WOMEN IN PHYSICS
Physics, being one of the inductive sciences, received little attention
until modern times. True, the Greeks were familiar with some of the
fundamental facts of the mechanics of solids and fluids, and had some
notions respecting the various physical forces; but their knowledge of
what until recently was known as natural philosophy was extremely
limited. Aristotle, Pythagoras and Archimedes were among the most
successful investigators of their time respecting the laws and
properties of matter, and contributed materially to the advancement of
knowledge regarding the phenomena of the material universe; but the sum
total of their information of what we now know as physics could be
embodied in a few pages.
In view of the foregoing facts, we should not expect to find women
engaged in the study, much less in the teaching, of physical science
during ancient times. And yet, if we are to credit Boccaccio, who bases
his statements on those of early Greek writers, there was at least one
woman that won distinction by her knowledge of natural philosophy as
early as the days of Socrates. In his work, _De Laudibus Mulierum_,
which treats of the achievements of some of the illustrious
representatives of the gentler sex, the genial author of the _Decameron_
gives special praise to one Arete of Cyrene for the breadth and variety
of her attainments. She was the daughter of Aristippus, the founder of
the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, and is represented as being a
veritable prodigy of learning. For among her many claims to distinction
she is said to have publicly taught natural and moral philosophy in the
schools and academies of Attica for thirty-five years, to have written
forty books, and to have counted among her pupils one hundred and ten
philosophers. She was so highly esteemed by her countrymen that they
inscribed on her tomb an epitaph which declared that she was the
splendor of Greece and possessed the beauty of Helen, the virtue of
Thirma, the pen of Aristippus, the soul of Socrates, and the tongue of
Homer.[151]
This is high praise, indeed, but, when we recollect that Arete lived
during the golden age of Greek learning and culture, that she had
exceptional opportunities of acquiring knowledge in every department of
intellectual effort; when we recall the large number of women who, in
their time, distinguished themselves by their learning and
accomplishment, and reflect on the advantages they enjoyed as pupils of
the ablest teachers of the Lyceum, the Portico, and the Academy; when we
remember further that they lived in an atmosphere of intelligence such
as has since been unknown; when we call to mind the signal success that
rewarded the pursuit of knowledge by the scores of women mentioned by
Athenaeus and other Greek writers; when we peruse the fragmentary notices
of their achievements as recorded in the pages of more recent
investigators regarding the educational facilities of a certain class
of women living in Athens and the eminence which they attained in
science, philosophy and literature, we can realize that the character
and amount of Arete's work as an author and as a teacher have not been
overestimated.
Living in an age of prodigious mental activity, when women, as well as
men, were actuated by an abiding love of knowledge for its own sake,
there is nothing surprising in finding a woman like Arete commanding the
admiration of her countrymen by her learning and eloquence. For was not
the learned and eloquent Aspasia her contemporary? And did not Theano,
the wife of Pythagoras, take charge of her husband's school after his
death; and does not antiquity credit her with being not only a
successful teacher of philosophy, but also a writer of books of
recognized value? Such being the case, what is there incredible in the
statements made by ancient writers regarding the literary activity of
Arete, and about her eminence as a teacher of science and philosophy?
She was but one of many of the Greek women of her age that won renown by
their gifts of intellect and by their contributions to the educational
work of their time and country.
Better known than Arete, but probably not superior to her as a teacher
or writer, was the illustrious Hypatia of Alexandria. She, too, like her
distinguished predecessor in Athens, was an instructor in natural
philosophy, as well as other branches of science. Of her we know more
than we do of the daughter of Aristippus, but even our knowledge of the
acquisitions and achievements of Hypatia is, unfortunately, extremely
meager. We do, however, know from the historian, Socrates, and from
Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, who was her pupil, that she was one of
the most richly dowered women of all time. Born and educated in
Alexandria when its schools and scholars were the most celebrated in the
world, she was even at an early age regarded as a marvel of learning.
For, not satisfied with excelling her father, Theon, in mathematics, of
which he was a distinguished professor, she, as Suidas informs us,
devoted herself to the study of philosophy with such success that she
was soon regarded as the ablest living exponent of the doctrines of
Plato and Aristotle. "Her knowledge," writes the historian, Socrates,
"was so great that she far surpassed all the philosophers of her time.
