Maria Gaetana Agnesi

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan on 16 May 1718, the elder sister of composer Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini. She produced the first handbook covering both differential and integral calculus, a text that made her the first woman appointed as a mathematics professor - at the University of Bologna, though she never took the post. After her groundbreaking work in mathematics and philosophy, she turned fully toward theology, immersing herself in patristics and writing essays like Il cielo mistico, where she argued that rational contemplation of God and mystical prayer were not opposed but intertwined. She spent her final four decades in charitable work, serving the destitute until her death on 9 January 1799.