Laura Bassi

Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Veratti was born on 29 October 1711 and tutored privately from age five, emerging at twenty fluent in mathematics and science without ever sitting in a classroom. Prospero Lambertini, the Archbishop of Bologna, noticed her and arranged the public defense on 17 April 1732; she earned her doctoral degree on 12 May and was appointed to teach at the University of Bologna a month later, though barred from all-male classes. Lambertini, by then Pope Benedict XIV, secured her permission for private teaching and experiments in 1740, and she became the most important populariser of Newtonian mechanics in Italy. The Pope inducted her into the Benedettini in 1745; she eventually became the university's highest paid employee and took the Chair of Experimental Physics in 1776. She died on 20 February 1778 and lies in the Church of Corpus Domini.