Andrea Cesalpino

Andrea Cesalpino, Latinized as Andreas Caesalpinus, was a Florentine physician, philosopher and botanist of the sixteenth century. He studied at Pisa under Realdo Colombo in medicine and Luca Ghini in botany, taught philosophy, medicine and botany there and directed the Pisan botanical garden from 1554 to 1558. Late in life he became professor of medicine at the University of Rome La Sapienza and physician to Pope Clement VIII. He classified plants by their fruits and seeds rather than alphabetically. In medicine he imagined a chemical circulation of repeated evaporation and condensation of blood, which is why some historians see him as a forerunner of William Harvey.