Hamilton Principle in Piola’s work published in 1825

In this paper we assess how a version of Hamilton Principle is formulated by Piola in his Memoir composed between 1822 and 1824 and published in 1825. The Italian title being Sull’applicazione de’ principj della Meccanica Analitica del Lagrange ai principali problemi, in this volume its English translation was chosen to be: On the application of the principles of Analytical Mechanics by Lagrange to the main problems. After a detailed discussion, we observe that also in this case the Stigler’s Law of Eponymy is verified: Hamilton Principle was not formulated at first by Hamilton. Also, some conclusions about the epic vision of science (that is the belief that science is developed by solitary heroes) are drawn and the due tribute to the great contributions by Lagrange, Piola and Hamilton is paid. In particular one of the first appearances of matrix notation, apparently used by Piola, is described and an observation about the first appearance of Piola stress in Lagrange works due to Piola himself is made.