I examine how the calculus of variations is described in two bulky Italian treatises of the period: Pietro Paoli’s “Elementi di algebra” (2 vols., 1794) and Vincenzo Brunacci’s “Corso di matematica sublime” (4 vols., 1804-1808). In addition, research papers on variations in the “Atti dell’Accademia dei XL” and in the “Atti dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino” will be the subject of study . These two journals put Italy on the map for advanced mathematics in the last decades of the 18th century. Up to now, there has been no detailed study of their contents, except for some works on mechanics discussed by E. Benvenuto in his “History of Structural Mechanics”