Maria Gaetana Agnesi

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was a Milanese mathematician, philosopher, theologian and humanitarian, born in 1718 and dying in 1799. She was the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, the first woman appointed as a mathematics professor at a university and the second woman appointed as a professor overall. She is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus, and she was a member of the faculty at the University of Bologna, although she never served. Her Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana, published in Milan in 1748, was regarded as the best introduction extant to the works of Euler.