Antonio Cremona

Immediately after completing his education in his home town in 1848, Cremona joined the “Free Italy Battalion” in the fight against the Austrian rulers and took part in the defence of Venice, which ended in capitulation on 24 August 1849. In that same year he began studying civil engineering at the University of Pavia, from where he graduated with a doctor’s degree in 1853. Following various teaching posts in Pavia, Cremona and Milan, Cremona became a professor at the University of Bologna in 1860. This was followed by a professorship in higher geometry at Milan Polytechnic (1867–73); it was during this period that he established the mathematical basis of his graphical statics, based on the Maxwell duality, which formed the practical foundation of Cremona’s graphical analysis and was very quickly adopted in the teaching of the theory of structures and engineering practice:"Cremona therefore furnished a reason for constructing dual force diagrams for the graphical analysis of certain trussed frameworks which in general terms left no stone unturned” [Scholz, 1989, p. 198]. Together with Culmann and Maxwell, Cremona represents the graphical statics enhanced by projective geometry. In 1873 Minister Sella nominated him founding rector of the newly formed Technical University in Rome per decree, where he was responsible for graphical statics until 1877. Afterwards, he was professor of mathematics at the University of Rome until his death. He joined the Senate in 1879 and was one of its most highly respected members. The universities of Berlin, Stockholm and Oxford (among others) awarded him honorary doctorates for his pioneering work in geometry.

Main contributions to structural analysis:

Le figure reciproche nella statica grafica
[1872]; Opere matematiche [1914–17]

Source: Kurrer, Karl-Eugen The History of the Theory of Structures, Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH, Berlin (Deutschland), ISBN 3-433-01838-3, 2008; p. 724