Laura Bassi

Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Veratti (29 October 1711 – 20 February 1778) was an Italian physicist and academic. Recognized and depicted as "Minerva" (goddess of wisdom), she was the first woman to have a doctorate in science, and the second woman in the world to earn the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Working at the University of Bologna, she was the first salaried female teacher in a university. At one time the highest paid employee of the university, by the end of her life Bassi held two other professorships. She was also the first female member of any scientific establishment, when she was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in 1732 at 21.

Bassi did not receive formal education; instead, she was privately tutored from the age of five until she was twenty. By then, she was well-versed in major disciplines, including sciences and mathematics. Noticing her ability, Prospero Lambertini, the Archbishop of Bologna (later Pope Benedict XIV), became her patron. With Lambertini's arrangement, she publicly defended forty-nine theses before professors of the University of Bologna on 17 April 1732, for which she was awarded a doctoral degree on 12 May. A month later, she was appointed by the university as its first female teacher, albeit with the restriction that she was not allowed to teach all-male classes. Lambertini, by then the Pope, helped her to receive permissions for private classes and experiments, which were granted by the university in 1740.

Bassi became the most important populariser of Newtonian mechanics in Italy. 31 October, and 29 November. But the University of Bologna and scholarly works agree on 29 October.

Bassi was privately educated. Her cousin, Father Lorenzo Stegani, taught her Latin, French, and mathematics from age five. From the age of thirteen to twenty she was taught philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and natural philosophy by Gaetano Tacconi, the family physician and professor of medicine at the University of Bologna.

Bassi's education and intellect were noticed by Prospero Lorenzini Lambertini, who became the Archbishop of Bologna in 1731 (later Pope Benedict XIV). Lambertini became the official patron of Bassi. He arranged for a public debate between Bassi and four professors from the University of Bologna on 17 April 1732.) In 1732, Bassi, aged twenty, publicly defended her forty-nine theses on Philosophica Studia at the Sala degli Anziani of the Palazzo Pubblico. The University of Bologna awarded her a doctorate degree on 12 May. She became the first salaried woman lecturer in the world, thus beginning her academic career.

The first lecture she gave was titled "De aqua corpore naturali elemento aliorum corporum parte universi", which can roughly be translated from Latin as, "Water as a natural element of all other bodies". The University, however, still held that women were to lead private lives, so she was more restricted than male teachers from delivering public lectures. It is reported that she gave at least thirty-one dissertations to the university. Two years later she died, having made science into a lifelong career and advanced the status of women in academic circles.

Experimental work

After her marriage to Giuseppe Veratti, she was able to lecture from home on a regular basis. During the 1760s, Bassi and her husband worked together on experimental research in electricity. This attracted the talent of Abbé Nollet and others to Bologna to study electricity. She had membership in Accademia delle Scienze dell'Instituto di Bologna (1732), Accademia dei Dissonanti di Modena (1732), Universitá degli Apastiti, Firenze (1732), Accademia degli Arcadi di Roma (1737), Accademia dei Fluttuanti di Finale di Modena (1745), Accademia degli Ipocondriaci di Reggio Emilia (1750), Accademia degli Ardenti di Bologna (1752), Accademia degli Agiati di Rovereto (1754), Accademia dell'Emonia di Busseto (1754), Accademia degli Erranti di Fermo (1755), Accademia degli amanti della Botenica di Cortona (1758), Accademia Fulginia di Foligno (1760 and 1761), Accademia dei Teopneusti di Correggio (1763), and Accademia dei Placidi di Recanati (1774). as well as a high school and a street, Via Laura Bassi Veratti, in Bologna.

The Editing Press offers a Laura Bassi Scholarship thrice in a year since 2018 to junior academics, master's and doctoral candidates.

An icebreaker research ship RRS Ernest Shackleton of the British Antarctic Survey was acquired by the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics) on 9 May 2019, and was renamed Laura Bassi. In 2024, for the first time, the ship hosted 12 New Zealand researchers as part of an international collaboration of particular prestige for the Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PNRA) (National Antarctic Research Program).

On 17 April 2021, Google showed a Doodle celebrating Bassi and her many achievements.

Poet Jessy Randall's 2022 collection Mathematics for Ladies includes a poem honoring Bassi.

Published works

Owing to her administrative duties, family problems and frequent diseases during childbirth, Bassi published only a few works, which reflect a small fraction of her contributions to the University of Bologna.

De aeris compressione (Concerning air pressure, 1745)
De problemate quodam hydrometrico (Concerning certain problems in hydrometrics, 1757)
De problemate quodam mechanico (Concerning certain problems in mechanics, 1757)
De immixto fluidis aere (Concerning intermixed gaseous fluid, posthumously published in 1792)

References

External links

Profile with the Society for Catholic Scientists
Biography of Laura Bassi at Project Continua
Bassi-Veratti Collection at Stanford University
Profile at Science Museum Group
Laura Bassi: bibliographical and biographical references. – Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists
YouTube: Influential life of the 1st Female Professor: Laura Bassi

Experimental work

Published works

See also

References

Further reading

External links