36 THE NEW BIOLOGY 



ANDEEA CESALPINI (oe CESALPESTO) 



1519-1603 



De Plantis Libri XVI. 4to. Florent. 1583. 



Little is known of the personal history of Cesalpini. 

 He studied at Pisa (where he was introduced to botany 

 by Luke Ghini, a teacher of great reputation) succeeded 

 Aldrovandi as director of the botanic garden at Bologna, 

 and professed medicine and botany in the university of 

 Pisa, where again he had charge of a botanic garden. 

 In old age he removed to Eome, becoming professor 

 at the Sapienza and physician to the Pope. 



In Cesalpini's time and in the very city where he 

 taught, ancient beliefs were for the first time submitted 

 to experimental verification. Galileo, who had attended 

 Cesalpini's lectures, investigated the swinging lamps of 

 the cathedral at Pisa in 1583, the year in which the De 

 Plantis appeared; in 1588-91 he refuted the Aristo- 

 telian doctrine of falling bodies by dropping weights 

 from the leaning tower. We are not told what Cesalpini 

 and Galileo thought of one another, but it is not difficult 

 to guess. Cesalpini is reckoned among the physiologists 

 who anticipated the discovery of the circulation, though 

 he is not known to have made any experiments of his 

 own ; he was also one of the few sixteenth- century 

 naturalists who recognised the real nature of animal 

 and vegetable fossils. His published work shows him 

 to have been an acute, observant man, full of such 

 knowledge as was then accessible, and not afraid to 

 express his opinions, even when they difi'ered from those 

 of the people about him. Could he have realised that 

 in botany as in all natural sciences he was but a be- 

 ginner, he might have done much more than he actually 



