GINO LORIA ED ERNESTO PASCAL: MEMORIA E OBLIO IN UNA POLEMICA DI FINE OTTOCENTO

1892 Gino Loria published a booklet on the so-called synthetic school of the Neapolitan mathematician Nicola Fergola. His aim was “to highlight some scientific merits of Italy, which have now been forgotten.” In fact, the memory of this well-established early nineteenth-century mathematical school was lost in the thirty years following the unification of Italy. In rehabilitating the historical memory of Nicola Fergola, Loria’s work was part of an important trend in the Italian history of science at that time, aiming at rediscovering and reevaluating the contributions of Italian scientists. However, Loria was severely criticized by Ernesto Pascal. Pascal was a mathematician who showed poor appreciation of the studies in history of mathematics. Nevertheless, he wrote a polemic paper in which he blamed Loria for evoking the memory of the school. In his opinion, Loria did not contemplate the fact that “men who forget are not always wrong” and that it would have been preferable not to lift the veil that covered the Neapolitan school. In this paper, we will show that Pascal’s claim can be explained by political questions connected with the desire of the Risorgimento intellectuals to enhance the discontinuity of the new Kingdom of Italy with respect to the ancient Neapolitan State.