Some real problems, such as image recognition or the analysis of gene expression data, involve the observation of a very large number of variables on a few units. In such a context conventional classification methods are difficult to employ both from analytical and interpretative points of view....

Corrado Gini (1884-1964) may be considered the greatest Italian statistician. We believe that his important contributions to statistics, however mainly limited to the univariate context, may be profitably employed in modern multivariate statistical methods, aimed at overcoming the curse of...