Two of the academy’s most important members, the Istituto professor of physics Jacopo Bartolomeo Beccari and the academy secretary Francesco Maria Zanotti, were deputized to inform Bassi so that she would know of the “high esteem that the academy had of her intelligence”.1the presentation that Signor Eustachio Manfredi, Signor Beccari, Father Abundio Collina, and others gave regarding the infinite and incredible erudition demonstrated by this young girl, beyond her sex and age, supported by the many conclusions that she sustained many times about all of philosophy, with such liveliness, quickness, nobility of speech, and profound learning that you would not be able to believe it if you had not heard her.
The Istituto’s decision to make Bassi an academician played an important role in her emergence as one of the most famous and admired women of science in the eighteenth century. One month later, her spectacularly well-publicized defense of forty-nine philosophical theses on 17 April 1732 qualified her for a laurea in philosophy which was awarded in May. A well-paid professorship in universal philosophy at the University of Bologna followed at the end of October. In the publicity surrounding these later events, it is easy to forget that the Istituto took the lead in creating a special place for her in the scientific culture of Bologna. For almost forty-six years, until her death in February 1778, Bassi would take advantage of every opportunity that academy membership offered her to cultivate her reputation as an accomplished and knowledgeable physicist.
4.1 Laura Bassi, Accademica Onoraria (1732–45)
The admission of Laura Bassi was one of the events that marked the Istituto’s transition from the first to the second phase of its development. In 1732 Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli, the ambitious, prickly, and demanding founder of the Istituto, had been dead less than two years. His perpetual dissatisfaction with the Bolognese Senate’s execution of the terms of his bequest, the facilities in Palazzo Poggi, and the work of the Istituto professors and academicians had almost destroyed the temple of learning he inaugurated in 1711. Were it not for the timely and diplomatic intervention of Prospero Lambertini, then bishop of Ancona, the Istituto might have ceased to exist altogether around 1726.2 But Marsigli was no longer around to meddle in the Istituto’s affairs and threaten to withdraw his support. Instead, Lambertini’s return to his native city in 1731, as Archbishop of Bologna after many years in Rome, gave the Istituto a powerful and supportive patron who aspired to realize the program that Marsigli could never quite execute. Under the editorial supervision of the Istituto secretary Francesco Maria Zanotti, the long delayed first volume of the Istituto Commentarii finally appeared in 1731.3 Things were indeed looking up.
How did Bassi fit into these plans? From the start, key Istituto professors and academicians were involved in her education, though they did not all agree on how she should be educated. Her philosophy tutor and family physician Gaetano Tacconi had been a member of the academy since 1717.4 After persuading Giuseppe Bassi to invite learned scholars into his home to engage in philosophical debate with his daughter and observe her talents, Bassi’s learning became widely known and admired. While we have no record of who attended the many evenings of philosophical conversation in Casa Bassi, all the evidence suggests that other members of the Istituto academy were among the most important participants in these debates and began to direct her attention to subjects Tacconi had not covered in his private lessons.5 Thus, prior to her April defense, Bassi’s knowledge had been tested repeatedly by key figures such as Zanotti, Beccari, Eustachio and Gabriele Manfredi, Domenico Gusmano Galeazzi, Matteo Bazzani, and probably the youngest and newest members, Francesco Algarotti and Eustachio Zanotti. They would be among those admirers who urged Cardinal Lambertini to visit Casa Bassi to witness the erudition of la donzella Laura.
Lambertini’s decision to have the university to make Bassi’s scientific learning a public fact in the city was largely executed by Istituto members, many of whom were university professors while others belonged to the urban aristocracy and clerical elite of the city. As Rector of the College of Arts, Bazzani presided over her degree ceremony on May 12, where he gave an oration in praise of Bassi and specifically complemented Tacconi for his education of this learned woman.6 Beccari and Gabriele Manfredi examined her on matters of natural philosophy and physics. In a lost oration that we only know by its title, De philosophicorum studiorum utilitate in mulieribus desiderabilium Oratio, Tacconi seems to have presented Bassi as the ultimate demonstration not only of a woman’s right to education but of the Cartesian philosophy of mind and body.7 This formulation of Bassi’s learning sparked a bitter disagreement between Tacconi and other academicians about the future direction of her studies that would force Bassi to make a choice. Bazzani’s diplomatic praise of Tacconi’s role as maestro masked real intellectual differences within the ranks of the academicians in which she was about to be embroiled.
The more mathematically inclined and experimental academicians, all self-professed Newtonians, felt that Bassi had the ability to pursue natural philosophy beyond general qualitative questions about the nature of things that belonged to the long tradition of learning stretching from Aristotle to Descartes. Her brief exposition of Newton’s optics in her physics theses, which became the centerpiece of Algarotti’s poetic exultation of Bassi as “the shadow of the Great British”, hinted of what was to come.8 The Newtonian circle within the academy openly discussed the deficiencies of Tacconi’s course in philosophy and derided the largely scholastic content of the physical theses he had proposed for her public defense. His subsequent decision to encourage Bassi to discuss questions of ethics for her first philosophical debate after her degree spurred them into action. They encouraged Lambertini to intervene in favor of a more scientific subject of longstanding interest to Bologna’s scientists: the nature and composition of water. Bassi presented twelve theses on this subject on 27 June 1732 and drafted other unpublished theses that reveal a growing engaging with Newtonian science.9 By shaping the content of Bassi’s public presentations of her learning, once her degree had been conferred and she was well on her way to becoming a university professor, the Newtonian members of the Istituto established her status as a modern natural philosopher.
