Composer
Life
Italian composer, harpsichordist, singer and librettist: as a girl she performed in her home while her elder sister Maria Gaetna (1718-99; she became a distinquished mathematician) lectured and debated in Latin.
Charles de Brosses, who heard them on 16 July 1739 and was highly impressed, reported that Maria Teresa performed harpsichord pieces by Rameau and both sang and played compositions of her own invention.Her first theatrical work, Il restauro d'Arcadia, was successfully presented in Milan's ducal theatre in 1747.
At about this time she dedicated collections of her own arias and instrumental pieces to the rulers of Saxony and Austria; according to Simonetti the Empress Maria Theresa sang from a collection of arias that Agnesi had given her.
She married Pier Antonio Pinottini on 13 June 1752 but had no children.
Her next opera, Ciro in Armenia, produced a the Regio Ducal Teatro in 1753, was to her own libretto.
In 1766 her Insubria consolata was performed in Milan to honour the engagement of Beatrice d'Este and the Archduke Ferdinand.
Her portrait hangs in the theatre museum of La Scala; other portraits are reproduced in the encyclopedia Storia di Milano.