4o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



position to declare sincerely that you are incontestablj one of the 

 foremost professors of that subject, that your work will be very 

 useful, that it will contribute to the literary reputation of Italy and 

 of our Academy of Sciences at Bologna." In another quarter, two 

 members of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, de Mairan and 

 de Montigny, were commissioned to examine the Instituzioni ana- 

 litiche, and they observed in their report that order, lucidity, and 

 precision reigned in all parts of the work. They regarded it, in 

 short, as " the most complete and best composed treatise " extant 

 on that difficult subject. De Montigny, too, in the letter accom- 

 panying the transmission of the report to Agnesi, informed her that 

 he had desired to see her while traveling in Italy, in 1740, but cir- 

 cumstances had disarranged his plans, and he had been obliged to 

 return by way of Geneva without passing through Milan. He 

 added : " I much regretted thus missing you, but my regrets are 

 much increased now, after having read your book; and I can never 

 console myself for not having had the pleasure of seeing you and 

 talking with you, for Italy has not offered me any object more 

 worthy of my admiration. I "admire especially the art with which 

 you have brought together under uniform methods so many facts 

 scattered through the works of the geometricians, most of which have 

 been acquired in very various ways." The work of our learned lady 

 had therefore a very flattering success. Other evidences of its merit 

 are afforded by its having been translated into English by Colson in 

 1801, and by the translation of the second volume by d'Anthelmy 

 into French, with notes by Bossu, under the name of Traites 

 eUmentaires du calcul differentiel et du calcul integral (1775). Its 

 remarkable character is further indicated by an observation by M. 

 Rebiere that the first works on so difficult and new a science as the 

 infinitesimal calculus are of extreme importance. 



Besides his gift to Agnesi, Pope Benedict XIV nominated her in 

 1750 professor of mathematics in the University of Bologna. But 

 notwithstanding the invitation of the Roman pontiff, who reminded 

 her that Bologna had already heard persons of her sex in its public 

 chairs, and that he pressed her to " continue so commendable a 

 tradition," she did not teach. Her delicate health and the education 

 of her brothers, with which she had charged herself after the death 

 of her father (March 19, 1752), confirmed her determination to give 

 up her scientific work.* After that, Agnesi no longer existed as a 

 mathematician. Maria Gaetano devoted herself exclusively to the 

 care of the orphans and bade good-by to the world in a profession of 

 faith in which she proclaimed, in substance, that " man ought always 



* Her father had married his third wife, the noble Milanese lady, Dona Antonia Barati, 

 and had by his three wives twenty-four children. 



