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Credit
Three leopards, lynxes or some other animal being rewarded by cherubim who bestow garlands on them and shake down fruit from a tree for them; representing the works of Marcello Malpighi being honoured by the Royal Society. Engraving by R. White, 1675. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
A similar frontispiece to the posthumous works of Malpighi is described in a letter by Silvestro Bonfigliuoli who was "a little uncertain whether the three rather ambiguous carnivores sleeping under a laurel tree besides a rock bearing the inscription 'In portu dormiunt' were canes or panterae. … In his second attempt Bonfigliuoli called these sleeping animals leopardi (and, indeed, their spots indicate that this is what the artist had in mind)."--Adelmann, op. cit. 1966, p. 664
"In the frontispiece, probably by the same artist [as Malpighi's portrait], which Malpighi had sent the Society along with his Anatome plantarum and which was published with it, apparently the same three equivocal beasts are placed beneath a tree under a serene sky, but here they are awake, and one of them seems either surprised or belligerent, these three animals evidently representing the works of Malpighi on the alert against detractors. Two putti are about to crown them with a garland; three others are arranging another wreath around them; and there are two more, one ascending the tree and the other throwing down its fruits."--Adelmann, op. cit. 1966, p. 664
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