Vincenzo Brunacci

Vincenzo Brunacci was an Italian mathematician, born in Florence on 3 March 1768 and dead on 16 June 1818. He studied medicine, astronomy and mathematics at the University of Pisa, took his degree in 1788 and began teaching mathematics at the Naval Institute of Livorno that year. In 1801 he moved to the University of Pavia as professor of infinitesimal calculus and became its dean. He believed that Lagrange's approach in the Théorie des fonctions analytiques was the correct one and that the infinitesimal concept should be banned from analysis and mechanics, and in his teaching other approaches were prohibited as a rule. His pupils included Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti, Antonio Bordoni and Gabrio Piola, and he also worked for the public administration on canal and water projects.