Monge and Italy

Monge’s mathematical work (descriptive geometry, analytic geometry, partial differential equations) belongs to the advanced science and teaching of all countries. Monge lived in Italy for almost 2 years as a commissioner for sciences and arts, at the behest of General Bonaparte, and giving the Constitution to the Jacobin Roman Republic of 1798. The small independent Republic of San Marino owes much of its existence to Monge, and even the well-known Parmesan cheese was studied scientifically for the first time by Monge. One section concerns the Monge–Ampere equation, obtained by Monge in 1784, and recently elucidated by Italian mathematicians.