AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA, a lady of extraordinary genius, and must extensive acquirements, was horn at Milan on the 16th of May, 1713. Her lather, Pietro Agncsi of Milan, was royal feudatory of Monteveglia and its dependencies; and being a man of some rank and consequence, he was disposed, from paternal alit c tion, to provide suitably for the education of his infant daughter, who gave the most striking indications of ta lent. From her tenderest year~, she discovered a won derful aptness, and a vehement desire, fur acquiring lan guages. Under the direction of proper masters, she studied at the very same time the Latin and Greek, the French and German; and while the rapidity of her pro gress excited astonishment, such were the prodigious powers of her memory, that she coual easily pursue those diversified objects without feeling the smallest de gree of confusion. When vet se-orcely nine years old, this surprising chid delis crud a Latin oration. to prove that the cultivation of letters is not inconsistent with the female character, before an ossemlily of learned persons, invited to her Eakin 's house.
At the age of elevt n, tl,e young could not only read Greek, and translate it mstently into Latin, but could even speak that relined language, and with the same apparent case and as ii it had been her native tongue. Nor did these acylisiticns absorb her whole attention ; a nobler field was opened to the exer cise of her mental faculties. SIae now began to read Euclid's Elements, and proceeded in algebra as for as quadratic equations. Tidis prepared, she advanced with ardour to the study or natural philosophy ; but not content with the soh!r truths there unfolded, she soared to the heights of metaphysics, and engaged in the most abstruse and intricate disquisitions of that contentious science.
After the young lady had attained the age of 14, her father, anxious to forward her ardour for improvement, and willing to gratify her ambition for literary distinc tion, invited occasionally to his house a number of per sons, the most respectable in Milan by their rank and learning. In the midst of this grave auditory, Donna Agnesi made her appearance, and without resigning the native delicacy of her sex, she maintained a succession of new theses on various difficult parts of philosophy, and handled the at guments with such (text( city and commanding eloquence, as singly to vanquish every opponent that entered the field of controversy. These disputations were carried on all of them in the Latin lan guage, which she spoke. with the utmost ease, purity, and copious elegance. EV(' ry thing conspired to heighten the impression produced on the admiring spectators. In the full bloom of youth, her person agreeable, her man ner graceful, au air of gentleness and modesty gave ir resistible charms to her whole demeanour.
Such, len• several years, was the great theatre of her glory. But has big nearly completed the circle or phi losophy, and exhausted the chief topics of discussion, she resolved at length to close that career with a solem nity suitable to the occasion. In the year 1738, Agnesi made her last brilliant display, before an august assem bly, composed of the most learned and illusti ions of the Milanese nobility, the senators, and foreign ministers, ith the most distinguished professors in all the branches of science and literature. The substance of these philo
sophical conk mixes W as afterwards published in a quaff to volume, entitled Propose lone:: hdolophirie, yaw:, err bri.v D i.spu tot Lehi!) us domi habitis, rlarirmiuzi4 e 'dice, Oa I ex t mp ore, et ab !di" etis vindicabat Maria L'aje taut de .1g nesii8 Medieelaree now bent her whole attention to the culture of mathematics; and, without guide or assistance, she composed a very useful commentary on L'llospital's Conic Sections, which is said to exist still in manuscript. In the sublimer de pal tments of that science, her studies were directed by the matured experience of professor of mathematics in the university of Pisa; but she soon gave proofs of her amazing proficiency, in di gesting a complete body of the modern calculus. This excellent entitled, Analytical Institutions, for tl.e use of the Italian Youth," appeared in 1748, in two volumes quarto, and was highly esteemed by the best judges, and justly regarded as exhibiting the fullest and clearest view of the state of the science at that period. She was, in consequence, elected Ly acclamation a mem be• of the Institute of Sciences of Bologna; and the pop farther conferred on her the title of Professor of Mathematics in the university of that cite.
But Agnes' was already sated with literary fame. That sun, which in its ascent had shone forth with such daz zling radiance, was, through the rest of its course, shrouded in clouds and darkness. The fever of genius had preyed on her mind, and the high fit of excitement was quickly succeeded by a hopeless depression of spi rits. She repelled the seductions of human learning, and abandoned for ever her favourite mathematical pur suits. Renouncing the vanities of this world, she with drew from society, embraced a life of rigid seclusion, and sunk, by degrees, into the languor of religious me lancholy. She studied nothing but Hebrew, and the rhapsodies of the Greek fathers of the church. For up wards of twenty years she denied all access to strangers. The famous Lalande complains, in his ° Travels through Italy," that he was not allowed the honour of visiting that prodigy ; and father Boscoyich himself, whose reli gious principles must have been unexceptionable, expe rienced, notwithstanding his repeated importunities, a similar refusal. Indulging that gloomy temper, she re tired into a convent, and assumed the habit of a blue nun. She sought to forget the world, and was herself forgot ten. She died about the year 1770, though we have not been able, with all our diligence, to discover the precise period of her demise.
The Instituzioni Analytiche of Agnesi were translated into English many years ago, by Mr Colson, Lueasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. The transla tion was discovered among the papers of that ingenious mathematician, by the learned baron Maseres, who put the manuscript into the hands of Mr Hellins, as editor, and generously defrayed the expenses attending the pub lication. (x)