WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS 143 



matics, to mathematics," she cries, "let women devote 

 attention for mental discipline. ' ' * 



The most illustrious, by far, of the women mathemati- 

 cians of Italy was Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who was born in 

 Milan in 1718 and died there at the age of eighty-one. At 

 an early age she exhibited rare intelligence and soon dis- 

 tinguished herself by her extraordinary talent for lan- 

 guages. At the age of five she spoke French with ease and 

 correctness, while only six years later she was able to trans- 

 late Greek into Latin at sight and to speak the former as 

 fluently as her own Italian. At the early age of nine she 

 startled the learned men and women of her native city by 

 discoursing for an hour in Latin on the rights of women to 

 the study of science. This discourse Oratio was not, as 

 usually stated, her own composition, but a translation from 

 the Italian of a discourse written by her teacher of Latin. 

 That a child of nine years should speak in the language of 

 Cicero for a full hour before a learned assembly and with- 

 out once losing the thread of her discourse was, indeed, a 

 wonderful performance, and we are not surprised to learn 

 that she was regarded by her countrymen as an infant 

 prodigy. 2 



In addition to Italian, French, Latin and Greek, she was 

 acquainted with German, Spanish and Hebrew. For this 

 reason she was, like Elena Cornaro Piscopia, the famous 



iDelle Donne Illustri Italian* del XIII al XIX Secolo, p. 268, 

 Roma. 



2 The full title of this celebrated discourse is Oratio qua ostenditur 

 Artium liber alium studia a Fcemineo sexu neutiquam abhorere, habit a 

 a Maria de Agnesis Rhetorics Operam Dante, Anno cetatis suce nono 

 nondum exacto, die 18, Augusti, 1727. It is found at the end of a 

 work entitled Discorsi Academici di varj autori Viventi intorno agli 

 Stuj delle Donne in Padova, 1729. This subject, it may be remarked, 

 frequently engaged the attention of Maria Gaetana as she advanced 

 in years, for we find it among the questions discussed in her Proposi- 

 tiones Philosophical, pp. 2 and 3, Mediolani, 1738. 



