Maria Agnesi was born in Milan in 1718 and, like Hypatia, was the daughter of a mathematician. She was acknowledged to be one of the finest mathematicians in Europe, particularly famous for her treatises on the tangents to curves. In Italian, curves were called versiera, a word derived from the Latin vertere, “to turn,” but it was also an abbreviation for avversiera, or “wife of the Devil.” A curve studied by Agnesi (versiera Agnesi) was mistranslated into English as the “witch of Agnesi,” and in time the mathematician herself was referred to by the same title.
