Ramified Surfaces: On Branch Curves and Algebraic Geometry in the 20th Century

The book offers an extensive study on the convoluted history of the research of algebraic surfaces, focusing for the first time on one of its characterizing curves: the branch curve. Starting with separate beginnings during the 19^th century with descriptive geometry as well as knot theory, the book focuses on the 20^th century, covering the rise of the Italian school of algebraic geometry between the 1900s till the 1930s (with Federigo Enriques, Oscar Zariski and Beniamino Segre, among other...