Marcello Malpighi

Marcello Malpighi (1628 to 1694) was an Italian biologist and physician, often called the founder of microscopical anatomy and histology. Educated at the University of Bologna, he held posts at Pisa, Messina and Bologna and ended his life in Rome as physician to Pope Innocent XII. Using the microscope he was the first person to see capillaries in animals, which supplied the missing link between arteries and veins that William Harvey had been unable to find, and he saw red blood cells and showed that insects breathe through tracheae rather than lungs. He also described the structure of plants, including xylem, and his name survives in the Malpighian corpuscles and pyramids of the kidney and the Malpighian tubules of insects. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1669, and the society published his botanical and zoological works.