In the second half of the seventeenth century, Marcello Malpighi used the newly invented microscope to make a number of important discoveries about living tissues and structures, earning himself enduring recognition as a founder of scientific microscopy, histology (the study of tissues), embryology, and the science of plant anatomy.

Malpighi was born at Crevalcore, just outside Bologna, Italy, on March 10, 1628. The son of small landowners, Malpighi studied medicine and philosophy at the University of Bologna. While at Bologna, Malpighi was part of a small anatomical society headed by the teacher Bartolomeo Massari, in whose home the group met to conduct dissections and vivisections. Malpighi later married Massari's sister.

In 1655, Malpighi became a lecturer in logic at the University of Bologna; in 1656, he assumed the chair of theoretical medicine at the University of Pisa; in 1659, he returned to Bologna as lecturer in theoretical, then practical, medicine; from 1662 to 1666, he...