Mediation and menace: Italy's envisaged participation in the cancelled 1940 International Congress of Mathematicians

To determine participation of the Italian and German delegations in the International Congress of Mathematicians (1940) and that of the German and American delegations in the IX Volta Conference (1939), the mathematicians of these three countries were to engage in a series of stress-tests of scientific diplomacy. The paper offers the reconstruction of what went on behind-the-scenes of these two non-events, focusing in particular on the plot of academic opportunism and rivalry between individuals and research institutions that characterized Italian mathematics in those years.