Michael Bernhard Valentini

Michael Bernhard Valentini
Front page of Museum Museorum (2nd ed., 1714) by Valentini

Michael Bernhard Valentini (26 November 1657 – 18 March 1729) was a German doctor and a collector. After obtaining his doctorate in 1686 in Giessen he became Professor of Medicine in that city and personal physician to the Margrave of Assia. He had an important Cabinet of curiosities and was the author of Museorum Museum, the first study of collections in Europe. In 1720 he published a work on the comparative anatomy of vertebrates. He was elected a Member of the Royal Society on 10 November 1715 and was also a Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (Leopoldina) and the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin.