Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 308th Birthday

Today, May 16, is the 308th anniversary of the birth of Maria Gaetana Agnesi. I'm happy to see many more posts about her on social media, including one that featured this image on X recently:

Unfortunately, the text that accompanied the image repeated one of the common myths about Maria, that she was a math professor. As I explained in this post from 2019, although Pope Benedict XIV did indeed offer Maria a math professorship at the University of Bologna, she turned it down and never served there. In fact, she probably never set foot in Bologna.   

It's sad to see that the misinformation about Maria Gaetana Agnesi continues to be spread. I keep trying to set the record straight whenever I can.

 

New Edition of Playing By Heart is an Amazon #1 release

Monday, September 8, 2025, was the "book birthday" for a new edition of Playing by Heart, my award-winning historical novel inspired by the lives of Maria Gaetana Agnesi and Maria Teresa Agnesi. This edition now includes Book Discussion Questions in the back of the book. I've also made some updates to the cover to distinguish this edition from copies of the older one that may still be available for purchase online. This cover has the title in a new blue font and includes an excerpt from the novel's Booklist review beneath the title. 

 

I was quite surprised to discover today that the book is currently listed as an Amazon "Hot New Release" and the #1 New Release in Children's European Biographies. I don't know how this happened, since the book isn't really a biography. But it is fun to see all the same. 

 

 

More appropriately, Playing by Heart is also listed as a best seller in the "Teen & Young Adult European Biographical Fiction" category, where it's currently #8!

 

 

I have other exciting news about this edition that I'll share in a future post. Meanwhile, you can read more about it and find buy links for purchasing the new edition on the book's page of my website. 
 

 

     

 

Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 306th Birthday

I'm happy to see Maria Gaetana Agnesi's birthday acknowledged in today's Writer's Almanac. However, the article is a bit misleading and includes at least two myths that I have debunked here before:

1. She did not invent or discover the Witch of Agnesi Curve
2. Her mother's death did not keep her from becoming a nun   

As a former newspaper journalist, I'm very annoyed when publications get the facts wrong, especially when I've notified them of their errors in the past. I guess all I can do is continue to point out the mistakes here.  

Meanwhile, I'm pleased to report that earlier this year, in honor of Women's History Month, the American University Library shared an Instagram post about Maria, noting that:

"In our rare books collection, we have a first edition of the English translated work of the Italian mathematician, Maria Gaetana Agnesi." 

 You can read their complete post here.

 

3/3/2024 Instagram post @aulibrary

.

 

Happy birthday, Maria!

New Adult Nonfiction Featuring Maria Gaetana Agnesi

I want to post one more quick update to make sure the new email subscription service is working properly. So I'd like to share the title of a new book for adults that mentions Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Forces Of Nature: The Women who Changed Science by Anna Reser and Leila McNeill.

 

A review in the Albuquerque Journal said "The volume has the heft of a textbook, but it’s a readable history."  I look forward to reading it soon. If you get to it first, let me know what you think.

 

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Carmela 

Quick Fun Fact About Maria Gaetana Agnesi

I usually post about the myths associated with Maria Gaetana Agnesi and her family. But today I thought I'd share a fun fact: there's a crater on Venus named in Maria's honor. While I couldn't find a good image of the crater to share, here's one of the planet Venus:

From nasa.gov

You can read more about the crater here.

According to the MacTutor site, two other female mathematicians have Venus craters named for them: Émilie du Châtelet and Sophie Germain. 

Please note: with our new email subscription manager, you can no longer reply directly to post emails.  If you have questions that you don't want to ask via the comments on the blog page, you may contact me through my website.

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Carmela

Myth-busting and Celebrating on Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 303rd Birthday

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Maria Gaetana Agnesi in Milan, Italy, on May 16, 1718. Sadly, many myths continue to be perpetuated about Maria. Just yesterday, I found a site that offers a "library of teaching worksheets" for classroom use called KidsConnect. At first, I was pleased to see they include a set of worksheets about Maria. But when I read the sample information, I found it riddled with errors. For example, it includes what I called Myth #1 in one of my earliest posts on this site: "Her father, Pietro Agnesi, was a math professor at the University of Bologna." I debunk that myth here. 

