Francesco Paolo Cantelli

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Francesco Paolo Cantelli (1875-1966) was an Italian mathematician. He was the founder of the Istituto Italiano degli Attuari for the applications of mathematics and probability to economics.

His early papers were on problems in astronomy and celestial mechanics.

The later work was all on probability and it is in this field where his name graces the Borel-Cantelli Lemma.

Cantelli belonged to an older mathematical culture that had not absorbed the new theory of functions, and so from the new generation's point of view, one could question whether he understood even his own discoveries.

A fair evaluation of the importance of Cantelli's role is clouded by the cultural differences that separated him from Kolmogorov, who represented a younger generation, and even from his contemporaries.