And succeeding Plotinus, in the Platonic school which he had founded in
the city of Alexandria, she taught all the branches of philosophy with
such signal success that students flocked to her in crowds from all
parts."[152] Her home, as well as her lecture room, was the resort of
the most noted scholars of the day, and was, with the exception of the
Library and the Museum, the most frequented intellectual center of the
great city of learning and culture. Small wonder, then, that her
contemporaries lauded her as an oracle and as the most brilliant
luminary in Alexandria's splendid galaxy of thinkers and
scholars--_sapientis artis sidus integerrimum_.
Among the many inventions attributed to Hypatia, besides the planisphere
and astrolabe which she designed for the use of astronomers, are several
employed in the study of natural philosophy. Probably the most useful of
these is an areometer mentioned by her pupil Synesius. He calls it a
hydroscope and describes it as having the form and size of a flute, and
graduated in such wise that it can be used for determining the density
of liquids. That Hypatia was thoroughly familiar with the science of
natural philosophy, as then known, there can be no doubt. That she also
contributed materially to its advancement, as well as to that of
astronomy, in which she always exhibited a special interest, there is
every reason to believe.[153]
After the death of Hypatia, the study of natural philosophy was almost
entirely neglected for more than a thousand years. The first woman in
modern times to attract attention by her discussion of physical problems
was the famous Marquise du Chatelet, although she was better known as a
mathematician and as the translator into the French of Newton's
_Principia_. In her chateau at Cirey she had a well-equipped physical
cabinet in which she took special delight. But in her time, as in that
of Hypatia, natural philosophy was far from being the broad experimental
science which it has become through the marvelous discoveries made in
heat, light, electricity and magnetism during the last hundred years, as
well as through those countless brilliant investigations which have led
up to our present doctrine of the correlation and conservation of the
various physical forces. There was then no occasion for those delicate
instruments of precision which are now found in every physical
laboratory by means of which the man of science is able to investigate
phenomena and determine laws that were quite unknown until a few years
ago.
In the time of Mme. du Chatelet, as during the century following,
natural philosophy consisted rather in the mechanical and mathematical
than in the physical study of nature. This is illustrated by the title
of the great work on the translation of which she spent the best years
of her life--Newton's immortal _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematica_.
The Marquise's first scientific work was an investigation regarding the
nature of fire. The French Academy of Sciences had offered a prize for
the best memoir on the subject. Among the contestants for the coveted
honor were the chatelaine of Cirey and the celebrated Swiss
mathematician, Leonard Euler. The Marquise was unsuccessful in the
contest, but her paper was of such value that the eminent physicist and
astronomer, Arago, was able to characterize it as an "elegant piece of
work, embracing all the facts relating to the subject then known to
science and containing among the experiments suggested one which proved
so fecund in the hands of Herschel." In this remarkable _Memoire sur le
Feu_, which is printed in the _Collections_ of the Academy, the Marquise
anticipates the results of subsequent researches of others by
maintaining that both heat and light have the same cause, or, as we
should now say, are both modes of motion.
The second book written by this remarkable woman is entitled
_Institutions de Physique_, and was dedicated to her son, for whose
benefit it was primarily written. It deals specially with the philosophy
of Leibnitz and discusses such questions as force, time and space. Her
views respecting the nature of the force called _vis viva_, which was
much discussed in her time, are of particular interest, as they are not
only opposed to those which were held by Descartes and Newton, but also
because they are in essential accord with those now accepted in the
world of science.
All things considered, the Marquise du Chatelet deservedly takes high
rank in the history of mathematical physics. In this department of
science she has had few, if any, superiors among her own sex. And, when
we recollect that she labored while the foundations of dynamics were
still being laid, we shall more readily appreciate the difficulties she
had to contend with and the distinct service which her researches and
writings rendered to the cause of natural philosophy among her
contemporaries.
The first woman to occupy a chair of physics in a university was the
famous daughter of Italy, Laura Maria Catarina Bassi. She was born in
Bologna in 1711--but five years after the birth of Madame du
Chatelet--and from her most tender years she exhibited an exceptional
facility for the acquisition of knowledge.
After she had, through the assistance of excellent masters, become
proficient in French and Latin, she took up the study of logic,
metaphysics and natural philosophy. In all these branches of learning
her progress was so rapid that it far exceeded the fondest expectations
of her parents and teachers. Thanks to a wonderful memory and a highly
developed reasoning faculty, she was able, while still a young maiden,
to prove herself the possessor of knowledge that is ordinarily obtained
only in the maturity of age and after long years of systematic study.
