Early life and education Vallisneri was born at
Trassilico in the
duchy of Modena on 3 May 1661. His father, Lorenzo Vallisneri, a doctor of laws, was governor of the district of
Garfagnana; his mother was Maria Lucrezia Dacini. A grand-uncle was the physician
Cesare Magati. After preliminary schooling in
Scandiano,
Modena, and
Reggio, in 1682 he went to
Bologna, where he studied
medicine under the guidance of
Marcello Malpighi. In 1683, Vallisneri was elected prior of the students at Bologna. He remained there through 1684, gaining practical experience under the guidance of Paolo Salani, whom Malpighi, since he was himself seeing few if any patients, recommended as a suitable mentor. It is remarkable that although Vallisneri admired the learning of Malpighi's adversary,
Giovanni Girolamo Sbaraglia, whose lectures he often attended, his relations with Malpighi remained most cordial, his attitude reverential.
Career In 1685, Vallisneri was obliged by ducal decree to return to Reggio to obtain the doctorate in philosophy and medicine. In 1692, he married Laura Mattacodi. In 1695, he became medico condotto of
Luzzara and held this post until 1698, when he accepted a similar one at
Castelnovo di Sotto. In 1700, he was called to the
University of Padua as lecturer on practical medicine, the beginning of his career of thirty years as a lecturer on medicine there. Meanwhile, in the midst of a busy practice, Vallisneri had begun the observations and experiments that resulted in his first extensive publication, his
Dialoghi sopra la curiosa origine di molti insetti, which appeared at Venice in 1700. In 1696 and 1697, brief summaries from a manuscript of it had been published in the
scientific journal Galleria di Minerva (I, 245; II, 293-296, 353-355). The work, devoted to the thesis that insects arise from eggs laid by females of the same species, is a tribute to the author's revered master, presented as it is in the form of a dialogue between Malpighi and
Pliny. Vallisneri worked in biology,
botany,
veterinary medicine,
hydrology and the newly born science
geology. In the years of his tenure at the university, he made many contributions to the
Galleria di Minerva, and, after its demise, to the ''Giornale dei Letterati d'Italia'', two literary and academic journals published in Venice. He also wrote a number of books on
reproduction and the generation of life (especially
insects), natural history, and curious objects that came to his attention. Vallisneri's work attracted the attention of scholars both inside and outside of Italy; Giacinto Gimma,
Giovanni Battista Morgagni,
Louis Bourguet,
Nicolas Andry, and many others were aware of Vallisneri's work, even if they disagreed with his conclusions. Along with his colleagues Giovanni Morgagni and
Domenico Guglielmini, Vallisneri helped Padua overtake Bologna as the premier location for
experimental philosophy in Italy, especially in the fields of medicine and the natural sciences. Vallisneri died in
Padua in 1730. He was buried in
Santa Caterina d'Alessandria. In 1733, Vallisneri's son, Antonio Junior, donated his father's collection of natural finds and scientific instruments to the University of Padua. ==Importance==