Pitagorico means "Pythagorean", referring to the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras, famous for his theorem about right-angled triangles.
In the song, Angelo Branduardi sings of a "sogno pitagorico" (a Pythagorean dream). This poetic phrase evokes the mathematician's lifelong quest to find order and meaning through numbers, a dream the singer says is useless now that he has found a simpler, more powerful truth in love.
Angelo Branduardi turns a blackboard of formulas into a love letter in "Per Ogni Matematico". The lyrics begin in the realm of scholars who chase infinity, juggle elusive numbers and cherish Pythagorean dreams. Yet a playful piece of Italian word-magic creeps in: the digit 6 sounds exactly like sei, the verb “you are”. With a wink Branduardi transforms the tidy result of 2 × 3 = 6 into a far sweeter statement — “now I know what you are for me.”
From verse to verse the singer watches pure logic crumble. Miscalculations are no longer sins, rules can be broken, even infinity gets cut short when an exception appears. All that survives the mathematical meltdown is the simplest, most human equation: io + te (me + you). The song reminds us that love is the problem no theorem can solve, and the only solution that truly counts.