AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA Italian mathematician, linguist and philosopher, was born at Milan on May 16, 1718. She was an extremely precocious child. Her father was a professor of mathematics. Maria was only fourteen when she began to read a series of theses on philosophical ques tions to the learned men of Bologna who met regularly in her father's house (see Brosse, Lettres sur l'Italie). Her family re sisted her early desire to enter a convent, but from her 2oth year onward she lived in complete seclusion at home, devoting herself to the study of mathematics. When her father fell ill in 1752 Pope Benedict XIV. appointed her to his chair in the university. But on his death in 1754 she became directress of the Hospice Trivulzio of the Blue Nuns at Milan, and eventually joined the sisterhood. She died on Jan. 9, Her principal work is Insti tuzioni analitiche ad use della gioventu italiana (2 vols., Milan 1748; French trans. of vol. i., Paris 1775; complete Eng. trans. by John Colson, 18o1).
Her sister, MARIA TERESA AGNESI (I 7 24-80), composed several cantatas, two pianoforte concertos and five operas.