Home > Maria Gaetana Agnesi

Maria could speak both FrenchFrench le francais la langue francaise is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered only by Spanish and Portuguese. French is the 11th most spoken language in the world, spoken by about 77 million people (called Francophones) as a mother to and ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people, most of whom live in Italy. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan dialects and is somewhat intermediate between the languages of Southern Italy and the Gallo-Romance languages of the North. at five years of age. By her thirteenth birthday she had acquired GreekThe Greek language ( /Elini'k{/) is an Indo-European language which has existed from around the 14th century BC in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean Greek of this period is distinguished from later Classical or Ancient Greek of the 8th ce, HebrewThe Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. What makes it unique is that the original Bible, the Torah, by Orthodox Jews held to be recorded in the time of Moses 3,300 years ago, was written in Biblical Classical, SpanishThis article is about the international language known as Spanish. For other languages spoken in Spain see Languages of Spain Spanish is an Iberian Romance language, and the third or fourth most spoken language in the world. It is spoken as a first langua, GermanGerman (called Deutsch in German in which germanisch refers to prechristian times), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union., LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma, and probably a few more languages. She even educated her younger brothers. When she was 9 years old, she composed and delivered an hour-long speech、in Latin to an academic gathering. The subject was women's right to be educated. Whe she was fifteen, her father began to regularly gather in his house a circle of the most learned men in BolognaBologna (from Latin Bononia Bulaggna in the local dialect) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, between the Po River and the Apennines. History Bologna was founded by the Etruscans with the name Felsina''. Next the city was the Roman c, before whom she read and maintained a 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 had published in 1738. These displays, being probably not altogether congenial to Maria (who was of a retiring disposition) ceased by her twentieth year, and it is even said that she had a strong desire to enter a convent at that time. Although her wish was not granted, she lived from that time on in an almost conventual semi-retirement, avoiding all interactions with society and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics.

The most valuable result of her labours was the Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana, a work of great merit, which was published Milan in 1748. 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), appeared at Paris in 1775; and an English translation of the whole work by John Colson ( 1680 - 1760), the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was published in 1801 at the expense of Baron Maseres. Madame Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the Traite analytique des sections coniques of the marquis de l'Hôpital, which, though highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never published. She discussed the curve known as the " witch of Agnesi" or "versiera" as she named it in 1748. ( Italian for the rope that turns a sail, taken from the Latin "versoria" which was the term used by Luigi Grandi before her. John Colson, who translated Agnesi's text to English, perhaps confused "la versiera" with "l'avversiera", and so mistranslated it as "she - devil" or "the witch", with the result that English-speakers and, for some reason, Spanish speakers from Mexico, Cuba, and Spain, know the curve as the "Witch of Agnesi"(La bruja de Agnesi.)) The curve is defined as:

or in general:

The curve was already studied before by Fermat and by Grandi in 1703.

In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV. to the chair of mathematics and natural Philosophy at Bologna. She was the first woman to be appointed professor at a university. 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. After holding for some years the office of directress of the Hospice Trivulzio for Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in this austere order ended her days.