Models in mathematical teaching in Italy (1850-1950)

Up to the present, the research on the collections of models in Italy has been limited to examining and cataloguing the collections existing at various universities, with a great deal of work being carried out mostly by Franco and Nicla Palladino,0 but an in-depth study of their use in university and pre-university teaching does not yet exist. In my paper I will deal with this problem, considering the period running from the mid-nineteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth century. In particular I will focus on the following points: the lack of interest in de-signing and making models for teaching at the university level at the turn of the twentieth century in Italy, and its causes; the one exception to this, i. e. Beltrami’s cardboard model of the pseudospherical surface; models in pre-university schools in the 1800s; Corrado Segre and the use of models at the University of Turin; the role of models in the ”laboratory school” (Vailati, Marcolongo, Montessori, Emma Castelnuovo); the reconstruction of university collections of models in the 1950s. Finally I will try to draw some conclusions from this first historical analysis of the question.