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I decided that logic would be the occupation of my life as early as 1967, during my first year in math. I was 20 in '68. I got my degree in mathematics in 1971 in Padua.
I spent year 1971-72 in Berkeley, where I took a seminar run by Tarski
(see Alfred
Tarski, Life and Logic by Anita & Sol Feferman, pages 350-351).
In the early 70s I was in Siena, in the research group of Roberto Magari.
I was one of the founders of provability logic, the first original research
in logic in Italy after Peano. The de Jongh-Sambin fixed point
theorem in 1976 is one of the outcomes.
In early 80s I wrote the notes of the only
book by Martin-Löf on his type theory.
Since then, I have based all my mathematical research on type theory.
I started formal topology
in mid 80s, at first with Per Martin-Löf. The Basic
Picture, begun in '95, is my personal contribution to it, and to
constructive mathematics.
Beginning in 1995, I described logical constants by means
of the principle of reflection. It gave rise to basic
logic: every known logic is obtained as a very natural extension.
I am a constructivist by nature. I have always cultivated an intense
interest in foundational questions.
I developed since around 1990 a dynamic view.
I was the first president (1987-93) of the Italian
Association of Logic and Applications.
Since 1998, I am the coordinator of a
national project on constructive methods in mathematics and in computer
science.
I live in Padua, 2 minutes from La
Specola (a legend says that Galilei used his telescope there for
the first time) and half an hour from Venice.
The walnut desk in my office at the department was previously owned
by Gregorio
Ricci Curbastro
I have a wife (Silvia) and a daughter (Sara).