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Fortunio Liceti (1577-1657), also known as
Fortunius Licetus, was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
scientistA scientist, in the broadest sense, is any person who engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge or an individual that engages in such practices and traditions that are linked to schools of thought or philosophy. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the...
.
He was born in
RapalloRapallo is a municipality in the province of Genoa, in Liguria, northern Italy. As of 2007 it counts approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it is part of the Tigullio Gulf and is located in between Portofino and Chiavari....
, and studied at the
University of BolognaThe University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in Europe, the word 'university' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, graduating with doctorates in philosophy and medicine. He then took a position of chair at the
University of PisaThe University of Pisa is located in Pisa, Tuscany. It was formally founded on the September 3, 1343 by an edict of Pope Clement VI, although there had been lectures on law in Pisa since the 11th century...
. He later returned to
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of northern Italy...
and then to Padova. He was noted for his expertise on
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
.
In 1616 he published
De Monstruorum Natura which marked the beginning of studies into malformations of the
embryoAn embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
. He described various monsters, both real and imaginary, and looks for reasons to explain their appearance. His approach differed from the common European viewpoint of the time, as he regarded monsters not as a divine punishment but rather a fantastical rarity. He also supported the idea of transmission of characteristics from father to son.
Liceti's work
De spontaneo Viventium Ortu, published in 1618, supported the hypothesis of spontaneous generation of small animals, or
abiogenesisIn the natural sciences, abiogenesis, or "chemical evolution", is the study of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter. It should not be confused with evolution, which is the study of how groups of living things change over time...
. (This was later refuted by the work of
Francesco RediFrancesco Redi was an Italian physician.He is most well-known for his series of experiments, published in 1668 as Esperienze Intorno alla Generazione degl'Insetti which is regarded as one of the first steps in refuting "spontaneous generation" - a theory also known as Aristotelian...
.) Liceti also wrote
De feriis altricis animae which dealt with the spirits of animals.
He was also known for other unusual proposals and investigations, including topics in
astronomyAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
,
phosphorescencePhosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with "forbidden" energy state transitions in quantum...
,
gemA gemstone or gem is a piece of attractive mineral, which—when cut and polished—is used to make jewelry or other adornments...
s, and mysticism. He died in Padova. The crater
LicetusLicetus is a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon, in the rugged southern highland region. It lies to the south of the walled plain Stöfler, and is attached to the northern rim of the sub-divided crater Heraclitus. Just to the southeast is Cuvier. Licetus is 75 kilometers in diameter...
on the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
is named after him.