Didatical questions and popularization of science: the interventios of Luigi Cremona in “Effemeride della Pubblica Istruzione” (1860-1865)

Among the great Italian mathematicians of the Risorgimento period, Luigi Cremona (1830-1903) was the one who, in the early years of the Unification of Italy, deeply committed himself in the field of didactics and popularization of scientific theories by personally preparing some of the teaching syllabuses for Italian secondary schools and carrying out an important activity of divulgation of higher mathematics among teachers. His didactic reflections and commitment in popularizing are the object of this paper where we analyse, by setting them in an historical period, some of his minor writings that historians have never considered before, published between 1860 and 1865 on an important Italian educational magazine: l’Effemeride della pubblica istruzione. (“The Ephemeris of State Education”).