Background
Enrico Betti Glaoui was born on October 21, 1823, in Pistoia, Tuscany, the son of Matteo Betti, who died when Enrico was very young, and Francesca Dei. He also had two sisters Luisa and Laura, who both died at a young age.
University of Pisa, Lungarno Antonio Pacinotti, 43, 56126 Pisa PI, Italy
Enrico Betti studied mathematics and physics at the University of Pisa, winning a place as a student in one of the grand-ducal colleges where he supported himself by private tutoring. In 1846, Betti graduated with a laurea in pure and applied mathematics.
University of Pisa, Lungarno Antonio Pacinotti, 43, 56126 Pisa PI, Italy
Enrico Betti studied mathematics and physics at the University of Pisa, winning a place as a student in one of the grand-ducal colleges where he supported himself by private tutoring. In 1846, Betti graduated with a laurea in pure and applied mathematics.
Palazzo Corsini, Via della Lungara, 10, 00165 Roma RM, Italy
In 1851, Enrico Betti became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.
Italy
Enrico Betti was awarded the Civil Order of Savoy.
Italy
Enrico Betti received the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.
Italy
Enrico Betti was awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy.
Sweden
Enrico Betti was awarded the Order of the Polar Star.
mathematician politician scientist teacher
Enrico Betti Glaoui was born on October 21, 1823, in Pistoia, Tuscany, the son of Matteo Betti, who died when Enrico was very young, and Francesca Dei. He also had two sisters Luisa and Laura, who both died at a young age.
Enrico Betti's schooling was at the Forteguerri school (now State High School Forteguerri Vannucci) in Pistoia where he had a classical education. This ancient school had been founded in 1473 by Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri to allow poor students to get access to higher education.
Betti studied mathematics and physics at the University of Pisa, winning a place as a student in one of the grand-ducal colleges where he supported himself by private tutoring. At the university, he was taught by Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti and Carlo Matteucci. In 1846, Betti graduated with a laurea in pure and applied mathematics.
Following the graduation, Enrico Betti was appointed as an assistant at the University of Pisa. He worked at the university at a time when political and military events in Italy were intensifying as the country came nearer to unification. He soon joined Mossoti's Tuscan University Battalion and fought two battles in the 1848 war of independence. After the battles, Betti returned to the University of Pisa.
After working as an assistant at the University of Pisa, Betti returned to his home town of Pistoia where he became a teacher of mathematics at the Forteguerri secondary school (now State High School Forteguerri Vannucci) in the town in 1849.
In 1854 Betti moved to Florence where again he taught in a secondary school. During these years when Betti was a secondary school teacher, he was undertaking research with Mossotti as his advisor.
Enrico Betti was appointed as professor of higher algebra at the University of Pisa in 1857. In the following year he, along with Francesco Brioschi and Felice Casorati, visited the leading mathematical centres of Europe. They visited Göttingen, Berlin and Paris making many important mathematical contacts.
Back in Pisa in 1859, he moved to the chair of analysis and higher geometry. He gave his inaugural professorial address in 1860 which was not published, but details of it survive. Mossotti, who held the chair of mathematical physics, died in 1863 and Betti was appointed to that chair in addition to the chair of analysis and higher geometry. He held this chair for the rest of his life.
In 1862, Betti became a member of Parliament, representing Pistoia, continuing in this role until 1867. Over quite a number of years, Betti mixed political service with service for his university. He served a term as rector of the University of Pisa and he became director of its teachers' college, the Scuola Normale Superiore, in 1864 holding this post until his death.
In 1870 Betti moved from the chair of analysis and geometry to the chair of celestial mechanics. He also held this chair for the rest of his life.
He served as an undersecretary of state for education for eighteen months from October 1874 to March 1876; and in 1884 he became a senator in the Italian Parliament.
Enrico Betti contributed to many fields of mathematics and mathematical physics, including algebra, elliptic functions, topology, elasticity, and potential theory. He extended and furnished proofs for Galois’s work, which had previously been stated in part without demonstrations or proofs (before Galois could finish his work, he died in a duel at age 21). The arrival in Pisa of the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann in 1863 decisively affected the course of Betti’s research. They became close friends, and Riemann awakened Betti’s interest in mathematical physics, in particular, potential theory and elasticity, and inspired his memoir on topology. Betti’s study of spaces of higher dimensions (greater than three) in the latter work did much to open up the subject, and it led the French mathematician Henri Poincaré to give the name Betti numbers to certain numbers that characterize the connectivity of a manifold (the higher-dimensional analog of a surface).
Enrico Betti Glaoui died on August 11, 1892, in Terricciola, Italy, and was buried in Campo Santo Cemetery, Pisa.
Enrico Betti was a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.