When she had attained the twenty-first year of her age she was induced
by her family and friends--much against her own inclination, however--to
take part in a public disputation on philosophy. Her entering the lists
against some of the most distinguished scholars of the time was made the
occasion for an unusual demonstration in her honor. The hall of the
university in which such intellectual jousts were generally held was too
small for the multitude that was eager to witness the young girl's
formal appearance among the scholars and the notables of the old
university city. It was, accordingly, arranged that the disputation
should be held in the great hall of the public Palace of the Senators.
Among the vast assemblage present at the disputation were Cardinal
Grimaldi, the papal legate; Cardinal Archbishop Lambertini, afterwards
Pope Benedict XIV; the gonfalonier, senators, literati from far and
near, leading members of the nobility and representatives of all the
religious orders.
When the argumentation began the young girl found herself pitted against
five of the most distinguished scholars of Bologna. But she was fully
equal to the occasion and passed the ordeal to which she was subjected
in a manner that excited the admiration and won the plaudits of all
present. Cardinal Lambertini was so impressed with the brilliant defence
which she had made against the five trained dialecticians and the
evidence she gave of varied and profound learning that he paid her a
special visit the next day in her own home to renew his congratulations
on her signal triumph and to encourage her to continue the prosecution
of her studies.
In less than a month after this interesting event Laura Bassi, in
response to the expressed desire of the whole of Bologna, presented
herself as a candidate for the doctorate in philosophy. This was the
occasion for a still more brilliant and imposing ceremony. It was held
in the spacious Hall of Hercules in the Communal Palace, which was
magnificently decorated for the splendid function. In addition to the
distinguished personages who had been spectators of the fair student's
triumph a few weeks before, there was present in the vast audience the
noted French ecclesiastic, Cardinal Polignac, who was on his way from
Rome to France.
The heroine of the hour, dressed in a black gown, was ushered into the
great hall, preceded by two college beadles and accompanied by two of
the most prominent ladies of the Bolognese nobility. She was given a
seat between the chancellor and the prior of the university, who, in
turn, were flanked by the professors and officials of the institution.
After the usual preliminaries of the function were over the prior of the
university, Doctor Bazzani, rose and pronounced an eloquent discourse in
Latin to which Laura made a suitable response in the same language. She
was then crowned with a laurel wreath exquisitely wrought in silver, and
had thrown round her the _vajo_, or university gown, both symbols of the
doctorate. After this the young doctor proceeded to where the three
cardinals were seated, and in delicately chosen words, also in Latin,
expressed to them her thanks for the honor of their presence. All then
withdrew to the apartments of the gonfalonier, where refreshments were
served in sumptuous style, after which the young _Laureata_, accompanied
by a numerous cortege and applauded by the entire city, was escorted to
her home.
So profound was the impression made on the university senate by the deep
erudition of Laura Bassi that it was eager to secure her services in its
teaching body. But, before she could be offered a chair in the
institution, long-established custom required that she should pass a
public examination on the subject matter which she was to teach. Five
examiners were chosen by lot, and all of them proved to be men whose
names, says Fantuzzi, "will always be held by our university in glorious
remembrance." They had all to promise under oath that the candidate for
the chair should have no knowledge before the examination of the
questions which were to be asked, and that the test of the aspirant's
qualifications to fill the position sought should be absolutely free
from any suspicion of favoritism or partiality.
Notwithstanding the difficulties she had to confront, Laura acquitted
herself with even greater credit than on former occasions of a similar
character. There was no question in the mind of any one present at the
examination of the candidate's ability to fill the chair of physics, and
it was, accordingly, offered to her by acclamation.
The first public lecture of the gifted young _dottoressa_ was made the
occasion of a demonstration such as the old walls of the university had
rarely witnessed. Her lecture room was thronged by the elite of the
city, as well as by a large class of enthusiastic students. All were
charmed by her eloquence and amazed at the complete mastery she evinced
of the subject she had selected for discussion. From that day forth her
reputation as a scholar and a teacher was established, and her lectures
were attended by appreciative students from all parts of Europe. She
was especially popular with the students from Greece, Germany and
Poland, and her popularity, far from waning, waxed greater with the
passing years.
