Mathematical Techings in Italy in Military Schools in the Eighteenth Century and in the Age of Napoleon

The history of mathematical teaching must consider the technical-scientific training organized and given in schools for the education of artillerymen and engineers in the eighteenth century, remodeled by Napoleon in the nineteenth century to bring it into line with the French approach. In these schools there were born the first study programs which taught how innovative mathematical results produced by thinkers like Galileo, Newton, and Euler could be applied to the field of war, as they were by thinkers like Tartaglia and others. Illustrious mathematicians taught there, such as Monge in Mézières and Lagrange in Turin. In Italy, the first model of artillery schools was represented by the Turin School which was established after the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Its mathematics study program was expanded with the teachings of young Lagrange on differential calculus. In the Napoleonic period eighteenth-century institutes were perfected in order to fit the Polytechnic model, as demonstrated by the school of Modena, which counted Paolo Ruffini among its teachers, and the schools of Pavia, where Antonio Collalto taught. In southern Italy, French influence on military schools can be found in the Royal Polytechnic and Military School of Naples. In the present work, we will provide an overview of the most relevant Italian Military Schools between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century by focusing on both professors and mathematical textbooks, written for the mathematical teaching in these schools.