Giovanni Polvani and the Institute of Physics Before the Second World War

After the death declaration of Aldo Pontremoli, Giovanni Polvani was called to Milan University as professor of Experimental Physics in 1929. Polvani actually founded a new institution, the Institute of Physics, which took the place of the Institute of Complementary Physics. In the early 1930s Polvani was willing to face some important problems: to start a degree course in Physics, to re-organize the laboratories on fundamental research topics also in function of their educational use, to create a new research group by calling to Milan new assistants from Pisa, such as Giuseppe Bolla and Amedeo Giacomini. In the late 1930s, when both Bolla and Giacomini left Milan University, Polvani had to create a new research team, this time with the former students they had educated in Milan, devoted to the study of cosmic radiation with cloud chambers and counters. At the same time, the development of the research activities and the arrival to Milan of Giovanni Gentile jr. as professor of Theoretical Physics made urgent to find a new seat for the Institute of Physics with more space for the people working in it.