At the time of Laura's entering upon her professional career the senate
of Bologna had a medal coined in her honor, on the obverse of which was
her name and effigy, while on the reverse there was an image of Minerva,
with the inscription, _Soli cui fas vidisse Minervam_.
Far from interrupting her studies, which had hitherto been the joy of
her life, Laura's university work gave new zest to the literary and
scientific pursuits which had always such a fascination for her. Among
the subjects that specially engaged her attention were studies so
diverse as Greek and the higher mathematics. She was particularly
interested in the great physico-mathematical work of Newton, and did not
rest until she had thoroughly mastered the contents of his epoch-making
_Principia_.
A few years after she had become a member of the university faculty
Laura was a European celebrity, and no one eminent by learning or birth
passed through Bologna without availing himself of the opportunity of
making the acquaintance of so extraordinary a woman. Men of science and
letters vied with princes and emperors in doing honor to one who was
looked upon by many as being, like Arete of old, endowed with a soul and
a genius far above that of ordinary mortals, and as being the possessor
of a talent that indicated something superhuman.
Laura Bassi was in constant correspondence with the most celebrated
scholars of Europe, and more especially with those who had attained
eminence in her special line of work. Among the letters received from
her illustrious correspondents were two from Voltaire. They were written
shortly after the author had been refused admittance into the French
academy. He then bethought himself of securing membership in the Academy
of Sciences of Bologna. This, he reasoned, would be a splendid tribute
to the versatility of his genius and would, at the same time, be a
biting satire on the demigods of French literature who had dared to
exclude him from their society.
That he might not meet the same refusal on the part of the Academy of
Bologna as he had experienced in Paris, Voltaire determined not to rely
entirely on the good will of the male members of the Bolognese academy.
He accordingly resolved to enlist the services of Laura Bassi, who was
one of the leading members of this distinguished body, and trust to her
influence in his behalf on the hearts of her colleagues.
The first letter, written in Italian, is so characteristic of the writer
that it will bear reproduction.
"Most Illustrious Lady," he writes from Paris, the 23d of November,
1744, "I have been wishing to journey to Bologna in order to be able one
day to tell my countrymen I have seen Signora Bassi; but, being deprived
of this honor, let it at least be permitted me to place at your feet
this philosophic homage and to salute the honor of her age and of women.
There is not a Bassi in London, and I should be more happy to be a
member of the Academy of Bologna than of that of the English, although
it has produced a Newton. If your protection should obtain for me this
title, of which I am so ambitious, the gratitude of my heart will be
equal to my admiration for yourself. I beg you to excuse the style of a
foreigner who presumes to write you in Italian, but who is as great an
admirer of yours as if he were born in Bologna."
The second letter of Voltaire is in response to one received from Laura
Bassi announcing that he had been elected to membership in the Bologna
Academy. The first sentence of it suffices to indicate its tenor.
"Nothing," he writes, "was ever more grateful to me than to receive from
your hand the first advice that I had the honor, by means of your favor,
of being united by this new link to one who had already bound me to her
car by all the chains of esteem and admiration."[154]
Like so many of her gifted sisters of sunny Italy, Laura was in every
way "a perfect woman nobly planned." Of a deeply religious nature, she
was as pious as she was intelligent, and was throughout her life the
devoted friend of the poor and the afflicted. The mother of twelve
children, she never permitted her scientific and literary work to
conflict with her domestic duties or to detract in the least from the
singular affection which so closely united her to her husband and
children. She was as much at home with the needle and the spindle as she
was with her books and the apparatus of her laboratory. And she was
equally admirable whether superintending her household, looking after
her children, entertaining the great and the learned of the world, or in
holding the rapt attention of her students in the lecture room. She was,
indeed, a living proof that higher education is not incompatible with
woman's natural avocations; and that cerebral development does not lead
to race suicide and all the other dire results attributed to it by a
certain class of our modern sociologists and anti-feminists.
Considering her manifold duties as a professor in the university and the
mother of a large family, it was scarcely to be expected that Laura
Bassi would have much time for writing for the press. She was, however,
able to devote some of her leisure moments to the cultivation of the
Muses, of whom, Fantuzzi informs us, she was a favorite. Her verses, as
well as her contributions to the science of physics, are scattered
through various publications, but they suffice to show that the accounts
of her transmitted to us by her contemporaries were not
exaggerated.[155]
A learned French traveler who visited Laura in Bologna describes her as
having a face that was sweet, serious and modest. Her eyes were dark and
sparkling, and she was blessed with a powerful memory, a solid judgment,
and a ready imagination. "She conversed fluently with me in Latin for an
hour with grace and precision. She is very proficient in metaphysics;
but she prefers modern physics, particularly that of Newton."
