Maria Ardinghelli
Encyclopedia
Maria Angela Ardinghelli (Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 1730 – 1825) was an Italian translator, mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 and noble.

Maria Angela Ardinghelli was born a noble family of Florentine origin. She studied philosophy and physical-mathematical sciences under the physicist and mathematician Pietro Della Torre and Vito Caravelli.

As was obligatory for the aristocratic women of the time, Maria Angela was a literate poet and Latinist, as well as expert of mathematical physics. She belonged to the circle of the prince of Tarsia, founded in 1747, which, in intellectual circles in Naples, had the strongest association to Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

, experimental physics and electricity. The library and the laboratory of Tarsia was to be of much use to her.

Expert in mathematical physics, Ardinghelli's fame is mainly due to the translation of key works of the English physicist Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales, FRS was an English physiologist, chemist and inventor.Hales studied the role of air and water in the maintenance of both plant and animal life. He gave accurate accounts of the movements of water in plants, and demonstrated that plants absorb air...

 Statical essays: containing haemastatics; or, an account of some hydraulic and hydrostatical experiments made on the blood and blood-vessels of animals, del 1750-52, e Statical essay: containing vegetable statiks; or, an account of some statical experiments on the sap in vegetables (1738-1740), in 1756. She also performed scientific experiments inspired by the translations.

She corresponded with leading scientists of the time, including, to name a few, the mathematician and astronomer and physicist Alexis Claude Clairaut and Jean-Antoine Nollet
Jean-Antoine Nollet
Jean-Antoine Nollet was a French clergyman and physicist. As a priest, he was also known as Abbé Nollet. He was particularly interested in the new science of electricity, which he explored with the help of Du Fay and Réaumur...

.

Maria Angela Ardinghelli died in 1825.
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