Teaching and learning practices calculus in the 18th century: the case of Italian mathematics and its European dimension

The aim of this project is to rewrite the history of differential and integral calculus in 18th century Europe focusing on the processes of acquisition and circulation of teaching and learning practices and, on a broader level, to elaborate a new adaptable methodological framework integrating history of mathematics and mathematical education, oral and cultural histories in order to reconstruct the function of oral knowledge in the processes of acquiring mathematical knowledge acting in determined institutional and social contexts.

In doing so, LEGITIMATH will address an under researched phase in the history of mathematics by choosing to explore a rich teaching corpus produced by several learned communities in the Italian peninsula, and chart the transnational circulation of Maria Gaetana Agnesi’s ""Istituzioni Analitiche"" (1748) as well as its reception outside Italy and its French and English translations.

The project is interdisciplinary, crossing history of philosophy and of mathematics, mathematics education and the oral culture of knowledge, and is groundbreaking insofar as it prioritizes oral discourses and practices over internalist studies of mathematical works, and, by examining the case of Italy, it will reassess the relation between scientific “centres” and “peripheries” from the perspective of the circulation of teaching practices.This project, hosted at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, will be pivotal for my career as it will allow me, thanks to the help of my supervisor and the special training offered by my host institutions, to strenghten my expertise as a researcher and create a permanent international network integrating historical studies of mathematics to history of science and philosophy.

The project is a fundamental step for me to eventually apply for an ERC grant, and subsequently obtain a permanent research position at Ca’Foscari or in another European or Italian institution.