Andrea Cesalpino

Andrea Cesalpino, in Latin, Andreas Caesalpinus (1519-1603), Italian botanist and physician, who was the first scientist to formulate a unified classification system for plants based principally on structural characteristics. Cesalpino was born in Arezzo, Tuscany (Toscana), and educated at the University of Pisa. He became director of the botanical garden and professor of materia medica (the science dealing with the preparation of drugs) at that university in 1555. In 1592 he became physician to Pope Clement VIII in Rome. Among Cesalpino's written works are 16 short books entitled De Plantis (Of Plants, 1583), the first classification of plants according to the characteristics of their fruits and seeds. The work formed, in part, the basis of the classification system by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus.