Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche'' ("The bulletin of bibliography and history of mathematical and physical sciences") (1868–1887), the first Italian periodical entirely dedicated to the

history of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the History of mathematical notation, mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples ...

. He edited every article that appeared in the journal.A. Favaro, `Don Baldassarre Boncompagni e la storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche ', Atti del Regio Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (1894–5), 6, pp. 509–21, 514, cited in Massimo Mazzotti (2000)
''For science and for the Pope-king: writing the history of the exact sciences in nineteenth-century Rome''
, BJHS, 33, pp. 257–282 He also prepared and published the first modern edition of

Fibonacci Leonardo Bonacci ( – ), commonly known as Fibonacci, was an Italians, Italian mathematician from the Republic of Pisa, considered to be "the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages". The name he is commonly called, ''Fibonacci ...

's '' Liber Abaci''.

Selected works

* ''Recherches sur les integrales définies''. ''Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik'', 1843, XXV, pagg. 74-96 * '' Intorno ad alcuni avanzamenti della fisica in Italia nei secoli XVI e XVII''. ''Giornale arcadico di scienze, lettere ed arti'', 1846, CIX, pagg. 3-4

* ''Della vita e delle opere di Guido Bonatti, astrologo e astronomo del secolo decimoterzo''. Roma, 1851 * ''Delle versioni fatte da Platone Tiburtino, traduttore del secolo duodecimo''. ''Atti dell'Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei'', 1850–51, IV, pagg. 247-286 * ''Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese, traduttore del secolo decimosecondo, e di Gherardo da Sabbioneta, astronomo del secolo decimoterzo''. ''Atti dell'Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei'', 1850–51, IV, pagg. 387-493 * ''Della vita e delle opere di Leonardo Pisano, matematico del secolo decimoterzo''. ''Atti dell'Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi lincei'', 1851–52, V, pagg. 208-245
Intorno ad alcune opere di Leonardo Pisano
(Roma : tipografia delle belle arti, 1854) * ''Opuscoli di Leonardo Pisano, pubblicati da Baldassarre Boncompagni secondo la lezione di un codice della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano'', Firenze, 1856 * ''Trattati d'aritmetica pubblicati da Baldassarre Boncompagni, I, Algoritmi de numero Indorum; II, Ioannis Hispalensis liber Algoritmi de practica arismetice''. Roma, 1857 * ''Scritti di Leonardo Pisano, matematico, pubblicati da Baldassarre Boncompagni''. 2 voll., Roma, 1857–62 * ''Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche''. Tomi I-XX, Roma, 1868-1887

References

External links

*
''Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche''
at the

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Boncompagni, Baldassarre 1821 births 1894 deaths Scholars from the Papal States Baldassarre Writers from Rome 19th-century Italian mathematicians Italian historians of mathematics Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities