Prelude: Gösta Mittag-Leffler and his quest for the Weierstraß legacy

Abstract

The article gives an account of how it happened that a substantial part of the Nachlass of Karl Weierstraß ended up in a villa outside Stockholm in Sweden. The private residence, which included many library rooms and large archive facilities, was built by the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler. His intention became clear in 1916 when he founded the mathematical research institute which now bears his name. Ever since Mittag-Leffler first attended Weierstraß’s lectures in Berlin he had felt a great admiration for the master and his mathematical ideas. They formed a lifelong friendship, and after Weierstraß’s death it became a growing concern for Mittag-Leffler to collect and preserve as much as possible of the scientific material and biographical information related to Weierstraß. Through letters and documents at Institut Mittag-Leffler we may follow his modus operandi for achieving these ends.