Ulisse Dini

Ulisse Dini (1845 to 1918) was an Italian mathematician and politician, born in Pisa. He attended the Scuola Normale Superiore, studied in Paris under Charles Hermite and Joseph Bertrand with the help of a scholarship in 1865, and from 1866 taught at the University of Pisa, where in 1871 he succeeded Enrico Betti as professor of analysis and geometry. He was rector of the University of Pisa from 1888 to 1890 and director of the Scuola Normale Superiore from 1908 until his death. His main contribution was to real analysis, set out in his 1878 treatise on the foundations of the theory of functions of real variables, and he proved the Dini criterion for the convergence of Fourier series. He also worked on potential theory and the differential geometry of surfaces. Alongside this he sat on the Pisa city council and, from 1880, in the Italian parliament.