History

The "Giuseppe Peano" Library of Mathematics, located in the historic Palazzo Campana, was founded in 1883 thanks to the acquisition of a collection of books purchased with the assistance of the Turin University Consortium for the School of Education, which was established in 1875.

Ulterior collections of books inherited from professors Camillo Ferrati, Francesco Faa di Bruno and Giuseppe Bruno greatly enriched the original nucleus with important works of classical Greek and influential mathematicians of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Library's collection was further enlarged with a great numer of books and journals thanks to the work of the first directors, Enrico D'Ovidio and Corrado Segre, who also gave the start to a valuable collection of models of surfaces and solids in cardboard, plaster, wire and wood, used for educational purposes. Segre and his students Gino Fano and Alessandro Terracini, who succeeded one another in the direction of the Library, bequeathed rich collections of manuscripts.