ABSTRACT
The emergence of modern science is often said to involve three elements: the development of new mathematical techniques, the use of experiment and observation to obtain knowledge, and the emergence of new theories of nature. Together, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Laura Bassi, and Émilie Du Châtelet represent all three elements, thereby exemplifying the full range of women’s production of scientific knowledge in early modern Europe. Far from being mere consumers of science popularized for a female audience or interpreters of Newton, these Enlightenment women were important scientists in their own right, despite efforts by male interpreters to undermine their participation as knowledge producers. Maria Gaetana Agnesi published a book on the calculus, Instituizioni analitiche (1748); Émilie Du Châtelet produced a treatise on physics, Institutions de physiques (1740) and later provided an analysis of Newton’s Principia mathematica; and, Laura Bassi contributed to physics by performing experiments on a vast range of subjects in presentations to the Academy in Bologna and in her own home (1746–1777).
