In the mid-1960's, several Italian mathematicians began to study the connections between classical arguments in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, and the contemporaneous development of algebraic K -theory in the US. These connections were exemplified by the work of Andreotti-Bombieri, Salmon, and Traverso on seminormality, and by Bass-Murthy on the Picard groups of polynomial rings. Interactions proceeded far beyond this initial point to...