Biography of Maria Agnesi, Mathematician

Maria Agnesi (May 16, 1718-January 9, 1799) brought together ideas from many contemporary mathematical thinkers — made easier by her ability to read in many languages — and integrated many of the ideas in a novel way that impressed the mathematicians and other scholars of her day.

Early Life

Maria Agnesi's father was Pietro Agnesi, a wealthy nobleman and a professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. It was normal in that time for the daughters of noble families to be taught in convents and to receive instruction in religion, household management, and dressmaking. A few Italian families educated daughters in more academic subjects and some attended lectures at the university or even lectured there.

Pietro Agnesi recognized the talents and intelligence of his daughter Maria. Treated as a child prodigy, she was given tutors to learn five languages (Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, and Spanish), as well as philosophy and science.

The father invited groups of his colleagues to gatherings at their home and had Maria Agnesi present speeches to the assembled men. By age 13, Maria could debate in the language of the French and Spanish guests, or she could debate in Latin, the language of the educated. She didn't like performing but she could not persuade her father to let her out of the task until she was 20 years old.

Books

In the year 1738, Maria Agnesi assembled almost 200 of the speeches she had presented to her father's gatherings and published them in Latin as "Propositiones philosphicae" — in English, "Philosophical Propositions." But the topics went beyond philosophy as we think of the topic today and included scientific topics like celestial mechanics, Isaac Newton's gravitation theory, and elasticity.

Pietro Agnesi married twice more after Maria's mother died, so Maria Agnesi ended up as the eldest of 21 children. 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.

Also in 1783, wanting to do the best job of communicating up-to-date mathematics to her younger brothers, Maria Agnesi began to write a mathematics textbook, which absorbed her for 10 years.

The "Instituzioni Analitiche" was published in 1748 in two volumes equaling over 1,000 pages. The first volume covered arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry, and calculus. The second volume covered infinite series and differential equations. No one before had published a text on calculus that included the methods of both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebnitz.

In recognition of her achievement, she was appointed to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Bologna in 1750 by an act of Pope Benedict XIV. She was also recognized by the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.

Did Maria Agnesi ever accept the Pope's appointment? Was it a real appointment or an honorary one? So far, the historical record does not answer those questions.

Death

Maria Agnesi's father was seriously ill in 1750 and died in 1752. His death released Maria from her responsibility to educate her siblings. She used her wealth and her time to help those less fortunate. In 1759, she established a home for the poor. In 1771, she headed up a home for the poor and ill. By 1783, she was made director of a home for the elderly, where she lived among those she served. She had given away everything she owned by the time she died in 1799 and the great Maria Agnesi was buried in a pauper's grave.

Legacy

Maria Agnesi's name lives on in the name that English mathematician John Colson gave to a mathematical problem — finding the equation for a certain bell-shaped curve. Colson confused the word in Italian for "curve" for a somewhat similar word for "witch," so today this problem and equation still carries the name "witch of Agnesi."

Sources

• Smith, Sanderson M. "Agnesi to Zeno: Over 100 Vignettes from the History of Math." Ellen Hayes, Key Curriculum Press, 15 December 1996.
• Tilche, Giovanni. "Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Matematica e compassione." Italian Edition, Paperback, Castelvecchi, 16 July 2018.