Vito Volterra offprints collection, 1754-1956

Printable guide [HTML]
Request items

Summary

Creators:
Volterra, Vito, 1860-1940
Abstract:
Collection comprises approximately 17,000 offprints, reprints, and pamphlets related to the history of science collected by Vito Volterra (1860-1940), an Italian mathematician. The offprints focus primarily on the physical sciences, with emphasis on works on astronomy, mathematics, fluid mechanics, energetics, and chemistry and date from 1754 to 1956.
Extent:
166.8 Linear Feet (400 boxes)
Language:
Materials are in Italian, French, German, English, and other languages.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Vito Volterra offprints collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

Collection contains approximately 17,000 offprints, reprints, and pamphlets on the history of science collected by Vito Volterra, many of which are dedicated by the authors to Volterra. Materials date from 1754 through 1956; however, the bulk of the papers date to the first few decades of the twentieth century. Materials relate to Volterra's involvement with the international scientific community of the time, especially in Europe and the United States. Subjects represented are primarily the physical sciences, in particular astronomy, mathematics, fluid mechanics, energetics, and chemistry.

Materials include works by many of Volterra's Italian and European mathematician contemporaries, including Beppo Levi, Tullio Levi-Civita, Gösta Mittag-Lefler, Jacques Hadamard, G. H. Hardy, and Paul Lévy, as well as inaugural lectures of many noted scholars and theses of their students. Of note is the most complete collection of reprints pertaining to the first phase of general relativity, which includes the works of Élie Cartan, Arthur Eddington, Albert Einstein, David Hilbert, Levi-Civita, and Hermann Weyl. However, the collection also includes papers and lectures by lesser-known scholars.

Please see the Other Finding Aids note for more information on the materials within the collection.

Biographical / historical:

Vito Volterra (1860-1940) was an Italian mathematician noted for his role in the development of calculus. He defined permutable functions and elaborated systematic equations and worked on applications in analysis, physics, and biology. Volterra was born in Ancona, Italy in 1860 to parents Abramo Volterra and Angelica Almagia. He graduated from the University of Pisa in 1882. He was a professor at Pisa from 1883 to 1892, the University of Turin from 1892 to 1900, and the University of Rome from 1900 to 1931. In 1905 he became a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy and in 1921 was awarded an honorary knighthood from King George V of England. During World War I Volterra served in the Italian Air Force. Because he refused to swear allegiance to the Fascist government, in 1931 he was forced to resign from the university and went abroad to teach and travel. He retired to Ariccia, Italy, where he died on October 11, 1940. The death went unnoticed by the authorities and on October 16, 1943, the Nazi Party's SS went to his home in Rome to arrest him for deportation.

Acquisition information:
Burndy Library Collection, Gift of Dibner Family, November 2006.
Custodial history:

Vito Volterra collected offprints until his death in 1940. A small number of papers are dated between 1941 and 1956; it is unknown when or by whom they were added to the collection. After Volterra's death, Bern Dibner was the intermediary between Brandeis University Libraries and Volterra's son Enrico. In 1980 and 1981, Volterra's collection of books, offprints, and other materials was sold to Brandeis University and sent in three shipments, two-thirds of which remained on deposit from the Italian government. The entire Volterra collection was transferred to the Dibner Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999. In 2006, Volterra's collection, including the offprints, was gifted to The Huntington, along with the entirety of the Burndy Library.

Processing information:

Processed in 2022. Maggie Hughes created the finding aid. Carlos Diaz and Emily Neis labeled the folders and boxes. The offprints remain in the order in which they were received from the Dibner Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and the box numbers were retained; there are no boxes with numbers 322-360 in the collection.

Brandeis University Libraries cataloged the items in boxes 1-421 in The Vito Volterra history of science collection: a checklist of offprints (1990). Each publication was assigned an index number, which matches the order in which they are listed in Brandeis' checklist. Index number order is alphabetical by subject and, within subjects, by author last name. The index numbers appear in Brandeis' checklist, but they are not written on the materials or their folders. Entries in the checklist also include a "Volterra number" which is comprised of two parts: box number and folder number, separated by a dash. The box numbers for boxes 1-206 appear as roman numerals in the "Volterra number". Users should reference the "Volterra number" when determining which boxes materials are in.

The materials in boxes 422-432 are not individually listed in Brandeis' checklist. The original box titles were retained for these boxes, "miscellaneous offprints" and "institutional publications".

Arrangement:

The collection in the order in which it was received; it is unknown if this is Volterra's original order.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

Terms of access:

The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Vito Volterra offprints collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
Website