AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA

born , May 16, 1718, Milan, Habsburg crown land [now in Italy] died Jan. 9, 1799, Milan Italian mathematician and philosopher, considered to be the first woman in the Western world to have achieved a reputation in mathematics. Agnesi was the daughter of the professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. She was an extremely precocious child who at an early age mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and several modern languages. When she was only nine years old, her Latin discourse in defense of higher education for women was printed. In 1738 appeared her Propositiones philosophicae (Propositions of Philosophy), a series of essays on natural philosophy and history, based upon discussions before a scientific group meeting in her father's house. Her best-known work, Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della giovent italiana (Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth), was published in 1748. This work's two huge volumes provided a comprehensive and systematic treatment of algebra and analysis, including such relatively new developments as integral and differential calculus. The Instituzioni analitiche enjoyed great popularity and was translated into several languages. In this text is found a discussion of the Agnesi curve, a cubic, and the versiera, or versed sine curve, which, through a misunderstanding, (versicra means witch in Italian), became known in English as the Witch of Agnesi. In 1750 Agnesi was appointed professor at the University of Bologna by Pope Benedict XIV (though she never actually lectured). She was always deeply religious and, after the death of her father in 1752, devoted herself almost exclusively to charitable work and religious studies. In 1771 she was appointed director of a Milanese charitable institution, the Pio Albergo Trivulzio.