58 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



MARCELLO MALPIGHI, 1628-1694 



Personal Qualities. There are several portraits of Mal- 

 pighi extant. These, together with the account of his 

 personal appearance given by Atti, one of his biographers, 

 enable us to tell what manner of man he was. The portrait 

 shown in Fig. 13 is a copy of the one painted by Tabor and 

 presented by Malpighi to the Royal Society of London, in 

 whose rooms it may still be seen. This shows him in the 

 full attractiveness of his early manhood, with the earnest, 

 intellectual look of a man of high ideals and scholarly tastes, 

 sweet-tempered, and endowed with the insight that belongs 

 to a sympathetic nature. Some of his portraits taken later 

 are less attractive, and the lines and wrinkles that show 

 in his face give evidence of imperfect health. According to 

 Atti, he was of medium stature, with a brown skin, a delicate 

 complexion, a serious countenance, and a melancholy look. 



Accounts of his life show that he was modest, quiet, and 

 of a pacific disposition, notwithstanding the fact that he lived 

 in an atmosphere of acrimonious criticism, of jealousy and 

 controversy. A family dispute in reference to the boundary- 

 lines between his father's property and the adjoining land of 

 the Sbaraglia family gave rise to a feud, in which representa- 

 tives of the latter family followed him all his Lf e with efforts 

 to injure both his scientific reputation and his good name. 

 Under all this he suffered acutely, and his removal from 

 Bologna to Messina was partly to escape the harshness of 

 his critics. Some of his best qualities showed under these 

 persecutions; he was dignified under abuse and considerate 

 in his reply. In reference to the attacks upon his scientific 

 standing, there were published after his death replies to his 

 critics that were written while he was smarting under their 

 injustice and severity, but these replies are free from bitterness 

 and are written in a spirit of great moderation. The follow- 