Beccari, Manfredi, and Zanotti—and from a distance the papal physician and ardent Newtonian Antonio Leprotti—felt that Bassi had a mind made for modern physics. They encouraged her to pursue this subject, acquiring the knowledge necessary through a broader reading of recent works of modern natural philosophy, and to perfect the mathematical skills necessary for such an undertaking. Even as she accepted a special lectureship in “universal philosophy”, her contact with energetic and supportive members of the Istituto academy led Bassi to abandon the philosophical path outlined in her course of studies with Tacconi. She would continue to use this knowledge as the elementary foundation of her introductory philosophy lectures but her own interests began to converge with the intellectual agenda of the most ambitious and widely read members of the Istituto. Bassi made plans to study algebra with Gabriele Manfredi who would tutor her in this subject for three or four years until she became proficient in differential calculus—a rare commodity even among physics professors in mid-eighteenth century Italy.10 She seems to have also considered Beccari an intellectual mentor, describing him as her “most learned master” at the time of his death.11 The Cartesian anatomist Tacconi may have introduced her to members of the Istituto but it quickly became clear that the Newtonian avant-garde of the academy adopted her as their intellectual project. She was a far bolder and clearer demonstration of the success of a Newtonian worldview than the cautiously worded account of Algarotti’s and Zanotti’s successful replication of Newton’s prism experiments in the Commentarii, not a qualitative Newtonianism for Ladies as the famous title of Algarotti’s 1737 book suggested but a quantitative Newtonianism produced by a young and highly learned woman.12
This is how Laura Bassi began her relationship with the Istituto delle Scienze. Within a matter of months, the Istituto added a second female member at a distance when they admitted the Neapolitan noblewoman Faustina Pignatelli on 20 November 1732, “having the most certain testimonials of this lady’s great and marvelous worth in mathematics, and especially algebra”. They did this with the explicit understanding “to not accept any other woman into the academy”.13 There was surely some concern that they were now setting a precedent that might lead to the admission of every scientifically inclined woman in Italy, including local noblewomen such as Laura Bentivoglio Davia and Elisabetta Ercolani Ratta who had both studied natural philosophy and mathematics with Zanotti, or possibly the Manfredi sisters Maddelena and Teresa who were well-known for their astronomical calculations.14 Pignatelli already demonstrated the kind of mathematical competency to which Bassi aspired. She earned her membership because of her elegant solution to a mathematical problem posed by Eustachio Manfredi presented by Pietro di Martino, the younger brother of her mathematics tutor Nicola who was then a student in Bologna. She further confirmed the justness of this decision when her comments on the problem of vis viva were published anonymously in the Leipzig Acta eruditorum, one of the most important scholarly journals of the day that also included a notice of Laura Bassi’s degree and professorship.15 Pignatelli would become one of Zanotti’s intimate correspondents and a lifelong supporter of the Istituto, even though she never traveled to Bologna. Despite Bassi’s friendship with di Martino, whom she met during his stay in Bologna, there is no record of any contact between these two women.16 Only in retrospect did the Istituto perceived Bassi’s admission as the beginnings of their efforts to create a community of women celebrated by the Istituto delle Scienze.17
On an institutional level, Bassi’s academy membership remained purely ceremonial, adding luster to both the woman and the Istituto academy without any expectation that she would participate in the more mundane activities of the academy. The category of academician in which she had been placed (Onorarii) initially had been reserved for nobles and foreigners, and subsequently was restricted only to foreign members in 1722. Ten years later, it became a category for women as well as foreigners.18 Yet even limited membership had its benefits. Bassi’s role as an academician gave her a recognizable place in the European-wide republic of letters as a member of a community defined not only by local interests but also by perceptions of the value and utility of scientific knowledge throughout the learned world.19 Foreign scholars who came to Bologna to see the Istituto often met Bassi while those who became corresponding members of the academy were aware of her activities and, in some instances, engaged her in correspondence as a sign of respect and admiration. Even academicians who did not write directly to Bassi were aware of her place in this world. In the archives of the Paris Academy of Sciences, there is a draft letter written by the Paris Academy secretary Jean-Paul Grandjean de Fouchy to his counterpart in Bologna, Zanotti. Thanking Zanotti for a copy of the most recent Commentarii, he also acknowledged the additional copies that Bassi included with Zanotti’s letter to be distributed to other French colleagues, noting on the back of the letter that this was correspondence regarding “Lady Laura Bassi”.20 In this fashion, the Paris academicians acknowledged the existence of la filosofessa di Bologna.
