Drawing of a chick's embryo in Marcello Malpighi's On the Formation of the Chick in the egg, taken from the 1686 edition. Malpighi (1628-1694), an Italian physiologist, was professor of biology at Bologna. He was an ardent early microscopist using the instrument to view a variety of subjects, including the lungs of frogs & the wing membrane of bats. His observations revealed the finest blood vessels, later called capillaries. His illustrations were based on his observations. Number 46 shows the whole embryonic area at 2 days old. 47 is the embryo on its own. 48 is the enlarged heart region & 49 shows part of the segmented vertebral column.