FOOTNOTES:
[151] "Publice philosophiam naturalem et moralem in scholis Academiisque Atticis docuit hæc fœmina annis XXXV, libros composuit XL, discipulos habuit philosophos CX, obiit anno ætatis LXXVII, cui tale Athenienses statuere epitaphium:
Nobilis hic Arete dormit, lux Helladis, ore
Tyndaris at tibi par, Icarioti, fide.
Patris Aristippi calamumque animamque dederunt,
Socratis huic linguam Mæonidaeque Dii."
—Boccaccio, De Laudibus Mulierum, Lib. II.
Cf. Wolf's Mulierum Græcarum quæ Oratione Prosa Usæ Sunt Fragmenta et Elogia, pp. 283 et seq., London, 1739.
[152] "Mulier quædam fuit Alexandriæ, nomine Hypatia, Theonis filia. Hæc ad tantam eruditionem pervenerat ut omnes sui temporis philosophos longo intervallo superaret, et in Platonicam scholam a Plotino deductam succederet, cunctasque philosophiæ disciplinas auditoribus exponeret. Quocirca omnes philosophiæ studiosi ad illam undique confluebant." Socrates, Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ, Lib. VII, Cap. 15.
[153] For extracts from the ancient authors regarding Hypatia, as well as for the extant letters to her from her friend and pupil, Synesius, the reader is referred to Wolf's erudite Mulierum Græcarum quæ Oratione Prosa Usæ sunt Fragmenta et Elogia, pp. 72-91, ut sup.
[154] Ernesto Masi, Studi e Ritratti, p. 166 et seq., Bologna, 1881.
[155] Two of her Latin dissertations on certain physical problems were published in the Commentaries of the Bologna Institute. One of them is entitled De Problemate quodam Mechanico; the other De Problemate quodam Hydrometrico. Many of her lectures on physics still exist in manuscript, and it is to be hoped that at least the titles of them may be given in a biography of the learned author which has been long desired and long promised.
[156] Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, Vol. I, p. 363, 1869.
[157] As no satisfactory biography of Laura Bassi has yet been written, most of our knowledge respecting her is limited to that found in Fantuzzi's Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi, Tom. I, pp. 384-391, and Mazzuchelli's Gli Scrittori d'Italia, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 527-529, Brescia, 1758.