Bassi attended no academy meetings, public or private, before November 1745. She presented none of her research to the academy until April 1746. For over a decade she had no actual presence in the institution that had launched her career. Her marriage to fellow academician Giuseppe Veratti in February 1738 did nothing to alter this fact. Veratti, a pupil of Beccari, first presented his research before the Istituto in December 1733 and became an academy member in April 1734, Ordinario and Vice-President in 1742, and President in 1743.21 Bassi had indeed married one of the active and ambitious younger academicians although Veratti would not hold an Istituto professorship until her death in 1778.
Despite the glorious celebration of Laura Bassi in 1732, throughout the 1730s there were ongoing concerns about whether the academy would continue to exist. “We discussed the wretched state of the academy, and the lack of subjects on which some dissertation is recited at the predetermined times”, recorded secretary Zanotti in July 1733.22 Sporadic discussions about the need for a more dynamic and engaged membership as well as the importance of sponsoring public events that would bring greater recognition to the Istituto occurred throughout this decade. Yet even the Assunteria dell’Istituto’s request in November 1738 to have “more frequent semi-public academies at which we hear those whom we usually never hear” did not prompt the academicians to think of inviting Bassi to give a public lecture, or even to participate in more ordinary events such as the collective reading of the Acta eruditorum and Mémoires of the Paris Academy of Sciences that periodically occupied entire meetings.23 While no one ever explicitly stated that she was not invited, it was tacitly understood that her presence was not required.
How did Laura Bassi feel about the honorific nature of her academy membership? For much of her teaching career, she actively petitioned the university to expand the scope of her teaching duties which had been defined, ratione sexus, as largely ceremonial. Her numerous petitions to the Senate and her efforts to create a private school make it clear that she aspired to teach. After a failed attempt to transform her lessons with Manfredi into a mathematics course, Bassi finally succeeded in creating a regular teaching venue by introducing a course in experimental physics in her home in 1749. The fact that the Istituto also had a chair in physics—held by Beccari until 1734 and then Galeazzi until 1770, both supporters of Bassi—was not unrelated to this choice. The Istituto professor lectured for two hours weekly while Bassi offered daily lessons. Both had machines with which to demonstrate experimental physics, but Bassi’s proficiency in mathematics made her far more capable of explaining Newtonian physics than the physician Galeazzi or his assistant Paolo Balbi. She also developed an experimental regimen that made her highly proficient in the use of machines for teaching as well as research. Finally, it is clear that Galeazzi found his duties to experimental physics a burden that took him away from his obligations as a practicing physician and did not bring in enough income to justify the time he spent demonstrating experiments to students, nobles, and distinguished foreigners.24 While Bassi did not explicitly challenge Galeazzi’s position as the Istituto professor of physics, she simply offered a better and more regular physics course than either the university or the Istituto could provide, and did so with great enthusiasm and dedication. In such decisions, we see the seeds of a project that would eventually qualify her to become the Istituto professor of experimental physics in 1776.25
These were Bassi’s decisions about how to address the limits of her teaching opportunities. But they do not answer the question about how she felt about her exclusion from academy meetings. To some degree, this omission was in name only. Many of the key academicians were regular participants in philosophical conversations in Bassi’s home, and debated her publicly in the annual Carnival anatomy image where she demonstrated a broad scientific knowledge that went well beyond mathematical physics to include anatomy and physiology. Yet I think we can discern a hint of her desire to alter the situation in her request for a raise in 1739. Among the reasons justifying her request, Bassi mentioned her decision to inaugurate a biweekly private academy: “Since last year she has introduced an academy or learned conference in her home in which, two nights a week, she does philosophical and geometric exercises, etc.”26 Thus, in the year after her marriage to Veratti and in a period in which the Istituto continued to have difficulties persuading its members to meet regularly, Bassi created an alternative philosophical academy.
Bassi’s evening conversazioni would continue to be an essential feature of her intellectual presence in Bologna along with her daily physics instruction. They served as a venue in which local scholars mingled with nobles and foreigners who were interested in natural and experimental philosophy and eager to meet Bassi. Let us keep in mind that the first thing that Abbé Nollet, the famous French electrical experimenter, did upon arriving in Bologna in 1749 was to have Zanotti bring him to Bassi’s home where he subsequently returned for another evening. Unlike his problematic encounter with Veratti, whose experiments with medical electricity Nollet found entirely unsatisfactory, Nollet’s experience of Bassi reinforced his sense that she was his most important colleague in Bologna.27 In short, the status of Bassi’s conversazioni continued to be an important part of her reputation even after she was offered the opportunity to attend academy meetings.