Another myth on the KidsConnect page is "Maria’s mother’s death made her retire from public life. She stayed at home and manage [sic] the house, and she was the eldest of 21 children." The page also says: "Aside from completing her own lessons and performances, she was also responsible for teaching her siblings. This task kept her from achieving her own goal of entering a convent, as she had become extremely religious." I explain the error behind statements like these in this blog post. 

I'm especially troubled that these myths are part of information sheets used to instruct children about Maria Gaetana Agnesi. I don't know about the worksheets themselves, but the sample information on the KidsConnect website does not cite any sources. From what I read there, the "facts" seem to have been copied from the Wikipedia entry for Maria Gaetana Agnesi. While Wikipedia does include source references, those sources are unreliable and contain misinformation. That's how these myths keep getting perpetuated. I have sent a message to KidsConnect regarding these issues. We'll see if they respond.

I still hope to publish a nonfiction biography of Maria Gaetana Agnesi for young readers that will provide the true story of her life. Meanwhile, I recommend these two references for the most accurate information we have about Maria:

    A Biography of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, an Eighteenth-Century Woman Mathematician by Antonella Cupillari
    The World of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mathematician of God by Massimo Mazzotti (You can follow him on Twitter @maxmazzotti)

On a positive note, today I discovered that the Remarkablz site celebrated Maria with a fun Science Superhero Identity and a game card in their Top Quarkz game. You can read all about it here.  

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Maria Gaetana Agnesi Biography on MacTutor Site

There's a great deal of misinformation about Maria Gaetana Agnesi online. One of the reasons I created this site was to point out some of those errors. Today, though, I'd like to share a website that sticks to the facts: the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. The site is hosted by the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. I was pleased to discover that the MacTutor biography of Maria Gaetana Agnesi is based on information from reputable sources, and it includes a list of those sources.

Here's the portrait of Maria included in the MacTutor bio (which is in the public domain):

I commend Edmund Robertson and John O'Connor, the creators of MacTutor, for a job well done!

The "Witch of Agnesi"

Back in 2014, I shared a post about an animated Google Doodle in honor of Maria Gaetana Agnesi's birthday that year.The Doodle appears to represent a curve that bears the odd name "witch of Agnesi." Many books and websites say Maria "invented" the curve, but that's a myth. While Maria does discuss the curve in the mathematics textbook she wrote, the fact is that the curve had already been studied by other mathematicians before her. One of those mathematicians, Guido Grandi, had used the term versiera to describe it.

The name "Witch of Agnesi" was invented by Cambridge University mathematics professor John Colson when he translated Maria's math textbook from Italian into English. Colson gave the book it's English title: Analytical Institutions. Unfortunately, when Colson translated Maria's description of the curve, he apparently confused “la versiera” with “l’avversiera,” which means “wife of the devil.” Because of this mistake, Colson named the curve the “Witch of Agnesi” and that's how it's been known ever since. 

Maria, who was devoutly religious, would be horrified at the name!

Celebrating Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 300th Birthday!

May 16, 2018 is the 300th birthday of mathematician-turned-humanitarian Maria Gaetana Agnesi. But Milan, Italy, her birthplace, has special events planned in her honor all year long, including a  program sponsored by Poleticnico Milano on April 19. If you can read Italian, check out the impressive program here. 

Since my research into Maria Gaetana Agnesi's life led me to write the novel Playing by Heart, inspired by her and her younger sister, Maria Teresa Agnesi, I think it only appropriate to sponsor a giveaway of the novel to celebrate this momentous birthday. See my website for details.

I hope that by Maria Gaetana Agnesi's next birthday, I will have found a publisher for the biography I'm working on about her. Meanwhile, happy birthday, Maria!

