WOMEN IN SCIENCE. 



509 



J. J. Yeratti, and became the mother of twelve children. She is 

 spoken of as an excellent housekeeper, a judicious mother, charitable 

 and most earnest in good works. Two years before her death she 

 was appointed professor of physics at the university. Her personal 

 appearance is thus described by a contemporary writer : " Laura 

 Bassi has a countenance slightly marked by smallpox, but of a sweet 

 and tranquil expression; her black eyes are sparkling, and she is 

 serious and composed in manner without affectation or vanity." 



Even more remarkable seem to have been the attainments of 

 Maria Agnesi, born in 1718. She was one of the twenty-three chil- 

 dren of a rich citizen, who must have needed all his wealth to bring 

 up such a family. One of her sisters was noted as a musician, and 

 was the author of three operas. Maria has been called the oracle 

 of seven languages, speaking French fluently at the age of four, and 

 early becoming proficient in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as 

 German and Spanish. After spending her youth in the study of 

 philosophy and philology, at the desire of her father, she devoted 

 herself to mathematics, in which she attained such celebrity that she 

 was complimented by Pope Benedict lY, who nominated her as 

 professor of mathematics in the University of Bologna, a position she 

 held for several years. At the death of her father she abandoned 

 her chair and her studies to fulfill a long-felt desire for a religious 

 life. She entered the Blue Sisterhood of Bologna, and spent the 

 remainder of her long life in works of mercy and charity, gaining 

 the name of the " servant of the poor." Her portrait and the con- 

 temporary accounts of her appearance show her to have possessed 

 much beauty; in character she is said to have been modest, gentle, 

 and almost timid. 



Less gifted than these two women, but equally renowned, and 

 whose knowledge has been of far greater practical value, was Anna 

 Moranda Manzolini, a woman of humble origin, and the wife of a 

 poor maker of anatomical models. Beginning as an assistant to her 

 husband, she soon surpassed him in knowledge of his profession, 

 and being encouraged by a friendly physician, she began to give 

 lectures on anatomy. So great was her skill in dissection, and so 

 clear were her demonstrations, that she soon acquired a European 

 reputation, and her lecture room was thronged with students of all 

 nationalities. After the death of her husband she accepted the pro- 

 fessorship of anatomy at the University of Bologna, where her col- 

 lection of anatomical models still bears silent testimony to her re- 

 markable skill and accurate knowledge of the human frame. 



Turning to France, we find at this period the Marquise de 

 Chatelet, the friend of Yoltaire, a woman " without faith, without 

 manners, and without modesty," but deservedly famous as a mathe- 



