She devoted the last four decades of her life to studyingtheology (especiallypatristics) and tocharitable work and serving the poor. She was a devoutCatholic and wrote extensively on the marriage between intellectual pursuit and mystical contemplation, most notably in her essayIl cielo mistico (The Mystic Heaven). She saw the rational contemplation of God as a complement to prayer and contemplation of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.[3]
Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born inMilan, to a wealthy and literate family.[4][5][6] Her father Pietro Agnesi, a wealthy silk merchant,[7] wanted to elevate his family into the Milanese nobility. In order to achieve his goal, he marriedAnna Fortunato Brivio of theBrivius de Brokles family in 1717. Her mother's death provided her the excuse to retire from public life. She took over the management of the household. She was one of 21 children.[8]
Agnesi's diploma from Università di Bologna
Maria was recognized early on as achild prodigy; she could speak bothItalian andFrench at five years of age.[9] At the age of nine, she composed and delivered a speech arguing for the education of women.[9] By her eleventh birthday, she had also learnedGreek,Hebrew,Spanish,German, andLatin, and was referred to as the "Seven-Tongued Orator".[10]
Agnesi suffered a mysterious illness at the age of twelve that was attributed to her excessive studying and reading, so she 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 studyingballistics andgeometry.[10] When she was fifteen, her father began to regularly gather in his house a circle of the most learned men inBologna, before whom she read and maintained a series of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions. Records of these meetings are given inCharles de Brosses'Lettres sur l'Italie and in thePropositiones Philosophicae, which her father had published in 1738 as an account of her final performance, where she defended 190 philosophical theses.[10]
Her father remarried twice after Maria's mother died, and Maria Agnesi ended up the eldest of 21 children, including her half-siblings. Her father agreed with her that if she were to continue her mathematics research, then she would be permitted to do all the charity work she wanted.[11] 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.[10] After having read in 1739 theTraité analytique des sections coniques[12] of the MarquisGuillaume de l'Hôpital, she was fully introduced into the field in 1740 byRamiro Rampinelli, anOlivetan monk who was one of the most notable Italian mathematicians of that time.[13] During that time, Maria studied with him bothdifferential andintegral calculus.
According to Britannica, she is "considered to be the first woman in the Western world to have achieved a reputation in mathematics". The most valuable result of her labours was theInstituzioni 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 ofEuler".[4] The goal of this work was, according to Agnesi herself, to give a systematic illustration of the different results and theorems ofinfinitesimal calculus.[13] The model for her treatise wasLe calcul différentiel et intégral dans l’Analyse byCharles René Reyneau.[13] In this treatise, she worked on integratingmathematical analysis withalgebra.[10] The first volume treats the analysis offinite quantities and the second of the analysis ofinfinitesimals.
A French translation of the second volume byP. T. d'Antelmy, with additions byCharles Bossut (1730–1814), was published inParis in 1775; andAnalytical Institutions, an English translation of the whole work byJohn Colson (1680–1760), theLucasian Professor of Mathematics atCambridge, "inspected" byJohn Hellins, was published in 1801 at the expense ofBaron Maseres.[14] The work was dedicated to EmpressMaria 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, includingPope Benedict XIV, who wrote her a complimentary letter and sent her a gold wreath and a gold medal.[10]
In writing this work, Agnesi was advised and helped by two distinguished mathematicians: her former teacher Ramiro Rampinelli andJacopo Riccati.[13]
InInstituzioni analitiche, Agnesi discussed a curve earlier studied and constructed byPierre de Fermat andGuido Grandi.
Agnesi described the curve asversiera in Italian, which is a synonym for the adjectiveversoria meaning "turning in every direction".[15] At the same timeversiera was used as a term for a "she-devil" or "witch", from LatinAdversarius, an alias for "devil" (Adversary of God). Future translations and publications of theInstituzioni analitiche carried forward the former meaning either as a translation error or possibly as a pun.[16] The curve has become known as the "Witch of Agnesi".[17]
Agnesi also wrote a commentary on theTraité analytique des sections coniques dumarquis de l'Hôpital which, though highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never published.[18]
In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed byPope Benedict XIV[17] to the chair of mathematics andnatural philosophy and physics atBologna, though she never served.[10] She was the second woman ever to be granted a professorship at a university,Laura Bassi being the first.[19] 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 oftheology, and especially of theFathers 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. Finally, thanks to a donation from Prince Antonio Tolomeo Trivulzio, the Pio Albergo Trivulzio was established in Milan in 1771, and Cardinal Giuseppe Pozzobonelli invited Agnesi to serve as the "visitor and director of women, especially the sick." On 9 January 1799, Maria Agnesi died poor and was buried in a mass grave for the poor with fifteen other bodies.[20]
^Findlen, Paula,Calculations of faith: mathematics, philosophy, and sanctity in 18th-century Italy (new work on Maria Gaetana Agnesi)Historia Mathematica 38 (2011), 248-291.doi:10.1016/j.hm.2010.05.003
^Spradley, Joseph (2016).Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. Salem Press – via Ebsco.
Oglivie, Marilyn, Harvey, Joy (2000).The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science. New York: Routledge.ISBN0-415-92038-8
D. J. Struik, editor,A source book in mathematics, 1200–1800 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986), pp. 178–180.ISBN0-691-08404-1,ISBN0-691-02397-2 (pbk).
