WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS 151 



the higher mathematics. There had been many learned 

 women in Italy before her time and many since ; many who 

 were distinguished as Hellenists, as Latinists, as polyglots, 

 as mathematicians women like the Roccati, the Borghini, 

 the Brassi, the Ardinghelli, the Barbapiccola, the Caminer 

 Turra, the Tambroni ; but Maria Gaetana Agnesi surpasses 

 them all, not only in knowledge, but as a potent influence 

 for the diffusion of culture and the spirit of brotherhood, 

 for the expansion of benevolence and charity, and, above 

 all, for the elevation of woman. She was also, as her latest 

 and best biographer beautifully expresses it, "an inspired 

 condottiera who, in the field of civility, anticipated the con- 

 quests of these latter days. ' ' She was, indeed, as her epi- 

 taph informs us, pietate, doctrina, beneficentia insignis, and 

 as such she will live in the memory of our race as long as 

 men shall admire genius and love virtue. 



In the year following the publication of Agnesi 's Institu- 

 zioni Analitiche was recorded the premature and tragic 

 death of the distinguished French mathematician, the Mar- 

 quise Emilie du Chatelet. She has been described as a 

 "thinker and scientist, precieuse and pedant, but not the 

 less a coquette in short, a woman of contradictions. ' ' 1 

 To most readers she is better known by reason of her 

 liaison with Voltaire, of whom she is regarded as a mere 

 satellite, than for her work in science. But she was far 

 more than a satellite that shone by the light received from 

 the sage of Ferney. For there can be no doubt that she 

 was a highly gifted woman who, besides having a thorough 

 knowledge of several languages, including Latin, possessed 

 a special talent for mathematics. It was said of her that 

 "she read Virgil, Pope and algebra as others read novels/' 

 and that she was able "to multiply nine figures by nine 

 others in her head." No less an authority than the illus- 

 trious Ampere declared her to be " a genius in geometry. ' ' 



1 An Eighteenth Century Marquise, a Study of Emilie du Chatelet, 

 p. 5, by F. Hamel, New York, 1911. 



