Marcello Boldrini (9 February 1890, in

Matelica Matelica is a (municipality) of the Province of Macerata in the Italian region of Marche. Located about southwest of Ancona and west of Macerata, it extends over an area of . Geography Matelica lies in an ample valley where the Braccano ...

– 5 March 1969, in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

) was an Italian

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

Biography

Beginning in 1922, he taught courses in statistics,

biometry Biostatistics (also known as biometry) is a branch of statistics that applies statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experime ...

, and

demography Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examine ...

Bocconi University Bocconi University or Università Bocconi (formally known in Italian language, Italian as ''Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi'' – Luigi Bocconi Commercial University) is a private university in Milan, Italy. The university is consistently ...

of Milan, and then at the University of Rome as Emeritus Professor. He was also a member of several academies and institutes in Italy and abroad, serving for several years as president of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. At a meeting of the Jubilee Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians met and formed the agreed statues of the International Statistical ...

. His scientific research was on both methodological and applied statistics, particularly on demography,

anthropometry Anthropometry (, ) refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of biological anthropology, physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthr ...

, and economics. As a statistician, he has been particularly interested in the foundations of the method, and he proposed a view of statistics as an empirical history of all the positive sciences. To deepen this research he founded a statistical Laboratory at the Catholic University of Milan. The results are widely discussed in the volumes, Statistica: Teoria e metodi (first edition, 1942), and Teoria della Statistica (1963), which have been studied by thousands of students. For Boldrini, Statistics is a formal science like mathematics and logic, but it is different from them as a scientific inquiry method in the inductive and deductive phases of research. Beyond academic commitment, he also had several management positions in the state oil industry: he was first named president of

Agip Agip S.p.A., acronym for Azienda generale italiana petroli, was an Italian automotive gasoline, Diesel fuel, diesel, Liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, lubricants, fuel oil, and bitumen retailer established in 1926 and Subsidiary company, subsidiary ...

(1948–1953), was then vice-president of

ENI Eni is an Italian oil and gas corporation. Eni or ENI may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Escuela Nacional de Inteligencia, the Argentine intelligence academy * Groupe des écoles nationales d’ingénieurs (Groupe ENI), a French engi ...

(1953–1962), before succeeding

Enrico Mattei Enrico Mattei (; 29 April 1906 – 27 October 1962) was an Italian public administrator. After World War II, he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by Fascist Italy. Instead, Ma ...

as president in 1962, remaining in the post until 1967.

Academic Positions

Professor of Statistics and Demography at the Universities of

Messina Messina ( , ; ; ; ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants ...

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

, Milan and Rome. Dean of Political Sciences, Milan Catholic University (1043-1945).

Honours, memberships

Member of the

Pontifical Academy A pontifical academy is an academic honorary society established by or under the direction of the Holy See. Some were in existence well before they were accepted as "Pontifical." List There are ten Pontifical academies headquartered at the Vatic ...

Accademia dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

, Honoris Causa at the

University of Rio de Janeiro The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (, UFRJ) is a public research university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the largest federal university in the country and is one of the Brazilian centers of excellence in teaching and research. Brazil's ...

. Professor emeritus at Rome University.

Selected works

English

* ''Scientific Truth and Statistical Method'', translated by Ruth Kendall, Griffin (1972)

Italian

* ''Biometrica'', CEDAM (1927); * ''Demografia'', A. Giuffrè (1943); * ''Statistica in Compendio'', A. Giuffrè (1957) * ''Teoria della Statistica'', A. Giuffrè (1963). * ''Statistica, Teoria e Metodi'', A. Giuffrè (5th ed. 1968)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boldrini, Marcello Italian statisticians Presidents of the International Statistical Institute 1890 births 1969 deaths Academic staff of the University of Messina Academic staff of the University of Padua Academic staff of the University of Milan People from Matelica