Le radici del pensiero didattico di Emma Castelnuovo

Emma followed in her family’s footsteps. Her father Guido Castelnuovo and her uncle Federigo Enriques were two eminent algebraic geometers: both were engaged in problems of teaching in the early twentieth century. This was the family context in which Emma moulded her own thoughts about mathematical education. In this article we outline the common thread that links Emma’s views to those of her father. We will focus on the immediate postwar years, so crucial to her pedagogical formation, when Emma began her career as a teacher at the “Scuola Media Tasso”. We will also describe the cultural context which led her to develop an innovative approach to the teaching of intuitive geometry.