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AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA (1718–1799)

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 378 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA (1718–1799) , See also:Italian mathematician, linguist and philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Milan on the 16th of May 1718, her See also:father being See also:professor of See also:mathematics in the university of See also:Bologna. When only nine years old she had such command of Latin as to be able to publish an elaborate address in that See also:language, maintaining that the pursuit of liberal studies was not improper for her See also:sex. By her thirteenth See also:year she had acquired See also:Greek, See also:Hebrew, See also:French, See also:Spanish, See also:German and other See also:languages. Two years later her father began to assemble in his See also:house at stated intervals a circle of the most learned men in Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a See also:series of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions. Records of these meetings are given in de Brosse's Lettres sur l'Italie and in the Propositiones Philosophicae, which her father caused to be published in 1738. These displays, being probably not altogether congenial to Maria, who was of a retiring disposition, ceased in her twentieth year, and it is even said that she had at that See also:age a strong See also:desire to enter a See also:convent. Though the wish was not gratified, she lived from that See also:time in a. retirement almost conventual, avoiding all society and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics. The most valuable result of her labours was the Instituzioni analitiche ad use Bella gioventu italiana, a See also:work of See also:great merit, which was published at Milan in 1748. The first See also:volume treats of the See also:analysis of finite quantities, and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals. A French See also:translation of the second volume by P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by See also:Charles Bossut (1730-1814), appeared at See also:Paris in 1775; and an See also:English translation of the whole work by See also:John Colson (168o-176o), the Lucasian professor of mathematics at See also:Cambridge, was published in 18or at the expense of See also:Baron Maseres. Madame Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the Traite analytique See also:des sections coniques of the See also:marquis de 1'H6pital, which, though highly praised by those who saw it in See also:manuscript, was never published.

She invented and discussed the See also:

curve known as the " See also:witch of Agnesi " (q.v.) or versiera. In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed by See also:Pope See also:Benedict XIV. to the See also:chair of mathematics and natural See also:philosophy at Bologna. After the See also:death of her father in 1752 she carried out a See also:long-cherished purpose by giving herself to the study of See also:theology, and especially of the Fathers. After holding for some years the See also:office of directress of the See also:Hospice Trivulzio for See also:Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in this austere See also:order ended her days on the 9th of See also:January 1799. Her See also:sister, MARIA TERESA AGNESI (1724-1780), a well-known Italian pianist and composer, was born at Milan in 1724. She composed several cantatas, two See also:pianoforte concertos and five operas, Sofonisbe, Ciro in See also:Armenia, Nitocri, Il Re Pastore and Insubria consolata. See See also:Antonio See also:Francesco See also:Frisi, Eloge historique de Mademoiselle Agnesi, translated by Boulard (Paris, 1807) ; Milesi-Mojon, Vita di M. G. Agnesi (Milan, 1836y; J. See also:Boyer, " La Mathematicienne Agnesi," in the Revue Catholique des revues francaises et etrangeres (Paris, 1897).

End of Article: AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA (1718–1799)

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