4.2 “The Business of Signora Laura” (1745)
In 1740, after the longest conclave in living memory, Prospero Lamberini became Pope Benedict XIV (1740–58). He did not forget his native city—indeed he remained archbishop until 1754—nor did he neglect the Istituto. With his Motu proprio on 22 June 1745, he formally inaugurated a new class of Istituto academicians known as the Benedettini. The next two decades were a golden era for the Istituto. After becoming pope, Lambertini finally had the resources to invest properly in the renovation of science in the Papal States. There was great anticipation in Bologna as to what he might accomplish on their behalf. Beccari wrote to the papal physician Leprotti that he especially hoped to see Benedict XIV’s papacy “do some good for this dead academy of ours that could get going again with a little assistance and, once revived, would permanently establish philosophical erudition in this land to the honor of the state and all of Italy”.28 Galeazzi made sure the pope knew just how dated the physics cabinet was, rendering it useless for teaching.29 During the next few years the pope filled the Istituto library with books, encouraged the anatomist Ercole Lelli to work on an ambitious program of wax anatomies, and made sure that the physics cabinet was furnished with the best Dutch and English instruments, expanding it to fill three rooms. In 1742 Galeazzi wrote that the Istituto was now on the verge of having everything it needed for “a complete and perfect course in experimental physics”.30 He warmly joked that every time he did an experiment, he would think of the Holy Father.
The results were apparent to everyone, including the pope. In November 1744 Benedict XIV proudly referred to “the magnificent state of the Institute, the well-preserved machines given to the room for experiments, and Lelli’s superb work, all of which have relieved me from my melancholy”.31 He completed his restoration of the Istituto by assigning it the income of the recently suppressed Collegio Panolini, which produced a rendita annua of 3600 lire that gave the Istituto greater financial autonomy from the Senate. The pope designated 2400 lire for the maintenance of the Istituto, and reserved the remaining 1200 lire for the creation of 24 Benedettini. Each would receive an annual 50 lire stipend in return for regular participation in the academy meetings and public presentation of at least one annual dissertation on their research. Fourteen positions were reserved for the Istituto president, secretary, professors, and their assistants. The other ten would be elected by the first group from among the members at large. Beccari wrote that he was less enamored by the pope’s desire to create “raises for the Institute Professors”, since it took money away from the Istituto but he nonetheless appreciated the pope’s intention of stimulating a more active and visible research program.32
It was around this time that Voltaire wrote Bassi a letter indicating his desire to become a foreign member of the Istituto. “There is no Bassi in London and I would be happier to become a member of your academy of Bologna than those of the English, even if they produced a Newton. If your patronage allows me to obtain this title, which I greatly desire, my heartfelt gratitude will be equal to my admiration for you”.33 With Bassi’s recommendation, the academy admitted the French philosophe on 14 January 1745. Her ongoing ability to represent the Istituto abroad and attract well-known foreigners to the city, served as a reminder that she continued to be one of the most successful decisions the Istituto had made.
In the spring of 1745, as the list of the first Benedettini was being drawn up in Bologna and sent to Rome for final approval, Bassi learned that she was not among the ten members at large. She very much wanted to be part of this new initiative, not only in acknowledgment of the merits of her past work but also because of the new opportunities it would provide. Writing confidentially to her close friend Flaminio Scarselli, secretary of the Bolognese ambassador in Rome and a fellow academician, Bassi urged him to encourage the pope to consider the possibility of an additional position. She understood the importance of presenting this initiative as a separate decision from the composition of the original list of candidates since she did not wish to be seen as competing for one of the twenty-four positions. “However, it would be at the pope’s discretion to place me in this series as I was placed in the university, as an extraordinary member, that is, an additional one”. Bassi also encouraged Scarselli to inform Benedict XIV of her active research program, highlighting the fact that she had “material ready to provide the academy with a few dissertations”. To further bolster the case for a twenty-fifth position, she suggested that it would be better to acknowledge, from the start, her qualifications to participate in this new initiative to create a community of elite researchers. Bassi rightfully felt that if she were to present her research after the selection of the inaugural group of Benedictines was announced, she might incur the animosity of some members who would see her as angling for the first vacancy. She concluded this remarkable petition by expressing her desire to use her talents to fulfill “my obligations towards the academy”.34 It is here that we finally see Bassi offer a pointed comment about her status as Accademica Onoraria. She wanted to be recognized as an active contributor to the academy who had earned the right to a Benedictine stipend in addition to the other privileges and obligations that came with this new and prestigious form of academy membership.
