Person: Vitali, Giuseppe
Giuseppe Vitali was an Italian mathematician who worked in various branches of analysis including measure theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Giuseppe's elementary school education, which he completed in 1886, was in Ravenna.
- After graduating from the Dante Alighieri High School, Vitali studied for two years at the University of Bologna, beginning in the autumn of 1895.
- Vitali was awarded the scholarship and began his studies at Pisa in the autumn of 1897.
- After the award of his teaching diploma, Vitali left university level mathematics to become a secondary school teacher.
- Vitali, however, kept in contact with his mentors, and Arzelà in particular remained a constant point of reference for him, through exchange of letters and also meetings above all during the holiday periods (Vitali returned to Bologna during his teaching years in Voghera, and Arzelà, in his turn, spent long periods in Santo Stefano Magra in Liguria).
- First Vitali was appointed to a chair in Modena.
- Vitali was only ranked as second choice by the referees (although Fubini and Levi-Civita had ranked him top), but the candidate who came top, Gustavo Sannia, did not accept the post when offered it.
- Then, in December 1925, Vitali was appointed to the chair of mathematical analysis at the University of Padua.
- Despite serious health problems, Vitali was able to make huge contributions to Padua during the five years that he worked there.
- Vitali was keen to set up a journal as part of the work of the Seminario and the Rendiconti del Seminario Matematico dell'Università di Padova began publishing in 1930.
- Vitali published a remarkable volume of mathematics over these years and was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Bologna in September 1928, giving the lecture Rapporti inattesi su alcuni rami della matematica Ⓣ(Unexpected reports on some branches of mathematics).
- In 1930 Vitali moved to the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna.
- Vitali was at the height of his scientific career, both in terms of the recognition he received - alas, so tardily! - by the highest Italian academies, and for having begun and, in part, concluded the preparation of his treatises, as well as for having begun, with renewed, surprising creative capacities, that research in stellar astronomy ...
- Vitali was extraordinarily generous and good to me.
- One of the themes which ran through Vitali's research was his interest in the ideas of Lebesgue - we have seen many references to this above.
- From 1926 Vitali developed a serious illness and, with a paralysed arm, he could no longer write.
- Vitali was honoured with election to the Academy of Sciences of Turin in 1928, to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1930, and to the Academy of Bologna in 1931.
Born 26 August 1875, Ravenna, Italy. Died 29 February 1932, Bologna, Italy.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Astronomy, Origin Italy
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
