Today’s featured entry from the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages:
“Pope Benedict XIV – Benedict’s Patronage of Learned Women” (CLICK HERE for it)
“[A] handful of women… received public recognition in eighteen-century Italy, especially in Bologna, for their philosophical [scientific], mathematical, and anatomical knowledge. The instigator and director of these events was in most cases Benedict XIV… [who] used his moral authority and his sovereign power to encourage and reward women who excelled in the fields of philosophy and medicine, helping them obtain public honours and academic positions that were reserved for men during that era… They became ‘a symbol of the successes of the Bolognese science’ chiefly thanks to Benedict XIV’s patronage.”
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