He became a student of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and graduated to the University of Pisa in 1899. He spent two years as assistant before leaving the academic world. From 1901 to 1922 he taught in secondary schools, first in Sassari, then Voghera and then from 1904 at the Classical High School Christopher Columbus in Genoa. In those years he was involved in politics as a member of the Italian Socialist Party until it was forcibly disbanded by the fascists in 1922. His pursuit of mathematical analysis then led him to almost total social isolation. In 1923 he won a position as professor of calculus at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia . He also taught at the Universities of Padua (1924 to 1925) and Bologna (from 1930). He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Bologna in September 1928, giving the lecture "Rapporti inattesi su alcuni rami della matematica (Unexpected relationships of some branches of mathematics)".