ST URBAIN, Ferdinand de: Italy, ca.1707, Bronze, 40 mm
Obv: Bust of Baglivi (r)    G. BAGLIVUS. MED. IN. ROM. ARCHIL. P. ET. SOC. REG. LOND. COLL. (Giorgio Baglivi, Physician, Professor at the Chief College at Rome, and Fellow of the Royal Society of London)
Rev: Bust of Malpighi (l)   MARCELLVS. MALPIGHIVS. BONON. PHIL. ET. MED. COLL.
Signed:  SV
Mule with obverse of medal of Marcello Malpighi
Ref: Storer 140; Freeman 10/16; Brettauer 46; Kluyskens 2; Forrer V, p. 312 # 83; Eimer 68/414 var.; MI ii, 272/75 var

Giorgio Baglivi (1668-1707), an illustrious physician, studied at Padua and Bologna. He then went to Rome where Malpighi became his teacher and friend. He was appointed professor of anatomy at the College of La Sapienza where his lectures brought such fame that in 1698 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He is best known as an iatrophysicist (a school of medical thought in the 17th century which explained all physiologic and pathologic phenomena by the laws of physics), although he fought against the domination of theory over practice.

Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) was an Italian physician and anatomist. Malpighi entered the University at Bologna, graduating in medicine and philosophy. Later he worked at the University of Piza, then at Messina and later returned to Bologna. In 1691 he accepted the invitation of Pope Innocent XII to come to Rome as his personal physician. Malpighi was the first to apply the newly invented microscope to anatomical research and has been described as a founder of comparative physiology and microscopic anatomy. He also was a pioneer in the science of embryology. His first great observation was the capillary circulation of blood, thus expanding on William Harvey’s theory on how blood circulated in the body. By demonstrating the existence of capillaries, he provided evidence for the link between arteries and veins that had eluded Harvey. He went on to investigate the anatomy of plants and made important discoveries in this area as well. Many microscopic anatomical structures are named after him, including a skin layer (Malpighi layer) and two different Malpighian corpuscles in the kidneys and the spleen, as well as the Malpighian tubules in the excretory system of insects. (Taken, in part, from Freeman)