Franceso Severi (13 April 1879, Arezzo, Italy - 8 December 1961, Rome) was an Italian mathematician. He is famous for his contributions to algebraic geometry. He became the effective leader of the Italian school of algebraic geometry.

Together with Federigo Enriques, he won the Prix Bordin from the French Academy of Sciences.

He contributed in a major way to birational geometry, the theory of algebraic surfaces, in particular of the curves lying on them, and the theory of moduli spaces. He wrote prolifically, and some of his work has subsequently been shown to be inadequate, in investigations in particular by Oscar Zariski and David Mumford. At the personal level he was remarkably touchy, and he was involved in a number of controversies.

See also: Néron-Severi group , Severi-Brauer variety.

Sources and further reading

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