Italian mathematician Maria Agnesi came from a wealthy family in Italy who made their money from silk. She was the eldest of 21 children in her family, from three different wives of her father, Pietro Agnesi.
Ms. Agnesi's interest in education and math was supported by her father, who ensured her the best tutors, and as a young girl she mastered languages such as Latin, Hebrew, and Greek quickly. Her true wish was to join a convent as a young woman, a decision that her father disapproved of, and he instead encouraged her to live at home and care for him. In exchange she was allowed to focus entirely on her studies.
She studied religious books and mathematics, and was able to be formally trained in mathematics by Ramiro Rampinelli, a monk who had once served as a professor in Rome and Bologna, Italy. At the urging of Mr. Rampinello, Agnesi wrote a text book on differential calculus, providing examples instead of theory to illustrate mathematical principles.
The first of Agnesi’s two-volume work “Instituziono analitiche ad uso della gioventu italians” – an in-depth exploration of algebra and analysis – was published in 1748, the latter to follow in 1749.
The work brought her much fame, including an appointment by Pope Benedict XIV as an honorary reader for the University of Bologna, and shortly thereafter was offered the top position within the mathematics department at the university. She was the first woman appointed as a university professor of mathematics, though she never took up the chair, according to the Association for Women in Mathematics.
