Antonio Vallisneri

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

Life
Vallisneri was born on in Trassilico, a small village in Garfagnana, Lucca, and graduated in medicine in 1684, in Reggio Emilia, under the guidance of Marcello Malpighi.

He studied at Bologna, Venice, Padova and Parma and held the chairs of Practical Medicine first and Theoretical Medicine later at the University of Padova between 1700 and his death.

Influenced by famous thinkers such as Leibniz and Conti he belonged to the Galilean School. He worked in biology, botany, veterinary, hydrology and the newly born geology.

Vallisneri died in Padua in 1730.

Importance
He is known for being one of the first researchers in Medicine to have proposed abandoning the Aristotelic theories for an experimental approach based on the scientific principles suggested by Galileo Galilei. Vallisneri stated that scientific knowledge is best acquired through experience and reasoning. This principle was followed anatomical dissections and drawn descriptions of insects. 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 speciments of animals, minerals and other natural objects.

He had a very clear and precise style of writing. Vallisneri's contribution to the use of language makes him one of the most admired science writers, in the tradition of Galilei, Redi and 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 as the “language of knowledge.”