Many Italian women, as we have seen in a preceding chapter, were noted for their proficiency in the various branches of mathematics. Some of the most distinguished of them flourished during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among these were Elena Cornaro Piscopia, celebrated as a linguist as well as a mathematician; Maria Angela Ardinghelli, translator of the _Vegetable Statics_ of Stephen Hales; Cristina Roccati, who taught physics for twenty-seven years in the Scientific Institute of Rovigo, and Clelia Borromeo, fondly called by her countrymen _gloria Genuensium_--the glory of the Genoese. In addition to a special talent for languages, she possessed so great a capacity for mathematics and mechanics that no problem in these sciences seemed to be beyond her comprehension.[114] Then there was also Diamante Medaglia, a mathematician of note, who wrote a special dissertation on the importance of mathematics in the curriculum of studies for women, _Alle matematiche, alle matematiche prestino l'opera loro le donne, onde non cadano in crassi paralogismi_--"To mathematics, to mathematics," she cries, "let women devote attention for mental discipline."[115] The most illustrious, by far, of the women mathematicians of Italy was Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who was born in Milan in 1718 and died there at the age of eighty-one. At an early age she exhibited rare intelligence and soon distinguished herself by her extraordinary talent for languages. At the age of five she spoke French with ease and correctness, while only six years later she was able to translate Greek into Latin at sight and to speak the former as fluently as her own Italian. At the early age of nine she startled the learned men and women of her native city by discoursing for an hour in Latin on the rights of women to the study of science. This discourse--_Oratio_--was not, as usually stated, her own composition, but a translation from the Italian of a discourse written by her teacher of Latin. That a child of nine years should speak in the language of Cicero for a full hour before a learned assembly and without once losing the thread of her discourse was, indeed, a wonderful performance, and we are not surprised to learn that she was regarded by her countrymen as an infant prodigy.[116] In addition to Italian, French, Latin and Greek, she was acquainted with German, Spanish and Hebrew. For this reason she was, like Elena Cornaro Piscopia, the famous "Venetian Minerva," called Oracolo Settilingue--Oracle of Seven Languages.[117]