Francesco Brioschi

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Francesco Brioschi.

Francesco Brioschi (1824–1897) was an Italian mathematician.

Brioschi was born in Milan in 1824. From 1850 he taught analytical mechanics in the University of Pavia. After the Italian unification in 1861, he was elected depute in the Parliament of Italy and then appointed twice secretary of the Education Minister. In 1863 he founded the Politecnico di Milano, where he worked until death; here, he taught mainly hydraulics, but sometimes he lectured analytical mechanics and construction engineering, too. In 1865 he entered in the Senate of the Kingdom. In 1870 he became member of the National Academy of the Lincei and in 1884 he succeed Quintino Sella as president of the National Academy of the Lincei. He directed the Il Politecnico (English translation: The Polytechnic) review and, between 1867 and 1877, Annali di matematica pura e applicata (English translation: Annals of pure and applied mathematics). He died in Milan in 1897.

As mathematician, Brioschi publicized in Italy various algebraic theories and studied the problem of solving fifth and sixth grade equations using elliptic functions. Brioschi is also remembered as a distinguished teacher: among his students in the University of Pavia there where Eugenio Beltrami, Luigi Cremona and Felice Casorati.