Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.21361

    Plant leaves

    Date
    1675
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    Marcello Malpighi (1628 - 1694, Italian) , Biologist
    Object type
    Library reference
    54269
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 362 mm
    width (page): 231mm
    height (plate): 310mm
    width (plate): 217mm
    Subject
    Description
    Sectional studies of the leaves and stems of eight plant species viewed under magnification, including:

    Figure 86 [upper left]: Oak tree, Quercus, referred to by Malpighi as the same.
    Figure 87 [upper centre]: Rose, Rosa, referred to as Rosis.
    Figure 88 [upper right]: Lemon tree, Citrus limon, referred to as Mali limoniae.
    Figure 89 [centre left]: Leek, Sempervivum, and boxwood, Buxus, referred to as Sempervivo and Buxo respectively.
    Figure 90 [lower left]: Laurel, Laurus, referred to as Lauro.
    Figure 91 [centre right]: Grapevine, Vitis, referred to as Vite.
    Figure 92 [centre]: Fig tree, Ficus carica, referred to as Ficus.
    Figure 93 [lower right]: Wheat, Triticum, referred to as Tritico.

    Inscribed ‘Tab. XVII’ in the top right-hand corner.

    Table 17 from Marcello Malpighi's Anatome plantarum; cui subjungitur Appendix […] (1675).

    Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), Italian biologist and physician, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1669.
    Object history
    Anatome Plantarum was a much-anticipated work and, along with Nehemiah Grew FRS (1641-1712), earned Malpighi acclaim as founder of the microscopic study of plant anatomy.

    His research was encouraged and supervised by the Royal Society, as evidenced by correspondence between him and the then-Secretary, Henry Oldenburg FRS (1619-1677) in the 1660s and 1670s [MS/103/1]. An abstracted version of his work in this area was first read at a Society meeting on 7 December 1671 [JBO/4, pp.216-217]. The full manuscript of Anatome Plantarum, together with the frontispiece artwork and these plates, was received and read on 28 January 1674/75 [MS/103/1-2].

    It was ordered for printing by the Society’s printer John Martin in June 1675 [CMO/1/221]. The published work consists of the text of Anatome Plantarum, De ovo incubato, and 61 plates illustrating each [54 and 7 respectively]. A second part was sent by Malpighi to the Society in 1678 and published in 1679 as Anatomes plantarum pars altera [54271].
    Associated place
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          > Italy
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