The pope listened sympathetically to Scarselli’s suggestion and agreed, based on his own knowledge of Bassi’s work. Benedict XIV emended the Motu proprio to include a twenty-fifth position, using almost verbatim the very words Bassi had sent Scarselli to articulate the reasons for this decision. Where he got the extra 50 lire from was never specified though presumably it meant that the Istituto would buy a few less books and machines. Bassi was now the sole Benedettina. In the official history of the Istituto published in 1751, Giuseppe Gaetano Bolletti noted Bassi’s unique position as further proof of the pope’s great admiration for her.35 Bassi began to contemplate the best way to thank Benedict XIV, though she curiously did not produce what Scarselli recommended: a published scientific paper with a fine dedication.36
The newly formed Benedettini began to organize their program of research. On 25 August 1745, they met to review the Motu proprio. Bassi was absent from this meeting but her place in the new organization, “as a supernumerary”, was duly acknowledged. “Occasionally Signora Laura Bassi is allowed the right to be able to speak on that day that she prefers”.37 She now had an official invitation to present her work. Later that fall Bassi attended her first meeting when the Benedettini met in Beccari’s home on November 18 to continue discussions about the reforms the Istituto was undertaking. This was not a public event so her presence at this meeting behind closed doors was not simply ceremonial but seemed to indicate a new stage in her relationship to the Istituto. Or did it? Five days later, the Benedettini held another meeting, this time at the Istituto. According to Galeazzi, who was placed in the uncomfortable position of explaining to Rome what exactly had transpired, Bassi and Veratti had been invited to this meeting but did not attend due to bad weather. Those who were present at this meeting began to discuss procedures for electing new members. Re-reading the papal bull, they felt that it clearly stated that “Signora Laura Bassi should be excluded from voting in the election of the Benedictines”.38
This at least was Bassi’s opinion. She asked Scarselli to find out “Our Father’s mind” when he created her position though she sincerely hoped that the pope would not disagree with her. She invited Scarselli to send his response to Galeazzi.It seems to me that the legitimate meaning of this additional position is that I may not be replaced, and nothing more. Since the academy did me the honor of admitting me, it gave me a vote and other common privileges, and equally in the college when doctorates are awarded, thus I do not see anything that excludes me from what has been granted to this new body of Benedictines, nor can I persuade myself that the singular clemency of Our Father […] intended to deprive me implicitly of the best prerogatives of membership, that is, to take part in the election of new members when it occurs.39
Bassi considered Galeazzi a sympathetic supporter. On the whole, this was correct. Galeazzi had made the case for increasing the number of Benedettini from 20 to 24, and for including Bassi as the twenty-fifth member. Yet he now found himself confronting a different problem, namely whether “Signora Laura not only may be able […] to participate in learned exercises, recite dissertations, and enjoy the emoluments that the clemency of Our Holiness has grant to the other Benedictines but also have a role in all the other meetings that regard the election of the president of the academy, and other Benedictines […]”.40 The majority of Benedettini did not believe that these rights were implicit in the papal bull. Like Bassi, they did not wish to interpret the pope’s wishes and sought assistance from Scarselli to clear up the situation. Galeazzi was also their chosen intermediary.
The last thing Scarselli wanted to do was to involve the pope. He consulted with Leprotti, writing sympathetically to Bassi of their surprise at this turn of events. “Monsignor Leprotti and I were surprised, not to say disgusted by the incredible difficulties for which the Motu proprio certainly did not provide reasonable grounds”.41 They advised everyone to accept their arbitration in order to resolve the situation quickly and discreetly. By mid-December Bassi thanked him for quieting “the doubting minds of our academicians”. She did not feel that the discussion had occurred “from any malice towards me” but simply because of the procedural issues that arose in calculating the effect of an additional vote.42
The philosophical academy admitted her, then, as it admits all other persons distinguished in learning and rank, but it did not admit her to assume offices, or so that she must come to all the meetings, or meddle in all the academy business. And it does not seem proper to the decency and respectability of her sex to be always in the middle of a meeting of men and obliged to hear all their discussions and quarrels.
Almost all of the Benedettini agreed with this decision, including distinguished senior members such as Bazzani, Beccari, Laurenti, Manfredi, and Peggi. In fact, Galeazzi was pretty sure that the only academicians who disagreed with this view were Bassi and her husband Veratti. He reassured his friends in Rome that this decision was not a product of “any hostility or harshness towards Signora Laura as a person”.43
We can now see exactly what the problem was. Bassi’s appearance at the November 18 meeting reminded her fellow Benedettini that, however much they admired and supported her, they simply were not comfortable having her intimately involved in all of their activities, especially the contentious issue of elections. Galeazzi explained it as a matter of moral probity: “It didn’t seem decent to them that a lady, even married, ought to always be, as I said, in the middle of the quarrels and discussions of men”.44 He urged Scarselli to consider the justness of the university’s decision in 1732 to restrict Bassi’s teaching, and hoped that the same limitations would apply to her role in this new category of academician. In the end, the situation was left ambiguous, or as Bassi put it, “neither yes nor no”. She had argued forcefully for the importance of merit in such decisions – “to offer justice to those who are deserving”.45—but in the end she could not entirely negate the fact that her male colleagues would never be comfortable involving her in the kinds of discussions that they were used to having only with each other. Her effect on them was something that neither side could entirely negate.
Having agreed not to have an official ruling on this issue, how did the Istituto handle the question in practice? Bassi attended the regular meetings, both with and without her husband. Yet the first time that two vacant studentships were discussed, neither she nor Veratti attended the meeting of the Benedettini on 3 March 1746 ad eligendum duos alumnos. Veratti had every right to be present and would be there for 29 December 1747 meeting ad eligendum alumnum. In Bassi’s case, however, Zanotti tersely noted: “Signora Laura Bassi was not sent a ticket”.46 Bassi did not attend the next three meetings.
