Marcello Malpighi is widely recognized as the founder of microscopic anatomy. His seminal discoveries of the pulmonary alveoli, blood capillaries, and renal glomeruli revolutionized existing medical knowledge, earning him fame and international recognition. He discovered the respiratory system of insects and described, for the first time, their excretory apparatus. He laid the foundations of modern embryology by characterizing the early stages of organ development in the chick embryo and was among the first to study the anatomy and biology of plants. Malpighi also faced family challenges, including his younger brother's involvement in a homicide, and relentless attacks by followers of traditional medicine. The purpose of this paper is to revisit Malpighi's extraordinary life and works, focusing on his struggles with detractors, who questioned the usefulness of his microscopic observations and resisted the new ideas of modern medicine.
MalpighiM.Memorie di me Marcello Malpighi ai miei posteri fatte in villa l’anno 1689. In: ZanichelliC (ed), Nozze Boschi-Tomba (ms. 2085/VI, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna,
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2.
AttiG.Notizie edite ed inedite della vita e delle opere di Marcello Malpighi e di Lorenzo Bellini,
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3.
AdelmannH.Marcello Malpighi and the evolution of embryology, Vol.
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4.
MinelliG.All’Origine della biologia moderna. La vita di un testimone e protagonista: Marcello Malpighi nell’Universita’ di Bologna.
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5.
FantiM.La Tomba e I resti mortali di Marcello Malpighi con nuovi documenti e una appendice sulla piu’ probabile data di nascita dello Scienziato. In: Celebrazioni Malpighiane: discorsi e scritti. L'Archiginnasio, Bollettino della Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna (numero unico),
Anno LX,
Bologna:
Azzoguidi Soc. Tipografica Editoriale,
1965, pp.
281–
282. http://badigit.comune.bologna.it/books/bollettino/pdf/1965-1.pdf (accessed 24 November 2024).
6.
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, born in Naples, studied mathematics at the Sapienza University, Rome. Served as a professor of mathematics in Messina from 1635 to 1656. In 1656, he moved to Pisa, coincidentally the same year as Malpighi, who was one of his notable students. Borelli was among the founders of the Accademia del Cimento. He studied astronomy and made significant contributions to the field of anatomy. He is recognized as the father of biomechanics for his work on muscle function and the mechanics of animal locomotion.
7.
The Accademia del Cimento, founded in Florence in 1657 with the support of the Grand Duke Ferdinando II and his brother Prince Leopold, aimed to study natural phenomena through rigorous experimentation following the principles originally developed by Galileo.
8.
CassoliP. Marcello Malpighi Sospettato di Omicidio. Il grande scienziato alle prese con la giustizia.
Bologna:
Pendragon,
2023, pp.
22–
106.
9.
AdelmannHB.The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi.
Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press,
1975,
I, pp.
354–
357(Letter 182, Oldenburg to Malpighi).
10.
OldenburgH. German theologian, diplomat and natural philosopher was the first secretary of the Royal Society and editor and founder of Philosophical Transactions.
BelloniL. Opere scelte di Marcello Malpighi.
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Bertoloni MeliD. Mechanism, experiment, disease. Marcello Malpighi and seventeenth-century anatomy.
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14.
MalpighiM. De lingua.
London:
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15.
MalpighiM. De externo tactus organo.
London:
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1665.
16.
MalpighiM. De viscerum structura exercitatio anatomica.
London:
Royal Society of London,
1666 and 1669.
17.
“Cardiac polyps” are blood clots that often develop postmortem but can also form in pathologic conditions such as thromboembolism, myocardial infarcts, and endocarditis.
18.
MalpighiM. De bombyce.
London:
Royal Society of London,
1669.
19.
MalpighiM.Dissertatio epistolica de formatione pulli in ovo London: Royal Society of London, 1673; De ovo incubato (Appendix in: Anatome plantarum pars prima): Royal Society of London,
1675.
20.
MalpighiM. Anatome plantarum pars prima, 1675, Anatome plantarum pars altera, 1679.
London:
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1679.
MalpighiM. Opera Posthuma.
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1697.
23.
MünsterL.Marcelli Malpighii anatomica sive in cadaveribus sectis observationes. In: Celebrazioni malpighiane: discorsi e scritti. L'Archiginnasio, Bollettino della Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna (numero unico),
Anno LX,
Bologna:
Azzoguidi Soc. Tipografica Editoriale,
1965, pp.
170–
227. http://badigit.comune.bologna.it/books/bollettino/pdf/1965-1.pdf (accessed 24 November 2024).
24.
Malpighi’s view of the importance of anatomy in understanding disease processes inspired Giovanni Battista Morgagni, whose masterpiece De sedibus et causis morborum per anatomen indagates echoes Malpighi’s words and thinking in his response to Sbaraglia’s De Recentiorum medicorum studio dissertatio epistolaris ad amicum.
25.
ScaraniP.Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694). A founding father of modern anatomic pathology. American Journal of Surgical Pathology1994;
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741–
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26.
CavazzaM.The uselessness of anatomy: Mini and Sbaraglia versus Malpighi. In: Bertoloni MeliD (ed) Marcello Malpighi anatomist and physician.
Florence:
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1997, pp.
129–
145.
27.
AdelmannHB.The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi.
Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press,
1975,
I, pp.
276–
277and 282-283 (Letters 140 and 144, Borelli to Malpighi).
28.
AdelmannHB.The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi.
Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press,
1975,
I, pp.
277–
278(Letter 141, Fracassati to Malpighi).
29.
Carlo Fracassati, born in Bologna, anatomist, was a friend and colleague of Malpighi. Fracassati was part with Malpighi of the Coro anatomico of Bartolomeo Massari. He taught logic and theoretical medicine at the Studio in Bologna. In 1663, he moved to Pisa where he worked with Alfonso Borelli and Lorenzo Bellini. In 1670 he went to teach at the University of Messina.
30.
AdelmannHB.The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi.
Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press,
1975,
I, pp.
309–
310(Letter 161, Malpighi to Capucci).
31.
Lorenzo Bellini, born in Florence, graduated in medicine and philosophy in Pisa, protégé’ of Borelli, was professor of theoretical medicine and chair of anatomy at the University of Pisa. Bellini described the tubular structure of the kidney in 1662 in Exercitatio anatomica de structura et usu renum. The uriniferous ducts of the renal medulla are named after him ducts of Bellini.
32.
AdelmannHB.The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi.
Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press,
1975,
IV, pp.
1467–
1470(Letter 746, Malpighi to Bellini).
33.
AdelmannHB.The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi.
Ithaca/London:
Cornell University Press,
1975,
IV, pp.
1470–
1472(Letter 747, Bellini to Malpighi).
