Ugo Berni Canani 1939-1999
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999
From: F W Lawvere <wlawvere@buffalo.edu>
Subject: Ugo Berni Canani 1939-1999
It is with great regret that we have to inform you that our friend and colleague Ugo BerniCanani died recently in Rome, just after his sixtieth birthday. Those of you who met Ugowill remember his warmth and intelligence and breadth of learning.
He was a justice of the Italian Supreme court in the section charged with judging lower courts with respect to their uniformity of legal procedure (in Italy this section of the supreme court provides an additional avenue of appeal in that if a lower court decision is squashed by it, the case is tried again with regard to the facts by another lower court.)
Ugo not only strove to compose the decisions of this court with the structure of mathematical theorems, but successfully took on the enormous task of designing and directing Italy’s legal electronic database, which provides access to precedents from all the courts (this electronic system is considered by international experts to be the most advanced in the world). The classifying and organizing required by this database raised new practical and theoretical issues of linguistics and philosophy to which he applied his studies of mathematics.
That work, as well as his lifelong interest in philosophy, inspired Ugo over the last twenty years to pursue research in category theory, in which he was co-author of several papers. He had dreamed of a future in which he could devote his time to categorical research. It is a great loss that his work has been cut short, but his inspiration to young Italian philosophers and mathematicians, and to his friends worldwide, lives on beside his polished legal documents and his legal database as part of his legacy.
Ugo leaves us with the memory of a man gifted with lucid and penetrating intelligence, with many interests pursued with creativity, youthful curiosity, and simplicity. We will miss his enthusiasm, his tireless encouragement, and his warm friendship.
– Bill Lawvere and Steve Schanuel