Agnesi, Maria Gaetana (1718–1799)

Italian mathematician. She produced a 1,000-page textbook, Istituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana/Foundations of Analysis for the Use of Italian Youth (1748), which provided an integrated treatment of algebra, analytical geometry, and calculus. She is acknowledged as the first woman mathematician.

Agnesi was born in Milan. An infant prodigy, at the age of 11 she was familiar with French, Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, and Hebrew. In 1780 she was appointed professor of mathematics at Bologna, although she never taught there. Her name is associated with the curve x2y = a2(a − y) which she discussed and called a versiera, from the Latin for ‘turning’. However, versiera is also the colloquial word for ‘witch’, and in English the curve is known as the ‘witch of Agnesi’.