She devoted the last four decades of her life to studying
theology (especially
patristics)
and to charitable work and serving the poor. This extended to helping
the sick by allowing them entrance into her home where she set up a
hospital.
Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan, to a wealthy and literate family.
Her father Pietro Agnesi, a University of Bologna mathematics professor,
wanted to elevate his family into the Milanese nobility. In order to achieve his goal he had married Anna Fortunata
Brivio in 1717. Her mother's death provided her the excuse to retire from public life. She took over management of the household.
Maria was recognized early on as a
child prodigy; she could speak both
Italian and
French at five years of age. By her eleventh birthday she had also learned
Greek,
Hebrew,
Spanish,
German, and
Latin, and was referred to as the "Seven-Tongued Orator".
[5]
She even educated her younger brothers. When she was nine years old she
composed and delivered an hour-long speech in Latin to some of the most
distinguished intellectuals of the day. The subject was women's right
to be educated.
Agnesi suffered a mysterious illness at the age of 12 that was
attributed to her excessive studying and was prescribed vigorous dancing
and horseback riding. This treatment did not work - she began to
experience extreme convulsions, after which she was encouraged to pursue
moderation. By age fourteen she was studying
ballistics and
geometry.
[5] When she was fifteen her father began to regularly gather in his house a circle of the most learned men in
Bologna,
[citation needed]
before whom she read and maintained a series of theses on the most
abstruse philosophical questions. Records of these meetings are given in
Charles de Brosses'
Lettres sur l'Italie and in the
Propositiones Philosophicae, which her father had published in 1738 as an account of her final performance, where she defended 190 theses.
[5] Maria was very shy in nature and did not like these meetings.
[citation needed]
Her father remarried twice after Maria's mother died, and Maria
Agnesi ended up the eldest of 23 children, including her half-siblings.
In addition to her performances and lessons, her responsibility was to
teach her siblings. This task kept her from her own goal of entering a
convent, as she had become strongly religious. Although her father
refused to grant this wish, he agreed to let her live from that time on
in an almost conventual semi-retirement, avoiding all interactions with
society and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics.
[5] During that time, Maria studied both
differential and
integral
calculus. Fellow philosophers thought she was extremely beautiful and
her family was recognized as one of the wealthiest in Milan. Maria
became a professor at the
University of Bologna.
nstituzioni analitiche
First page of Instituzioni analitiche (1748)
According to
Dirk Jan Struik, Agnesi is "the first important woman mathematician since
Hypatia (fifth century A.D.)". The most valuable result of her labours was the
Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana,
(Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth) which was
published in Milan in 1748 and "was regarded as the best introduction
extant to the works of
Euler."
[6] In the work, she worked on integrating
mathematical analysis with
algebra.
[5] The first volume treats of the analysis of
finite quantities and the second of the analysis of
infinitesimals. A French translation of the second volume by
P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by
Charles Bossut (1730–1814), was published in
Paris in 1775; and
Analytical Institutions, an English translation of the whole work by
John Colson (1680–1760), the
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge, "inspected" by
John Hellins, was published in 1801 at the expense of
Baron Maseres.
[7] The work was dedicated to Empress
Maria Theresa,
who thanked Agnesi with the gift of a diamond ring, a personal letter,
and a diamond and crystal case. Many others praised her work, including
Pope Benedict XIV, who wrote her a complimentary letter and sent her a gold wreath and a gold medal.
[5]
Witch of Agnesi
The
Instituzioni analitiche..., among other things, discussed a curve earlier studied and constructed by
Pierre de Fermat and
Guido Grandi. Grandi called the curve
versoria in Latin and suggested the term
versiera for Italian,
[8] possibly as a pun:
[9] '
versoria' is a nautical term, "
sheet", while
versiera/aversiera is "she-devil", "witch", from Latin
Adversarius, an alias for "
devil" (Adversary of God). For whatever reasons, after translations and publications of the
Instituzioni analitiche... the curve has become known as the "Witch of Agnesi".
In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed by
Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics and
natural philosophy and physics at
Bologna, though she never served.
[5] She was the second woman ever to be granted professorship at a university,
Laura Bassi being the first.
[11]
In 1751, she became ill again and was told not to study by her doctors.
After the death of her father in 1752 she carried out a long-cherished
purpose by giving herself to the study of
theology, and especially of the
Fathers
and devoted herself to the poor, homeless, and sick, giving away the
gifts she had received and begging for money to continue her work with
the poor. In 1783, she founded and became the director of the
Opera Pia Trivulzio, a home for Milan's elderly, where she lived as the nuns of the institution did (
wikipedia)