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376 GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS ITALIAN WOMEN...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Four Female Professors Of The University...
After her death , Frisi , her friend and biographer , found among her youthful manuscripts , a Greek and Latin lexicon , in three tiny
columns , containing 13 , 300 words : also a translation from Latin into Greek , a work on Mythology which she had compiled from
various German authors . Later she translated into Greek the Italian works of Father Lorenzo Scupoli , entitled " II combattimenio
Spirituale" and into French , Italian , Spanish , German , and Greek the two supplements to Quinto Oitrzio , written by Freingenius in
Latin , and thus acquired the appellation of the Polyglot . Meanwhile she made marvellous progress in the speculative sciences , and
especially in geometry . Her father , ever anxious to aid the development of her singularly precocious talents , opened his house to all the
literati of Milan , and embraced every opportunity of inviting foreign authors of renown who might be travelling in that part of Italy , and
we find the President de Brosses , in his " Lettres sur l'ltalie , " recording with admiration and astonishment the erudite and eloquent
conversation of the young Agnesi . Her father ' s house was , in fact , converted into a private Athenaeum , and the select circle there assembled were
the first to foretell her future greatness . One hundred and ninety-one theses in Latin , discussed by Agnesi in the presence of these literati , were
published at Milan , 1738 , under the title of _Propositions Philosophicce . These scholastic disputations , while they may strengthen and
develop the . intellectual faculties , are too offcen productive of vanityand the youthful prodigy , applauded and extolledtoo often
, , imagines that the toils of study are no longer necessary . Agnesi incurred this danger , owing to her father ' s ambition , noble as it was ,
but her extreme modesty , her powerful intellect , and tha , t insatiable thirst after knowledge , which ever accompanies real talent . , preserved
her from the evil effects of the applause of which she was the object . She soon felt the necessity of solitary meditation , of undisturbed
study , uninterrupted by the too intense emotions of public discussion , and gradually withdrawing herself from the literary circles , she
consecrated herself entirely to mathematics . At this period , A . treatise on Conic Sections by the Marquis de V Hospital , was
published after his death , and Agnesi wrote a commentary thereon , in which she has thrown ligiit on many of its obscure parts , corrected
many errors , and supplied many omissions . This won for her a hih position in the opinion of many celebrated Italians , who
consulted g her in various sciences , astronomy , mathematics , etc . Beccari , President of the Academy of Science at Bologna , consulted her
concerning the Acts of the Academy ; Professor Zanotti concerning certain eclipses of the sun ; Professor Biccati concerning his own
books , and especially on the one entitled Delle _Forze ; the Abbe Paolo Frisi on the dissertations _De- _figurd et magnitudine telluris
_, Professor Belloni and others , and in 1748 she was elected member of the Academy of Sciences at Bologna .
But the work on which her European fame is founded , cost her
ten years of assiduous labour , and was published in her thirtieth
376 Gallery Of Illustrious Italian Women...
376 GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS ITALIAN WOMEN .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1858, page 376, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081858/page/16/
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