Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (Bologna, 31 October 1711 Р20 February 1778) was the first woman to officially teach at a college in Europe. Born into a wealthy family with a lawyer as a father, she was privately educated and tutored for seven years in her teens by Gaetano Tacconi. She came to the attention of Cardinal Prospero Lambertini who encouraged her in her scientific work. Image File history File links Laura_bassi. ... Bologna (from Latin Bononia, Bul̴ggna in the local dialect) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, between the Po River and the Apennines. ... October 31 is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 61 days remaining, as the final day of October. ... // Events February 24 - The London premiere of Rinaldo by George Friderich Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage. ... February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1778 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

She was appointed professor of anatomy in 1732 at the University of Bologna at the age of 21 and two years later was given the chair of philosophy. Her teaching opportunities were restricted in her early years, giving only occasional lectures. In 1738 she married Giuseppe Veratti, a fellow academic with whom she had eight children (some sources say more.) After this, she was able to lecture from home on a regular basis and successfully petitioned the University for more responsibility and a higher salary to allow her to purchase her own equipment. Anatomical drawing of the human muscles from the Encyclopédie. ... Events February 23 - First performance of Handels Orlando, in London June 9 - James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of Georgia. ... The University of Bologna (Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is the university of Bologna, in Italy. ... These five broad types of question are not the only subjects of philosophical inquiry, and there are many overlaps between the categories which are subsumed within the discipline under the four major headings of Logic, Ontology, Epistemology, and Axiology. ... Events February 4 - Court Jew Joseph Suss Oppenheimer is executed in Württenberg April 15 - Premiere in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel. ...

She was mainly interested in Newtonian physics and taught courses on the subject for 28 years. She was one of the key figures in intorducing Newton's ideas of physics and natural philosophy to Italy. She also carried out experiments of her own in all aspects of physics. In her lifetime she published 28 papers, the vast majority of these on physics and hydraulics, though she wrote no books. Classical mechanics is a model of the physics of forces acting upon bodies. ...

In 1745 Lambertini (now Pope Benedict XIV) established an elite group of 25 scholars known as the Benedettini ('Benedictines', named after himself.) Bassi pressed hard to be appointed to this group, but there was a mixed reaction from the other academics with strong support from some but others taking a negative point of view. Ultimately Benedict did appoint her to the final position, the only woman in the group. // Events May 11 - War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy - At Fontenoy, French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army including the Black Watch June 4 – Frederick the Great destroys Austrian army at Hohenfriedberg August 19 - Beginning of the 45 Jacobite Rising at Glenfinnan September 12 - Francis I is elected... Benedict XVI, born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini (Bologna, March 31, 1675 – Rome, May 3, 1758), was pope from 1740 to 1758. ...

In 1776, at the age of 65, she was appointed to the chair in experimental physics by the Institute of Sciences, with her husband as a teaching assistant. Two years later she died having made physics into a lifelong career and broken a huge amount of ground for women in academic circles. This article is about the year 1776. ...

Sources

• A Physicist Supported by the Church
• Sunshine for Women
• http://web.archive.org/web/20021120105215/http://vms.www.uwplatt.edu/~wise/bassi/bassi.html
• University of Bologna