Felice Casorati

Felice Casorati (1835-1890) was one of the Italian mathematicians most responsible for invigorating mathematics in Italy after the unification of the country. He was a specialist in complex function theory, which was emerging as one of the central topics in mathematics, and his book Theorica delle funzioni di variabili complesse [Casorati, 1868] of 1868 was one of the first textbooks on the subject in any language. Apart from the highly informative 143 pages of historical introduction, the book is notable for taking a largely Riemannian approach to the foundations of the subject. The second volume that Casorati hinted at in his letter was never written.