The next meeting Bassi attend was on 1 April 1746, when Émilie du Châtelet became the third woman admitted to the academy. The documents do not specify who proposed this distinguished French Newtonian as a candidate. Yet I am inclined to think that Voltaire’s witty letter to Bassi in March 1745, in which he imagined himself to be a man between two women in a kind of philosophical ménage à trois, expressing the desire to one day have these two women of science meet, did indeed stimulate interest in affiliating Bassi’s best living counterpart with the Istituto.47 Perhaps the uncomfortable discussions about Bassi’s status encouraged her to propose Châtelet to join her in creating an imagined community of women scientists within the academy, ceremonial to be sure but nonetheless powerful in the impression that it created of this city as a paradise for women. Possibly she envisioned Châtelet as an ally at a distance given the strength of her reputation and the recent Italian translation of her Institutions de physique (1741).48 Had Châtelet come to Bologna, she would have surely encountered Bassi as the experience of the two other French women admitted to the academy reveals.
Women admitted to the Bologna Academy of Sciences, 1732–1800
4.3 “Signora Laura’s Requests” (1776)
In late April 1746, Bassi gave a dissertation to the Istituto, “a Latin discourse on the compression of air”.51 It was the first of thirty-one dissertations she presented between 1746 and 1777, and also the basis of her first publication, De aëris compressione, which appeared in the second volume of Commentarii published in 1745.52 Or we should more accurately describe it as the first publication of her work since Zanotti presented it as a report of the experiments made by nostra Laura that led to important tests of the universality of Boyle’s law. Following the lead of Galeazzi’s earlier work with thermometers, Bassi discovered that she could only replicate Boyle’s results on dry rather than humid days because they did not characterize the behavior of vapor under pressure. It is unclear why she was not the author of her own conclusions. Possibly she hoped to offer a more detailed account of this phenomenon, since she continued to do experiments in this area, and acquiesced to Zanotti’s eagerness to see some version in print. But it also is in keeping with her relationship to the academy that the secretary presented Bassi’s work on her behalf. In 1791 Sebastiano Canterzani would publish a summary of her ongoing work on fluids in Boyle’s vacuum, De immixto fluidis aëre, by “the much noted Laura Bassi, wife of Veratti, who formerly debated in the Academy”. One of the reasons he published the paper was to ensure that her contributions would not be “knowingly neglected”.53 It was the last of four papers to appear in the Commentarii.
Every spring Bassi prepared an annual public presentation on different aspects of mathematical and experimental physics. She never failed to meet this requirement of her position as Benedettina and always collected her 50 lire. We should contrast this kind of steady production with the more spectacular strategy of the Milanese mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi who became a member in June 1748, in the midst of completing the final revisions on her massive, two-volume mathematics textbook, Instituzioni analitiche. Agnesi’s printer rushed to add “of the Bologna Academy of Sciences” to the frontispiece so that the entire world would know of her affiliation.54 Agnesi made sure that a copy reached Bassi who warmly thanked her, writing that the Milanese mathematician had fulfilled her own potential and would be immortalized because of this book but also thanked her for increasing “our luster and dignity”.55 Her sincere admiration for this fascinating contemporary, who was in many respects her rival as Italy’s leading woman of science, makes evident her pleasure at the growing community of woman affiliated with the Istituto delle Scienze. Bassi indeed saw herself as an inaugural member of a republic of scientific women who met each other, in part, through the Istituto’s decision to place them in the ranks of Accademici Onorarii.
Bassi, however, would never write such a book. The kind of teaching Agnesi put on paper mirrored the lessons she gave daily in her home for most of her career. Perhaps putting her name on this kind of publication was not especially interesting; she already had her university professorship and by the end of her life she would hold two other professorships at the Collegio Montalto and the Istituto delle Scienze. Perhaps this is a reminder that Bassi’s primary goals as an academician were not honorary at all but quite practical in the advancement of her career and reputation. Bassi wanted to be informed about the work of other scientists, while having opportunities to present and, to a lesser degree, publish her research. She witnessed the warm reception of Agnesi’s book, not only by her own academy but also by the Paris Academy of Sciences, an episode noted and discussed by the Bologna academicians.56 She may have also heard about plans for an English translation and implicitly the approval of the British mathematical community. She was certainly well aware of the great success of Châtelet’s Institutions de physique that, while presented as a series of physics lessons for her son, was nonetheless a sophisticated treatise of Newtonian and Leibnizian natural philosophy. Yet none of this altered her way of proceeding in part, I think, because she was first and foremost a teacher and an experimenter who preferred demonstrable results.
At the height of her career, when the initial difficulties over her membership in the Benedettini seemed a distant memory, what did Bassi hope to accomplish? She wanted to be a full-fledged member of an international community of philosophers and experimenters who increasingly defined their relations, in part, through academy memberships, the simultaneous testing and resting of key experiments, and the desire to share and debate their results. Unlike Agnesi who formally withdrew from correspondence shortly after her father’s death in 1752, leaving science behind for a life devoted to faith, Bassi cultivated important epistolary relationships with leading foreign experimental philosophers such as Jean-Antoine Nollet and Giambattista Beccaria, former students such as Lazzaro Spallanzani, Felice Fontana, Leopoldo Marc’Antonio Caldani, and less directly Luigi Galvani, and young Italian experimenters such as Alessandro Volta, desirous of her opinion and patronage. It is a sign of her skill at building a scientific network that she persuaded many of them to seek her out on their own.
