Laura Bassi

• Born: October 20, 1711
• Birthplace: Bologna, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: February 20, 1778
• Place of death: Bologna, Papal States (now in Italy)

Eighteenth-century Italian scientist Laura Bassi was only the second woman, after Elena Cornaro Piscopia in 1678, to receive a degree from a European university. She was the first woman to be given a faculty position. At the time, Italy was alone in educating women at universities and admitting them to the national Academy of Sciences. However, there was strong opposition to the idea. After Piscopia received her doctorate at the University of Padua, for instance, the university decided not to admit any more women.

Bassi's success was due in part to her family's support and connections to senators and church leaders. Other learned women in European countries were limited to positions as assistants to their husbands, fathers or brothers.

As one of the first women physicists in the Western world, Bassi helped to create opportunities for other women. Also, she was one of the first physicists to teach Newtonian natural philosophy, which held that nature follows set laws. Natural philosophy was the name given to the philosophical study of nature before a body of natural science existed.

The Newtonian view was opposed to the Cartesian approach, in which nature was believed to act at the whim of the supernatural. One of Bassi's principal activities was promoting awareness of Newtonian physics. She published little, but her lectures, public debates and research impressed such notable figures as Voltaire, Galvani, and Alessandro Volta.

Laura Maria Caterina Bassi was born in Bologna, Italy on October 31, 1711, to Giovanni Bassi and his wife, Rosa Maria Cesari Bassi. Bologna prided itself on its atmosphere of learning, and through her father, a lawyer, Bassi met some of the best and highest-placed scholars and scientists.

Bassi's father provided numerous tutors for his daughter from the time she was five years old. He cousin Lorenzo Stegani taught her math and Latin. At thirteen, she studied natural philosophy and metaphysics (the study of the nature of reality), with Gaetano Tacconi as her tutor. Tacconi was not only the family doctor, but he was also on the university faculty. Other subjects Bassi studied include algebra, geometry, mechanics, hydraulics, chemistry and logic.

By the time she was twenty, the academic community in Bologna recognized Bassi's mastery of philosophy and Latin. She engaged in a number of philosophical and scientific debates with the learned community. Since public deliberations or debates were at that time an important component of learning, Bassi received considerable attention for her participation in these events.

After a series of such public debates, the Academy of the Institute for Sciences in Bologna elected Bassi as a member in 1732. This move was unprecedented in Europe, where women were absolutely excluded from both the Royal Academy of Sciences in England and the French Academy of Science.

A few weeks later, Bassi was invited to defend a series of philosophical and scientific theses in a public debate with professors of the University of Bologna. As a result of her success in this debate, she received the Doctor's Ring (a doctoral degree) from the university.

That same year, Bassi published her first paper, on the properties of water. This was the first of five scientific papers she is known to have published. She continued to study hydraulics, mechanics, natural history, and anatomy after receiving her degree.

Academic Success

Within a few months after Laura Bassi received her doctorate from the University of Bologna, she was offered a faculty position. She assumed a chair in philosophy in October 1732. With this appointment, Bologna demonstrated that it was a leader in education for women.

However, prejudice against women was still strong in the eighteenth century. Bassi was told that she could lecture at the university only with a specific invitation. She was occasionally invited to lecture at the university, but she conducted most of her classes in her home. Instead of a salary, she received an annual stipend, and the university did not provide supplies or equipment for research and teaching.

Bassi's research into Newtonian physics led her especially into research in optics and light. She also researched fluid mechanics and electricity, as well as Newton's laws of motion. In 1732, Bassi wrote a criticism of the Cartesian theory of physical reactions as random phenomena.

As a woman, Bassi faced considerable resistance to her work, but she was supported by the city of Bologna, as well as by powerful individuals. Senator Flaminio Scarselli, a family friend, and Sentor Filippo Aldrovandi had helped her to get the university faculty post, and they saw that she kept it. Churchman Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini was also a staunch supporter. Lambertini was Archbishop of Bologna and later became a cardinal. In 1740, he was elected Pope Benedict XIV.

