Redi, Francesco (1626-1697)

Copy of an autograph letter by Redi giving an account of a nun, Sister Antonia Masci, with an abnormal clitoris, including a diagram. The copy letter is mounted on an exhibition-type board, entitled and with a complete English translation printed on the right hand side.

c.1670

1 item

No provenance information found.

Francesco Redi was an Italian physician, naturalist and poet, born at Arezzo. He practiced medicine at Florence. He is most famous for demonstrating in 1668 that rotting meat carefully kept from flies will not produce maggots, providing experimental evidence against the theory of spontaneous generation (abiogenesis) and proving that maggots came from flies. Redi died at Pisa, 1697/98.

At Wellcome Collection: Poetry by Redi is held as MS.4176, and a poem on his death forms part of MS.2329.