Antonio Vallisneri (3 May 1661 – 18 January 1730), also rendered as ''Antonio Vallisnieri'', was an Italian medical scientist, physician and naturalist.

Life

Vallisneri was born in Trassilico, a small village in Garfagnana, and graduated in medicine in 1684, in

Reggio Emilia Reggio nell'Emilia (; ), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until Unification of Italy, 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 172,51 ...

, under the guidance of

Marcello Malpighi Marcello Malpighi (10 March 1628 – 30 November 1694) was an Italians, Italian biologist and physician, who is referred to as the "founder of microscopical anatomy, histology and father of physiology and embryology". Malpighi's name is borne by ...

. A grand-uncle was the physician Cesare Magati. He studied at

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

and

Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...

and held the chairs of Practical Medicine first and Theoretical Medicine later at the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

between 1700 and his death. Influenced by famous thinkers such as Leibniz and Conti he belonged to the Galilean school of experimental scientists. He worked in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, medical diagnosis, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in non-human animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all a ...

hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and drainage basin sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is called a hydro ...

and the newly born science

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

. Vallisneri died in

in 1730.

Importance

He is known for being one of the first researchers in medicine to have proposed abandoning the Aristotelian theories for an experimental approach based on the scientific principles suggested by

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

. Vallisneri stated that scientific knowledge is best acquired through experience and reasoning. This principle was followed in his anatomical dissections and carefully drawn descriptions of

insects Insects (from Latin ') are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed ...

. For this reason, his medical career was at the center of heated controversy, as many of his contemporaries could not abandon prevailing medieval theories, even in the face of glaring experimental evidence. He also was keenly interested in the natural sciences, and over his lifetime collected numerous specimens of animals, minerals and other natural objects. His scientific method was limited when it came to interpreting fossil evidence on mountain tops; the only possibility he allowed for was a miraculous Biblical Flood (

Flood geology Flood geology (also creation geology or diluvial geology) is a Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific attempt to interpret and reconcile :geology, geological features of the Earth in accordance with a literal belief in the Genesis flood narrative, th ...

) as the cause for their deposition. He had a very clear and precise style of writing. In 1709 he joined Francesco Scipio Maffei and Apostolo Zeno in editing a literary journal, ''Giornale de' Letterati d'Italia'', which had a brief life. Vallisneri's contribution to the use of language makes him one of the most admired science writers, in the tradition of Galilei,

Francesco Redi Francesco Redi (18 February 1626 – 1 March 1697) was an Italians, Italian physician, naturalist, biologist, and poet. He is referred to as the "founder of experimental biology", and as the "father of modern parasitology". He was the first perso ...

and Lorenzo Magalotti. Vallisneri also followed Galilei's tracks in electing Italian as the language of choice for writing his treatises. This was a courageous choice in the scientific community of the time, which still used

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

as the “language of knowledge.”

Works

* * * *

Legacy

The freshwater plant genus '' Vallisneria'' commemorates him.

Notes

External links

Curiosity and Ingenuity
Link to a virtual exhibition of the collections of Vallisneri, held by the Museums of the University of Padova.
''De Corpi Marini''
an
''Lezione accademica intorno all'origine delle fontane''
- full digital facsimiles at Linda Hall Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Vallisneri, Antonio 1661 births 1730 deaths 17th-century Italian physicians 18th-century Italian physicians Academic staff of the University of Padua Fellows of the Royal Society Italian feminists Italian naturalists People from Gallicano