Maria Pellegrina Amoretti

Maria Pellegrina Amoretti (1756—1787), was an Italian lawyer. She is referred to as the first woman to graduate in law in Italy, and the third woman to earn a degree.

When Amoretti was 20 (in 1777), she became a Doctor of Laws, at the University of Pavia, where Columbus was educated. She also received a degree in philosophy from the University.

Amoretti initially applied to the University of Turin, but was rejected because she was a woman, and her graduation from the University of Pavia in 1777 is considered by historian Giulio Natali to be the “most famous graduation of the eighteenth century.”

Though Amoretti died at the age of thirty, she left a manuscript on dowry laws, specifically on marriage in Roman law, which was published posthumously in 1788 by a relative, Carlo Amoretti.