Francesco Severi ed Enrico Bompiani: matematica e diplomazia alle soglie della Seconda Guerra Mondiale

Francesco Severi and Enrico Bompiani: Mathematics and Diplomacy on the eve of the Second World War · Established in April 1930, the Volta Foundation was one of the centers annexed to the Reale Accademia d’Italia and played a central role in the fascist foreign policy of science because it financed dozens of foreign travel fellowships and nine international conferences, the first dedicated to Nuclear Physics (1931) and the last one before the war on contemporary Mathematics and its applications (1939). Postponed due to the outbreak of the war, and finally cancelled, the 1939 Volta Conference deserves an in-depth analysis under a double perspective: political and mathematical. Beyond the exclusion of Jewish mathematicians, its organization was in fact an exercise of science anti-diplomacy. Considering the extensive correspondence kept in the archives of the Royal Academy of Italy and the Italian Mathematical Union, the paper will focus on the behind-the-scenes to this virtual conference, scrutinizing the practice of international cooperation and propagandistic uses of mathematics in fascist Italy.