But what about Bassi’s papers? What can we learn from a list? Three dissertations were mathematical in nature; despite the vagueness of the titles, they nonetheless underscore her competency in algebra and analytic geometry. Ten papers dealt with questions of mechanics. In this choice, Bassi did not neglect her Bolognese roots. As the debates about water rights between Ferrara and Bologna raged unabated in the Papal States, diverting both Manfredi brothers from more theoretical pursuits, Bassi continued to research and write about water. De problemate quodam hydrometrico and De problemate quodam mechanico were the only papers published by Bassi, in her own voice, during her lifetime; they appeared in the fourth volume of the Commentarii in 1757.57 Both demonstrated her mastery of the previous century and a half of research on hydrostatics and motion, and her understanding of the utility of scientific knowledge just as her 1769 Prodromo d’una serie di sperienze da fare per perfezionare l’arte della tentura reveals her contribution to the technical advancement of Bologna’s silk industry.58
Bassi also continued to pursue optics, which manifested itself not only in her ongoing replication of Newton’s prism experiments for students in her home and occasional demonstrations in the Istituto physics cabinet for illustrious visitors, but also in her 1762 paper, Sopra il vetro islandico, followed by her 1763 dissertation Sopra la maniera di correggere nei telescopi l’inconveniente che nasce dalla diversa refrangibilità dei raggi that she presented twice to the Istituto, once in a private academy and the second time in a public academy open to the entire city and visitors.59 This paper involved her in a discussion then underway by Alexis Clairaut and Roger Boscovich about understanding the theory behind John Dollond’s achromatic lenses which solved the problem of chromatic aberration that even the great Newton had found intractable.60 Clairaut and Boscovich became members of academy in the 1740s, and Bassi used her correspondence to eventually acquire the kind of new lenses needed to fully assess Clairaut’s theory in relationship to the instrument. In this episode, we see clearly how Bassi used the information networks, equipment, and well-appointed library of the Istituto to keep abreast of the latest scientific developments in England and France. In this respect, she was a full-fledged academician.
Bassi’s engagement with the most exciting new developments in the physical sciences is especially apparent in her work on electricity and chemistry. Six papers (possibly seven if we hypothesize that her 1764 paper, Sopra alcuni fenomeni dei fluidi ricevuti nei tubi di diversa materia, probably dealt in part with electrified tubes) concerned electricity. Two of her last papers, on the nature of fire and fixed air in 1775 and 1776, reveal her keen interest in recent developments in chemistry in the age of Black, Priestley, and Lavoisier. These papers, including the two articles she published and the two summaries of other papers published on her behalf, constitute an invaluable record for understanding the evolution of her research as a physicist interested in the application and refinement of Newtonian natural philosophy in the electrical experiments of Benjamin Franklin, the physiology of Stephen Hales (who became an academy member in June 1757), and the chemistry of Joseph Priestley.
Even a brief discussion of what we can learn about her dissertations provides us with important background to the final episode in Bassi’s relationship with the Istituto: her appointment as professor of experimental physics in 1776. Bassi had asked to be considered for this position for several years. Since 1770 Paolo Balbi had replaced Galeazzi and he, in turn, appointed Veratti as his assistant who took over the teaching responsibilities after Balbi became ill in 1772. Many academicians assumed that Veratti would eventually replace him, and Veratti had his own ideas about how to modernize the teaching and instruments necessary for this field. He proposed dividing the professorship into two subjects—experimental physics and electricity—that would correspond with a reorganization of the physics cabinet as well as the teaching program. Canterzani was not convinced that this division would work; moreover, he had found Veratti a difficult collaborator. During Senator Filippo Aldrovandi’s discussions with Canterzani and Veratti in the spring of 1776, the idea of appointing Bassi “in the position of first professor of experimental physics […] leaving her husband, Signor Verati, as her substitute” was born. The possibility of appointing Bassi and Veratti co-professors, with Canterzani and Buonaccorsi as their assistants, was proposed but quickly rejected because it would compound “the spirit of turmoil and division that has been introduced”.61 Instead, Bassi and Canterzani became the first occupants of the two newly defined professorships in experimental and mathematical physics, each with their own assistant. She chose her husband.
