Hypatia of Alexandria (355 or 370 ca. to 415)

Abstract

Beautiful, highly educated and wise, Hypatia was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in an era when women were not considered persons, but her father Theon, Rector of the Library of Alexandria, took care of her education to make her “a perfect human being”.She deepened her studies in Athens and in Italy and became a philosopher, a mathematician and an astronomer, succeeding her father at the age of 31 years at the helm of the most famous ancient Academy. A pagan and a convinced supporter of the distinction between religion and knowledge, Hypatia was killed in an ambush hatched by a group of Christian fanatics, linked to Bishop Cyril, then Patriarch of Alexandria, in 415 ad.

She became much better than her teacher especially in the art of observation of the stars. (Philostorgius, historian, contemporary of Hypatia)