The Scorza Scientific High School discovering GB Scorza, the mathematician after whom the first Scientific High School in Cosenza and its province was named
The morning at the Scorza Scientific High School was truly significant, discovering GB Scorza, the mathematician after whom the first Scientific High School in Cosenza and its province was named, on the initiative of the Principal and mathematician Giovanni Giallombardo, a student of Scorza; in an article published in the first issue of the scientific high school yearbook, in 1988 he described his teacher as follows: “Tall, with nobly composed movements, thick, gray beard and hair, a spacious forehead from the base of which two deep vertical wrinkles started, his expression was serene, behind his glasses his eyes were bright with the light of the mind and the heart, his speech was fluid, broad, clear, elegant with a Calabrian accent with a variable tone, an artist in making simple concepts that were not always such, Professor Scorza exuded a spiritual charm , which fascinated us students. And we, with our heads bent over the sheets of paper to fix our notes, followed him with the enthusiasm that he knew how to inspire in us. He often brought himself among us so that we could feel the affection, which was reciprocated by all. How many times have I felt his hand resting on my shoulders, when he happily noted that, and it was thanks to him, I had intuited the conclusions of a topic discussed!
The works were opened by the greeting address of the Principal Eng. Aldo Trecroci, Prof. Gilda De Caro, president of CIVICA AMICA APS and the Mayor of Cosenza Avv. Franz Caruso, former student of Scorza, who expressed his satisfaction with the initiative; he recalled the time of his attendance at Scorza, in constant competition with his colleagues from the Liceo Telesio, claiming the pride of belonging to an educational institution, which felt projected towards the future precisely for the study of scientific disciplines, over the years of the beginnings of information technology, he remembered his teachers for whom he expressed his profound gratitude for the training opportunities received.
Professor Salvatore Belvedere outlined the long and difficult path for the collection of documentation on the life and education of Gaetano Bernardino Scorza, who, born in Morano in 1876, then followed the usual path of young people from a good, wealthy family with the continuation of his studies , first a boarder at the Nazarene in Rome and then at the Scolopi in Florence, with an impossible return to Calabria due to the development of his scientific skills which led him to work in the most prestigious universities and collaborate with recognized academics of high value.
Prof Ottavio Serra presented the profile of the researcher, with an exhilarating off-the-cuff presentation he made it understandable for all the problems that Scorza faced. Through references to the most important mathematicians since ancient times, it has made clear the level of problems and the research that the scientist conducted, interrupted only by a premature death in 1939.
Prof Serra began by saying that he was dedicating this speech to the memory of a close friend, the principal Narciso Simonetti, who cared so much about the commemoration of Gaetano Scorza. With rapid strokes he outlined Scorza’s academic and scientific career, which saw him present at the Universities of Catania, Naples and Rome, where he deepened his studies of algebraic geometry in the vein of the Italian school of mathematics, tackling among the first in Italy , the new fields of abstract algebra, in particular of groups.
The high school library preserves the volumes which collect his studies, purchased on the initiative of his brilliant student, Giovanni Giallombardo. Serra then showed how modern developments in abstract algebra have ancient origins, dating back to the Babylonians and Greeks for the resolution of algebraic equations. But the Italian mathematicians of the 16th century, especially those from Bologna, have the merit of discovering the solution formulas of 3rd and 4th degree equations. After futile efforts by mathematicians across Europe to go further, two young mathematicians, the Frenchman Galois and the Norwegian Abel, demonstrated that there are no solution formulas for equations of degree higher than the fourth. To obtain this historic result, Galois and Abel created new mathematics to which Gaetano Scorza made notable contributions.
The director of the Mathematics Department of UNICAL, prof. Gianluigi Greco, a former student of the Scorza High School, has drawn a line of continuity between his strong high school education, thanks to which he experienced his university education with relative ease; he traced the field of his work, information technology and the current development of technological applications, stating that a rich and well-established education is the guarantee for the young generations to then be able to distinguish the true from the false, in which contemporaneity is always more immersed. Even professors Fedele, Golemme and Volpentesta, the three former students of the high school and of prof Serra, highlighted in their different interventions Scorza’s lucidity in defending mathematics and science in general during the Gentile Reform, while he was a consultant of the Minister, the importance of Scorzia’s studies in the development of the most advanced technologies in the field of environmental sciences, finally the significance of the figure of a teacher for young people and of such a meeting precisely for the transmission of knowledge and for the symbolic value that a similar communication can take place in an intelligence and in a personality in formation.
There was a large audience present, the principals Luciani, Nardi, Savaglio, who succeeded one another as directors of the high school, Dr. Bonofiglio, director of the National Library of Cosenza, Prof. Matilde Lanzino, Prof. Paolo Veltri, another renowned former student, the doctor Santo De Marco representing the Giallombardo family, numerous former teachers and those in service, attentive students, who will finally be aware that the letters G and B next to the surname do not mean Giovanbattista, but Gaetano Bernardino Scorza, so they will be able to specify it to the their parents, perhaps even their former students immersed in the popular John the Baptist: now as a result of this morning finally convinced of the registry truth of Scorza, the great mathematician, Gaetano Bernardino.
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