Étienne Bézout in Portugal: The reform of the Portuguese University and beyond (1772–1838)

Abstract

After a long period of stagnation in the Portuguese University, a change arrived with the 1772 reform of the University, which included the foundation of the first faculty of mathematics in Portugal.

Three of the four textbooks used in the first two years of the mathematics course were translated from works by Étienne Bézout (1730–1783). We present an overview of his life and his mathematics textbooks, and a survey of his Portuguese translations. We evaluate his impact on Portuguese mathematics through examination of mentions of him in the first series of the Memoirs of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.