How many of our college women of to-day could readily carry on a
conversation in Latin, if this were the sole medium of communication, or
discuss the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle in the tongue of Cicero,
or give public lectures on the physico-mathematical discoveries of
Descartes and Newton in what was the universal language of the learned
world, even less than a century ago?
It must not, however, be inferred from the foregoing statements
regarding the great intellectual capacity of Laura Bassi or the
enthusiastic demonstrations that were so frequently made in her honor
that she was unique in this respect among her countrywomen. Special
attention has been called to her as a type of the large number of her
sex who, by their learning and culture, graced the courts and honored
the universities of her country for full ten centuries. Scarcely had
death removed Laura Bassi from a career in which for twenty-eight years
she had won the plaudits of the whole of Europe, when the University of
Bologna welcomed to its learned halls two other women who, in their
respective lines of research, were fully as eminent as their departed
countrywoman. These were Maria dalle Donne, for whom Napoleon
established a chair of obstetrics, and Clotilda Tambroni, the famous
professor of Greek, of whom a noted Hellenist declared, "Only three
persons in Europe are able to write Greek as well as she does, and not
more than fifteen are able to understand her."
Burckhardt, in his thoughtful work on the culture of the Italian
Renaissance, has a paragraph which expresses, in a few words, what was
always the attitude of the Italian father toward the education of his
daughter.
"The education of the woman of the upper class was absolutely the same
as that of the man. The Italian of the Renaissance did not for a moment
hesitate to give his son and daughter the same literary and
philosophical training. He considered the knowledge of the works of
antiquity life's greatest good, and he could not, therefore, deny to
woman participation in such knowledge. Hence the perfection attained by
the daughters of noble families in writing and speaking Latin."[156]
This attitude of the members of the nobility toward the education of
their daughters was essentially the same as that of the universities of
Italy toward women who had a thirst for knowledge. For from the dawn of
learning in Salerno to the present there never was a time when women
were not as cordially welcomed to the universities as students and
professors as were the men; and never a time when the merit of
intellectual work was not determined without regard to sex.
In Bologna, where were passed the sixty-seven years of her mortal life,
the name of Laura Bassi, like that of her illustrious colleague, Luigi
Galvani, is one to conjure with, and a name that is still pronounced
with respect and reverence. Her last resting place is in the Church of
Corpus Domini, the same sacred shrine in which were deposited all that
was mortal of the renowned discoverer of galvanic electricity.[157]
Two years after Signora Bassi was gathered to her fathers there was born
near Edinburgh to a Scotch admiral, Sir William George Fairfax, an
infant daughter who was destined to shed as much luster on her sex in
the British Isles as the incomparable Laura Bassi had diffused on
womankind in Italy during her brilliant career in "Bologna, the
learned." She is known in the annals of science as Mary Somerville, and
was in every way a worthy successor of her famous sister in Italy, both
as a woman and as a votary of science.
Although her chief title to fame is her notable work in mathematical
astronomy, especially her translation of Laplace's _Mechanique Celeste_,
she is likewise to be accorded a prominent place among scientific
investigators for her contributions to physics and cognate branches of
knowledge. Chief among these are her works on the _Connection of the
Physical Sciences_ and _Physical Geography_. As to the last production,
no less an authority than Alexander von Humboldt pronounced it an exact
and admirable treatise, and wrote of it as "that excellent work which
has charmed and instructed me since its first appearance."
In a letter from the illustrious German savant to the gifted authoress
of the two last-named volumes occurs the following paragraph: "To the
great superiority you possess and which has so nobly illustrated your
name on the high regions of mathematical analysis, you add, Madam, a
variety of information in all parts of physics and descriptive natural
history. After the _Mechanism of the Heavens_, the philosophical
_Connection of the Physical Sciences_ has been the object of my profound
admiration.... The author of the vast _Cosmos_ should more than any one
else salute the _Physical Geography_ of Mary Somerville.... I know of
no work on physical geography in any language that can compare with
yours."