Still, as a single woman academic, Bassi was watched carefully and suspiciously. The Catholic Church scrutinized her behavior in public and private. She realized that a single woman could not hope to achieve full success in her career.

On February 7, 1738, Bassi married Dr. Giuseppe Veratti, a physician and an instructor of anatomy at the University of Bologna. He was another strong supporter of Bassi's work, and his influence also helped the advancement of her career. However, even her marriage provoked criticism. It was called a disgrace by those who wished to think of Bassi as a "learned virgin."

The couple had at least eight children. In Italy, raising children was considered the most important task, and it was not unusual for professors to hold classes in their homes. This was a perfect situation for Bassi while her children were growing up.

When Lambertini became pope, he used Vatican funds to create the Benedettini Academics, a select group of twenty-four prestigious scientists from the Academy of Sciences. These scholars were to present the pope with an annual scientific paper. After much lobbying on the part of her supporters, Bassi was named the twenty-fifth scholar. While the appointment caused a great deal of discontent among those who opposed women in sciences, as a papal appointment, Bassi's position could never be taken away.

As Bassi's fame spread and her influence grew, she petitioned the university for salary increases and funds to purchase supplies and equipment. Her requests were granted, and her income grew steadily. While Bassi was not by any means Italy's only woman scientist, she was by far the most prominent.

Research and Professorship

Although her focus was on lectures, Bassi published a scientific paper on air pressure in 1745. The same year, she began lecturing on experimental physics. She would continue to lecture in this field for the rest of her life. She published two papers in 1757, one on trajectory and another on hydraulics.

Public debates were a regular part of Bassi's duties. Debates were popular forms of entertainment when prominent personages visited Bologna. She participated in more than one hundred of these events, discussing such subjects as anatomy, poisons and their antidotes, and optics.

Around the middle of the century, Bassi and her husband began experimenting with electricity. Verati was particularly interested in how electricity might be used in medicine. Together, they made Bologna the center of research in electricity. Their efforts attracted the attention of prominent scholars in the field, especially Abbe Jean Antoine Nollet.

Bassi's fame as an instructor spread throughout the scientific community of Europe and North America. Dr. John Morgan, founder of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, attended a lecture of Bassi's on light and colors in 1764. After the lecture, he met with the scientist to talk about her ideas. In his report of the event, he praised her knowledge of electricity and other subjects.

Bassi had received help from numerous patrons and supporters, and she, in turn, was generous in helping others to attain university appointments and other favors. She helped Voltaire to obtain an appointment to the Academy of Sciences, and they remained lifelong correspondents.

In 1766, Bassi joined the teaching faculty at Collegio Montalto, where she lectured in physics. A few years later, her husband was named teaching assistant to Paolo Balbi, the famous professor of physics at the Institute of Sciences, when Balbi fell ill. Balbi's health worsened until, in 1772, Veratti took over the physics department.

After Balbi's death, Bassi was finally made a professor. She was named chair of the Department of Experimental Physics. Veratti became his wife's teaching assistant.

On February 20, 1778, Bassi lectured at the Institute as usual. Hours later, she lay dead of unknown causes. Prominent women of Bologna honored Bassi by building a monument to her at the Institute of Sciences. Her husband honored her by assuming her teaching chair. Their son Paolo later held the same position.

A scientific paper on Bassi's study of the formation of air bubbles in liquids was published posthumously in 1791.

Laura Bassi's career and persistence helped pave the way for more academic opportunities for women and greater interest in the sciences among women.

Bibliography

"Laura Bassi and the City of Learning." PhysicsWorld, 29 Aug. 2013, physicsworld.com/a/laura-bassi-and-the-city-of-learning/. Accessed 7 Sept. 2022.

Walker, Gina Luria. "Laura Bassi." Project Continua, www.projectcontinua.org/laura-bassi/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022.