Giuseppa Barbapiccola

Who was Giuseppa Barbapiccola?

Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola was a notable woman in science as an Italian natural philosopher, poet and translator. She is best known for her translation of René Descartes' Principles of Philosophy to Italian in 1722.

She was a member of the Accademia degli Arcadi in Bologna under the name Myristic. She often published her poems in collaboration with her friend, the poet Luisa Vico. In her translation of Principles of Philosophy, Barbapiccola claimed that women, in contrast to the belief of her contemporaries, were not intellectually inferior out of nature, but because of their lack of education. Neapolitan scholars credited Barbapiccola as the individual who brought Cartesian thought to Italy.