30/08/2023

Folha: The story of the first female university professors

Foto: Wikimedia Commons

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S. Paulo.

I'll share two more life stories I learned from "101 Incredible Women Who Transformed Science".

The Italian Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799) was a child prodigy. At age 5 she was fluent in French, in addition to her native language, and by age 11 she also spoke Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German, and Latin. As a teenager, she impressed her father's friends with a speech on the right of women to learn "the fine arts and the sublime science." In Latin.

Even then, she showed a strong interest in mathematics, studying the works of the great specialists of her time. The desire to care for her brothers and sisters – she was the eldest of the 21 children her father had in three marriages – prevented her from pursuing her other great vocation in her youth: becoming a nun.

But this dedication resulted in the book " Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth," which he wrote to teach mathematics to children. Translated into several languages, it brought him widespread international recognition. Among his admirers were none other than Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Pope Benedict XIV.

The pontiff invited her to assume the chair of mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Bologna. After her compatriot Laura Bassi, whom I will discuss later, Agnesi was the second woman in Europe to hold a university professorship, although she never actually took up the position.

In the last years of her life, with her siblings grown, she was finally free to adopt a reclusive lifestyle, befitting her temperament, living in a convent and dedicating herself to religion and philanthropy. She died poor and was buried in a common grave.

Laura Bassi's (1711–1778) talent was also recognized early on by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV, who became her patron. At the age of 21, she was appointed professor of anatomy and, two years later, she also began teaching philosophy, always in Bologna.

She received a salary, but since women were expected to behave discreetly, she had to give most of her classes at home. Even so, the university did not fail to take advantage of the symbolism of her presence, which had political value. She married the physician Giuseppe Veratti in 1738, with whom she had between 8 and 12 children.

To read the full text, visit the newspaper's website.