Analytical Institutions

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was an Italian polymath with a heart of gold. Born into a wealthy Milanese family, Agnesi's brilliance was used to entertain family friends and visitors from an early age. She was a child prodigy, speaking 7 languages by the age of 10 and delivering speeches in Latin about the education of women to her father's circle of academics and intellectuals. As the eldest of 21 children, Agnesi was tasked with teaching the others, a responsibility that inspired this book. Finding mathematical textbooks insufficient, Agnesi originally began writing this text for her siblings. Published in 1748 in Italian, it was so well-received that Pope Benedict XIV sent her a golden wreath and medal and would go on to offer her the chair of mathematics, physics, and natural philosophy at the University of Bologna. Though it was quite a rare offer and well-deserved, she would never serve. She chose instead to found a home dedicated to Milan's elderly population, devoting the rest of her life to charity work. This is the second of a two-volume first edition English translation of Agnesi's seminar work in mathematics.