Subject: categories: Ugo Berni Canani

From: F W Lawvere <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 14:30:32 -0500 (EST)

It is with great regret that we have to inform you that our friend
and colleague Ugo Berni Canani died recently in Rome, just after his
sixtieth birthday.  Those of you who met Ugo will 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 quashed 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

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F. William Lawvere			Mathematics Dept. SUNY 
[email-masked]               106 Diefendorf Hall
716-829-2144  ext. 117		        Buffalo, N.Y. 14214, USA

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From: Francois Lamarche <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 17:20:37 +0100

>                                 Bill Lawvere and Steve Schanuel

I met him for the first and only time one year ago. I had the pleasure
of sitting next to him at a conference dinner, and it did not take long
to realize I had met a most remarkable man.

       Francois Lamarche