Region ID

Work ID

Manual Reference

Type

Title

Sculptor

Date of design

Year of unveiling

Unveiling details

Road

Precise Location

A to Z Ref

OS Ref

Postcode

Work is

Listing Status

Duty of Care

Commissioned by

Notes

Four roughly rectangular bronze plates with very roughcast surfaces, curved, one on top of the other with the smallest at the bottom and the curved surfaces facing alternately to back and front. The surfaces have geometric shapes in the roughcasting with, noticeably, four small rings on the bottom rectangle. The construction stands on a small circular base, also roughcast, with the title of the piece in raised lettering. On the back of the top plate, which is convex (curves towards the back) is a protruding symmetrical shape of a small circle with, possibly, ‘wings’ on either side coming down and, possibly, ‘horns’ on top, although it is difficult to see the exact detail on the roughened surface. This circle is within an outer hood-like circle; the whole is similar to a face in a hood. The sculpture stands in a semi-circular pool and in front, set into the paving, is a semi-circular stone plaque giving details of the resiting of the piece in this new setting.

‘The title of this strange, threatening figure was suggested to the sculptor by the similarity of the curve, the analogue of a head, to a curve evolved mathematically by a . . . female mathematician called Agnesi’.(1) The curve is known as the Witch and the mathematician was Maria Agnesi who lived in the eighteenth century. Contrary to some interpretations, she herself was not regarded as a witch; the name refers only to the curve with which she is associated and which is discussed in her most famous book. The Witch of Agnesi is generally regarded as having got its name from a mistaken translation and subsequent confusion. In Italian the curve had the name ‘la versiera’ meaning ‘turning’ or ‘bending’, which was confused with ‘l’aversiera’ meaning ‘she-devil’, or witch, when Agnesi’s book was translated into English. There are some variations in the accounts of how this happened and the exact Latin and Italian words involved. Various depictions of the curve can be seen on the internet: at the History of Mathematics Archive at the University of St Andrews: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Curves/Witch.html and a moving demonstration of the curve at University of Alabama’s Women in Science site: http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/witch-of-agnesi.html Maria Agnesi was born in Milan in 1718, the eldest of 21 children. Her father is often described as a professor of mathematics at Bologna University although this is disputed. She was exceptionally gifted, being fluent in several languages, as well as pursuing advanced mathematical studies. She tutored her younger siblings, and as a child and young woman she would debate philosophical theses, in Latin, before the learned men of the time at scientific meetings convened by her father. However, her real desire was to enter a convent and although her father persuaded her to stay with him, she was then able to lead a more retired life, devoting herself to the study of mathematics. Her first book was published when she was 20, and ten years later her two volume mathematical textbook came out, Analytic Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth. In this she distilled the work of several mathematicians into a textbook on differential calculus, and it contains a discussion of the Agnesi curve. The book was widely praised for its organisation, clarity and precision, and she was honoured by the Pope, and appointed to teach mathematics at the University of Bologna. Agnesi in fact never took up the appointment, and after her father’s death two years later, she stopped her scientific work altogether and devoted the rest of her life to religious study and caring for sick and dying women. She died in 1799 and was buried in a common grave with women from her charitable institution. Her name is widely commemorated in street names, scholarship and schools.

circa

raw year

Condition

At risk

Inscriptions

Signatures

Whole work

Bronze

250cm high approx x 100cm wide approx x 45cm deep approx

Bird guano

Small amounts bird guano