Women's History Month 2018

     Today kicks off Women's History Month. I learned a great deal about women's history while researching Playing by Heart. The novel was inspired by the two eldest Agnesi sisters: accomplished musician and composer Maria Teresa Agnesi and her older sister, linguist, mathematician, and humanitarian Maria Gaetana Agnesi. You can read more about Maria Teresa on her page of this site and about Maria Gaetana on her bio page.

     The six-month anniversary of the release of Playing by Heart also occurs later this month. It's hard to believe the book has already been out almost six months! To celebrate, I'm hosting a special "Book Bag & Swag" giveaway on my website. You can find all the details here.

 

Celebrating Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 296th Birthday

Google is honoring Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 296th birthday today with an animated Google doodle that includes an animation of the curve bearing her name. 

Unfortunately, the doodle's reach is limited to Europe, Australia, and certain areas of Africa, Asia, and South America. While I'm pleased to see Maria recognized this way, I don't know why Google chose not to use the doodle here in the United States. Oh, well.

The good news is that the doodle is helping to spread the word about this amazing woman. Various news sites, like this one, feature reports about the doodle and Maria's life today. The bad news: some of these sites continue to repeat the common myths about her. For example, this site, reiterates the idea that Maria had to care for her 20 younger siblings after her mother died. I addressed part of this fallacy in an earlier post, explaining that her father remarried within two years of her mother's death. I neglected to mention in that post that when Maria's mother died, Maria had only 6 siblings. So she never would have been responsible for all 20 of her siblings.

Also on the good news side: it's now easier to know how to pronounce Maria's name. I shared a post awhile back trying to explain how to say it. I recently found a clip online that I've copied below. If the clip doesn't work for you, you can listen to it here. 

Regular posts to this blog are still on hold, as I explained here. But I couldn't resist making time to acknowledge Maria on the anniversary of her birth. 

A Birthday Present for Maria from the Writer's Almanac

This blog continues to be on hold, as I explained in this post. However, I do want to remind everyone that today is 

Maria Gaetana Agnesi's 295th birthday!

And what better present than an accurate write-up about her in today's Writer's Almanac!

You may recall that on this day in 2011, the Writer's Almanac got her bio wrong, repeating one of the many myths about Maria: that she couldn't become a nun because she had to care for her many younger siblings. As I explained in this post:

While it is true that Maria was shy and devout, her mother's death did not cause her to give up her religious aspirations. She was only 13 when her mother died. Maria may have helped out with her siblings for awhile, but by the time she turned 16, her father had remarried. The reasons for her not entering a convent had nothing to do with her mother's death.

In 2011, I sent the people at Writer's Almanac a note pointing out their mistake. I'm glad to see they've corrected the error.

Happy birthday, Maria! Or, as they say in Italy:

A Not So Pleasant Birthday Present: The Writer's Almanac Gets it Wrong

Although this blog is officially "on hold," I thought I'd take a quick moment to acknowledge Maria Gaetana Agnesi's birthday, and to correct some misinformation posted about her today at The Writer's Almanac. According to the almanac:

"Maria was shy and devout, and she longed to give up her public speaking and enter a convent. Her religious aspirations were dashed, however, when her mother died and she was left in charge of the household and the care of her many siblings."

This information contains another common myth about Maria: that she had to care for her siblings after her mother died. While it is true that Maria was shy and devout, her mother's death did not cause her to give up her religious aspirations. She was only 13 when her mother died. Maria may have helped out with her siblings for awhile, but by the time she turned 16, her father had remarried. The reasons for her not entering a convent had nothing to do with her mother's death.

I guess even inaccurate publicity is better than no publicity, though. I commend The Writer's Almanac for highlighting the fact that today is the anniversary of Maria Gaetana Agnesi's birthday: May 16, 1718.
Sitll, I consider it ironic that they begin their post by saying:

"It is the birthday of one of the first well-known female mathematicians of the Western world."

While Maria Gaetana Agnesi may have been well-known in her day, few people today have ever heard of her.  I hope that I can help change that by finding a publisher for my manuscript. In the meantime:

Happy Birthday, Maria,

or as they say in Italy: