The Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) was one of the founders of modern experimental biology.

Lazzaro Spallanzani was born in Scandiano on Jan. 12, 1729. He entered a Jesuit college at the age of 15 and later studied law at Bologna, but very early he became interested in physics and developed an overall knowledge of nature. He took orders in 1755 and is therefore often referred to as the Abbé Spallanzani. That year he began to teach logic, metaphysics, and classics at Reggio. In 1757 he was appointed to the chair of mathematics and physics at the university there; later he taught at the University of Modena.

In 1765 Spallanzani began publishing his numerous scientific works. Most of them are motivated by a philosophy of science which nowadays could be called reductionist, namely, a belief that most phenomena are reducible to physical and chemical explanation. In 1769 he accepted the chair of natural history...