Among the other works by Mrs. Somerville, treating of physical subjects
or of subjects intimately related to physics are _The Form and Rotation
of the Earth_, _The Tides of the Ocean and Atmosphere_, and an abstruse
investigation _On Molecular and Microscopic Science_. The last volume
was published in 1869, when its author was near her ninetieth year, and
bore as its motto St. Augustine's sublime words: _Deus magnus in magnis,
maximus in minimis_--God is great in great things, greatest in the
least.
After Mrs. Somerville's death, in 1872, at the advanced age of
ninety-two, the number of women who devoted themselves to the study and
teaching of physics was greatly augmented. The brilliant success of
Laura Bassi and Mary Somerville had not been without results, and their
notable achievements as authors and teachers had the effect of
stimulating women everywhere to emulate their example, and encouraging
them to devote more attention to a branch of science which, until then,
had been regarded by the general public as beyond the sphere and
capacity of what was assumed to be the intellectually weaker sex.
One of the most eminent scientific women of the present day in England
is Mrs. Ayrton, the wife of the late Professor W. E. Ayrton, the
well-known electrician. Her chosen field of research, like that of her
husband, has been electricity, in which she has achieved marked
distinction. Her investigations on the electric arc and on the sand
ripples of the seashore won for her the first medal ever awarded to a
woman by the Royal Society. When, however, in 1902, she was formally
nominated for fellowship in this same society, she failed of election
because the council of the society discovered that "it had no legal
power to elect a married woman to this distinction."
How different it was in the case of Laura Bassi, who was an active
member of all the leading scientific and literary societies of Italy,
where from time immemorial women have been as cordially welcomed to
membership in its learned societies as to the chairs of its great
universities.
The list of the women who in Europe and America are now engaged in
physical research and in teaching physics in schools and colleges is a
long one, and the work accomplished by them is, in many cases, of a high
order of merit. It is only, indeed, during the present generation that
such work has been made generally accessible to them; and, considering
the success which has already attended their efforts in this branch of
science, we have every reason to believe that the future will bring
forth many others of their sex who will take rank with such intellectual
luminaries as Hypatia, Mme. du Chatelet, Laura Bassi and Mary
Somerville.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] "Publice philosophiam naturalem et moralem in scholis Academiisque
Atticis docuit haec foemina annis XXXV, libros composuit XL, discipulos
habuit philosophos CX, obiit anno aetatis LXXVII, cui tale Athenienses
statuere epitaphium:
Nobilis hic Arete dormit, lux Helladis, ore
Tyndaris at tibi par, Icarioti, fide.
Patris Aristippi calamumque animamque dederunt,
Socratis huic linguam Maeonidaeque Dii."
--Boccaccio, _De Laudibus Mulierum_, Lib. II.
Cf. Wolf's _Mulierum Graecarum quae Oratione Prosa Usae Sunt Fragmenta et
Elogia_, pp. 283 et seq., London, 1739.
[152] "Mulier quaedam fuit Alexandriae, nomine Hypatia, Theonis filia. Haec
ad tantam eruditionem pervenerat ut omnes sui temporis philosophos longo
intervallo superaret, et in Platonicam scholam a Plotino deductam
succederet, cunctasque philosophiae disciplinas auditoribus exponeret.
Quocirca omnes philosophiae studiosi ad illam undique confluebant."
_Socrates, Historiae Ecclesiasticae_, Lib. VII, Cap. 15.
[153] For extracts from the ancient authors regarding Hypatia, as well
as for the extant letters to her from her friend and pupil, Synesius,
the reader is referred to Wolf's erudite _Mulierum Graecarum quae Oratione
Prosa Usae sunt Fragmenta et Elogia_, pp. 72-91, ut sup.
[154] Ernesto Masi, _Studi e Ritratti_, p. 166 et seq., Bologna, 1881.
[155] Two of her Latin dissertations on certain physical problems were
published in the _Commentaries of the Bologna Institute_. One of them is
entitled _De Problemate quodam Mechanico_; the other _De Problemate
quodam Hydrometrico_. Many of her lectures on physics still exist in
manuscript, and it is to be hoped that at least the titles of them may
be given in a biography of the learned author which has been long
desired and long promised.
[156] _Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien_, Vol. I, p. 363, 1869.
[157] As no satisfactory biography of Laura Bassi has yet been written,
most of our knowledge respecting her is limited to that found in
Fantuzzi's _Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi_, Tom. I, pp. 384-391, and
Mazzuchelli's _Gli Scrittori d'Italia_, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 527-529,
Brescia, 1758.