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Instituzioni Analitiche Libro Primo In October 1974, the Iowa State University Library celebrated a milestone in its history, the acquisition of its one-millionth volume. That volume, a first edition of Leonardo da Vinci's Trattato della Pittura (1651), was chosen because Leonardo 's work symbolized the ties among science, the arts, and the humanities -- ties essential to the mission of Iowa State University. Now, twenty years later, Iowa State University's Library celebrates another milestone in its history, one equally significant: the acquisition of its two-millionth volume. The two-volume set chosen for this honor is a first edition of Maria Gaetana Agnesi's Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana -- or Analytical Institutions for the Use of the Youth of Italy -- published in Milan, Italy in 1748. Like Leonardo's Trattato della Pittura, the Instituzioni analitiche is an Italian scientific work, written by a scientific genius who was also a humanist. Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) is generally regarded as the first woman mathematician in the modern Western world. But Agnesi was also a superb linguist who had strong interests in religious studies. Known by her contemporaries as a "walking Polyglot," Agnesi was called the "Seven-Tongued Orator" in her youth -- a child prodigy who was fluent in Italian, French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It is especially significant that Maria Gaetana Agnesi was a woman. For her time, just as is the case to a lesser degree today, to be a woman scientist or mathematician was atypical. According to the accepted wisdom of the eighteenth century, women and men had different temperaments. Women's scientific interests, if any were present, were often thwarted because they were considered unnatural. In Milan, however, where Agnesi grew up, a countervailing tradition existed in which women could attend universities, obtain doctorates, and teach. For the most part, women who sought higher education did so in the humanities or the arts, but there were a few scientists among them. Even in such a society, Agnesi was special. Born in 1718 as the first child of Pietro Agnesi and Anna Fortunato Brivio, she grew up in a wealthy and educated household. Agnesi's genius was recognized at an early age, and her father, a professor of mathe matics, did everything he could to cultivate that genius. He brought tutors from all over Europe to teach her and established a scientific salon in his home to display her talents. By the age of nine she was a published author, first writing a lengthy speech on the necessity of higher education for women, then translating it herself into Latin for publication. The culmination of her education came in 1738, when at the age of 20 she defended 190 philosophical and scientific theses in a public display of intellectual prowess. Her Propositiones philosophicae, a compilation of the theses, was published the same year. After 1738, Agnesi grew weary of her fame. She withdrew from society and devoted a quiet decade to an intensive study of higher mathematics, studying under Father Ramiro Rampinelli, a Benedictine mathematician. That study was the background of the publication of the Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana, printed in two-volume quarto format in 1748. Agnesi viewed her Analytical Institutions as a textbook of sort, one that summarized and explained the new mathematical concepts in European scientific circles. The first volume of the two-volume work dealt with finite processes; the second volume treated the subject of infinitesimal analysis. Agnesi claimed there was little that was original in her work. Some of her contemporaries, however, were less reserved in their description of the work, and its publication was met with acclaim among European scientists. A committee of the French Academy of Sciences wrote of the work: "There is no other book, in any language, which would enable a reader to penetrate as deeply, or as rapidly, into the fundamental concepts of analysis. We consider this treatise the most complete and well written work of its kind." The Academy authorized a French translation of the second volume, which would appear in 1775. One of its scientists noted that the publication of the Analytical Institutions would have easily gained Agnesi membership in the Academy -- had it admitted women as members. In 1801 an English translation of both volumes appeared. Its translator, John Colson, was a Cambridge mathematician who had mastered Italian so that he could make Agnesi's work available in English. Though Pope Benedict XIV appointed Agnesi to the chair of
mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Bologna in 1750, largely as a
result of the reception of her Analytical Institutions, she considered the
appointment an honorary one and never taught a class. Instead she withdrew once again from
social life, this time as well from mathematics, devoting her last years to religious
studies and to helping the poor in Milan. In 1771 she became directress of a home for the
indigent. Whether she formally became a nun is disputed, but she certainly lived like one,
selling all her possessions for charitable purposes. Maria Agnesi died in Milan, where she
had lived all her life, in 1799. It is hard to say what fame she may have garnered had she
not abruptly forsaken mathematical study, or what impact she might have had on a field in
which she so clearly excelled. As it happened, her legacy may have been an indirect one.
By her example, she helped convince learned Europeans that, to use an eighteenth-century
phrase, a "Scientific Lady" was not a contradiction in terms. By doing so, she
helped clear a path for her successors to follow.
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