Bassi had fairly earned this position after the great success of her private school of experimental physics for almost three decades. The Senate even acknowledged its utility by increasingly her salary on the condition that her school continued to offer students a kind of scientific education they would not otherwise receive.62 While Bassi’s capacity to teach the entire Istituto physics course was widely known—she was surely as competent, if not better qualified than Canterzani to teach mathematical physics—there were nonetheless lingering resentments about her habit of constantly asking for things she should not. Would it ever be possible “to satisfy, if one ever can, the requests of Signora Laura Bassi who, even though she has no right to be admitted among the Institute professors, nonetheless has been asking for a good three years, having hoped more than once for this outcome?” Yet having said this, both Aldrovandi and Canterzani reflected on the reasons why it might be a good idea: “since she is a famous woman known to the entire Republic of Letters, and who truly does great honor to her homeland, therefore it seems that she deserves favorable consideration by the exalted Assunteria.”63 By August 1776, Bassi and Canterzani were doing a complete inventory of the physics cabinet, throwing out old and broken machines to make way for new items to improve the experimental physics courses.64
In his 1778 biography Giovanni Fantuzzi, who was also a member of the academy, explained that Bassi’s innovative teaching of experimental physics in her home had earned her the Istituto professorship in 1776.65 There is every reason to agree with this conclusion when we consider the central role she played in making Bologna an important center for experimental physics in the mid-eighteenth century. How did this begrudging admiration for what she had accomplished affect her standing as an academician? If we look at the Istituto records of meetings, we see a very interesting fact regarding Bassi’s much discussed voting privileges. During the July 1768 meeting to elect foreign members, including her cousin Spallanzani, both Bassi and Veratti presented his candidacy but also participated in the scrutinio of four other candidates.66 She increasingly seems to have been present during elections of new Benedettini and their student assistants (alunni) though she did not vote. While the rules never changed—in fact, during the years immediately before and after her death, there were detailed discussions about the temporary nature of the twenty-fifth position—in practice the academicians acknowledged that Bassi was an active and valued participant. When she died, so soon and so suddenly after the death of Francesco Maria Zanotti who had been a pillar of this institution, the academicians accompanied her body from the family home to the church of Corpus Domini where she was buried with great pomp and ceremony in her ermine cap and silver laurels. The inscription on her tomb reminded everyone that Bassi had been the glory of the Istituto.67
Perhaps this experience of Laura Bassi made them nostalgic for her presence once she was no longer there. In March 1800, Maria Dalle Donne became the new twenty-fifth member, “in entirely the same way that Benedict XIV of glorious memory carried this out with the late, great Dottoressa Signora Laura Bassi”.68 She would be unable to fully repeat Bassi’s success as a long-standing professor and researcher. And yet Dalle Donne was in a way Bassi’s final success, witnessed by her youngest son Paolo Veratti, a physician and professor who was present for this decision and still hoping to continue the dynasty of experimental physics inaugurated by his mother. Thus, at the dawn of a new century, the Istituto decided to revive the memory of Laura Bassi. It would not repeat this experiment again for many years.
Laura Bassi (1711–78), professor of physics at the Istituto delle Scienze. Carlo Vandi, oil on canvas, 18th century, Bologna, Museo di Palazzo Poggi
Pope Benedict XIV (1675–1758), born Prospero Lambertini. Attributed to Carlo Vandi, oil on canvas, 18th century, Bologna, Museo di Palazzo Poggi
Jacopo Bartolomeo Beccari (1682–1766), was trained as a physician but later became professor of physics and then chemistry at the Istituto delle Scienze, Bologna, Museo di Palazzo Poggi
Francesco Maria Zanotti (1692–1778), Secretary of the Istituto delle Scienze and of the Accademia. William Keeble, oil on canvas, 18th century, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, inv. 51
Francesco Algarotti (1712–1764), a student at the institute’s Accademia delle Scienze, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, inv. 100
Domenico Gusmano Galeazzi (1686–1775), professor of physics at the Istituto delle Scienze. Oil on canvas, 18th century, Bologna, Museo di Palazzo Poggi
Eustachio Manfredi (1674–1739), professor of astronomy at the Istituto delle Scienze. Attributed to Ercole Lelli, white marble, 1739, Bologna, Accademia delle Scienze
Laura Bassi defends her philosophical theses in public (17.4.1732). Miniature by Leonardo Sconzani, from Anziani Consoli, Insignia, vol. XIII, c. 94, 1732, Archivio di Stato di Bologna
Laura Bassi publicly receives the Insignia of Doctor. Miniature by Leonardo Sconzani, from Anziani Consoli, Insignia, vol. XIII, c. 95, 1732, Archivio di Stato di Bologna
Laura Bassi’s first Lecture at the Archiginnasio. Miniature by Leonardo Sconzani, from Anziani Consoli, Insignia, vol. XIII, c. 98, 1732, Archivio di Stato di Bologna
Laura Bassi participates in the discussion at the Public Anatomy (Carnevale 1734). Miniature by Bernardino Sconzani, Anziani Consoli, Insignia, vol. XIII, c. 105, 1734, Archivio di Stato di Bologna
Many thanks to Raffaella Simili for inviting me to participate in the Forum Laura Bassi, to Marta Cavazza, Paola Govoni, and Giuliano Pancaldi for making this research a pleasure over many years, and to Massimo Zini for providing me with access to the archive of the Istituto delle Scienze and the benefit of his knowledge of these materials during multiple visits.