Adele and Laura. Behind the scenes of a novel

Abstract

2024 marked the 70^th anniversary of the publication of Atoms in the Family, Laura Capon Fermi’s novel in which the author reconstructs the biography of her husband Enrico Fermi. Some documents preserved at the University of Chicago – believed to be unpublished – shed light on the sources used to write the novel. In particular, a letter from Adele Galeotti Rasetti, mother of the scientist Franco Rasetti, describes the serious yet playful atmosphere of the years that Rasetti shared at Arcetri with Fermi (1924-1926), when Rasetti worked as assistant to Prof. Antonio Garbasso and Fermi was teaching rational mechanics and mathematical physics at the newly founded University of Florence. The reproduction of the letter is also an opportunity to reveal some anecdotes and character traits of the women in the lives of the two Arcetri scientists who became the soul of the Via Panisperna boys.