Laura Bassi, in 1732, was proclaimed Doctor of Philosophy and became an honorary member of the "College of Doctors of Philosophy" and was assigned the chair of "Philosophia universa" with an annual salary of 500 "Bolognese liras."

Being a woman, such a position was an obvious scandal. As a result, she had to marry Giuseppe Veratti, a physician and professor, in 1738.

In 1745 she was accepted, as a supernumerary member, into the "class of Benedictine academicians," and this gave her an extra salary of 100 liras.

She, and her husband, maintained a well equpped home-lab for more than 30 years where they trained students, conducted experiments and hosted international researchers visiting them.

Her salary was steadily and considerably increased over the next 30 years.

Regardless of being a woman, and due to her international scientific recognition, she was finally appointed Professor of Experimental Physics by the Bolognese Senate in 1776. She died two years later.

Her scientific imprint is that of a leader of her time. She first explored Newtonian philosophy and became one of the pioneers of differential calculus and the study of electricity.

She mentored people of the likes of Lazzaro Spallanzani and Luigi Galvani, and was an active member of the international "Respublica literaria" participating in all the fundamental debates in anatomy and physiology that raged at the time, such as the distinction between "vis irritabilis" and "vis sensitiva" proposed by Albrecht von Haller.

Forgotten for too long, she was a keen observer of nature, a committed experimenter and forged a generation of students in the use of mathematics in the natural sciences.