La Statistica nell'Università di Padova: un percorso emblematico dalla Restaurazione all'età repubblicana

The paper reconstructs the teaching and research activities of scholars in statistics and related subjects at the University of Padua from the Restoration to the Second World War. The history of statistics in Padua is an interesting case study, as it allows to shed light on the evolution of the discipline at the national level as well as on its relationships with the international development of statistical methods. Some fascinating antecedents go back to the 16th Century, with contributions by Gerolamo Cardano, student at the School of Medicine from 1524 to 1526, and later by Galileo Galilei, professor of mathematics at the University of Padua from 1592 to 1610. The 150 years from the Restoration to the 1960s are marked by a sequence of phases of renewal and conservatism. At the beginning, the old Statistik took the place of political arithmetic. Statistics experienced telling improvements only with Angelo Messedaglia, who drew from Quetelet and outlined a new role for the discipline within the rethinking of the “science of administration”. After a grey period when statistics was considered as a social science supporting State intervention – without any peculiar methodological apparatus, a new phase of dramatic innovation followed, led by Corrado Gini, professor of Statistics in Padua from 1913 to 1925. His pupils and successors exacerbated the neo-descriptive approach of the «Italian school of Statistcs», the confrontation with modern statistical inference, and the support to the corporatist programme of the Fascism. This motivated a decline immediately after the Second World War. A new revival had to wait up to the mid 1950s, with the appointment of Albino Uggé at the chair of Statistics, the crucial cooperation of Bernardo Colombo – who moved from the University of Venice to Padua in 1967, around whom a group of young scholars assembled. The establishment of a Faculty of Statistics, in 1968, was the prominent result of that process. Statistics at the University of Padua: An Emblematic Journey from the Restoration to the Republican Age Giovanni Favero and Ugo Trivellato The paper reconstructs the teaching and research activities of scholars in statistics and related subjects at the University of Padua from the Restoration to the Second World War. The history of statistics in Padua is an interesting case study, as it allows to shed light on the evolution of the discipline at the national level as well as on its relationships with the international development of statistical methods. Some fascinating antecedents go back to the 16th Century, with contributions by Gerolamo Cardano and by Galileo Galilei. The 150 years from the Restoration to the 1960s are marked by a sequence of phases of renewal and conservatism. At the beginning, the old Statistik took the place of political arithmetic. Statistics experienced telling improvements only with Angelo Messedaglia, who drew from Quetelet and outlined a new political role for the discipline. This led his pupils to view statistics as a social science supporting State intervention, without any methodological peculiarity. A new phase of dramatic innovation was led by Corrado Gini from 1913 to 1925. Again, his pupils and successors exacerbated the neo-descriptive approach of the «Italian school of Statistcs», the confrontation with modern statistical inference, and the support to the corporatist programme of the Fascism, motivating the post-war decline of the discipline. A new revival had to wait the mid 1950s, when Albino Uggé and then Bernardo Colombo started assembling a group of young scholars and planning the establishment of a Faculty of Statistics, finally realized in 1968.