It is, therefore, to the credit of the Italians that even in the 17th century, they were already receptive to and appreciative of highly educated women in the fields of arts, music, literature, philosophy, theology, science and mathematics. Consequently, the Italian intelligentsia, notably including the mathematically inclined Pope Benedict XIV, encouraged and recognized the great achievements of women such as Maria Agnesi, who had the mind and talent of a great professor of mathematics and languages and the heart, patience, and charity of a saint.

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (pronounced "anyesi") was born in Milan, Italy, on May 16, 1718, Her father was Pietro Agnesi commonly presumed to be a wealthy nobleman and professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. Modern historical researchers, however, tend to believe that he was a rich and cultured silk merchant who was esteemed like a nobleman, was a patron of arts but was neither a nobleman nor a professor of mathematics. Having been a widower thrice, he was a father to 21 children from his three wives, and Maria was the eldest who cared for them in her later years.

During her lifetime, it was not unusual for the daughters of noble or rich families to be schooled in convents and get instruction in religion, dressmaking and household management. A number of Italian families actually educated their daughters in more academic subjects in the university that they were allowed to attend.

Pietro saw the talents and high intelligence of Maria and arranged to have her tutored as a child prodigy to learn Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French and Spanish and also in philosophy and science. He invited his colleagues to gatherings in his home where Maria would present speeches to them. At thirteen she could debate in the native tongue of their French and Spanish guests, and expound many things in Latin. She really didn’t like doing this, but she obeyed her father. It is worth noting that Maria also had a musically gifted younger sister, Maria Teresa Agnesi, who was a composer, harpsichordist, singer and librettist whose first theatrical work was successfully presented in Milan in 1747. As a teenager, Teresa would perform in her home for intermissions of the lectures and debates in Latin of her elder sister Maria.

In 1738 when Maria Agnesi was twenty, she assembled about 200 speeches that she had presented at her father’s gatherings and publishing them as a single volume in Latin entitled Porpositiones philosophicae (Philosophical Propositions) which actually went been pure philosophy and included celestial mechanics, Newton’s theory of gravitation, and elacticity. We hasten to note that at that time, "applied" philosophy included the sciences and even test tubes were once called philosophical instruments.

Being the eldest, Maria had to personally teach her siblings, a paternally enjoined task which, along with his entreaty for her not to leave home, prevented her from pursuing her religious vocation and entering a convent. Wanting to best communicate up-todate mathematics to her younger brothers, she started writing a textbook on mathematics and finished it after ten years, in 1748. Instituzioni Analitiche consisted of two volumes, the first one covering arithmetic, algebra, analytic geometry and calculus, and the second infinite series and differential equations. The mathematicians and other scholars who read it were greatly impressed by it.

In recognition of her achievement, Pope Benedict XIV, himself a student of mathematics in his youth and acquainted with the works of Newton and Leibnitz, appointed her to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Bologna in 1750. The Pope was effusive in his praise for the unusual clarity of Maria’s work, probably because she may have resolved some difficult topics in differential equations with which the Pope had been unsuccessfully grappling before.

It is not quite clear whether Maria actually accepted the Papal appointment or not, but the consensus is that she did because her name was on the roll of the faculty of the university while she was alive. In any case, the "witch" associated with her is really a curve that, through the mistranslation of the English mathematician John Colson, is now called the "Witch of Agnesi."

When Maria’s father died in 1752, she was absolved from her responsibilities at home. She then used her wealth and her time to help the poor. In 1759 she established a home for the poor and the sick, and by 1783 she became a director of a home for the elderly, living with the people she served. When she died in 1799, she had giving away everything she owned and it is often said that she, the multi-talented and greatly admired, Maria Agnesi, by her own choice, was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Her mortal remains may now be lost among the anonymous poor whom she loved, but her memory is honored in some university statues, portraits and countless textbooks (containing the Witch of Agnesi) around the world.

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