Francesco Redi (18 February 1626 – 1 March 1697) was an Italian physician, naturalist, biologist, and poet.

[6][7] Having a doctoral degree in both medicine and philosophy from the University of Pisa at the age of 21, he worked in various cities of Italy.

He was also the first to recognize and correctly describe details of about 180 parasites, including Fasciola hepatica and Ascaris lumbricoides.

A collection of his poems first published in 1685 Bacco in Toscana (Bacchus in Tuscany) is considered among the finest works of 17th-century Italian poetry, and for which the Grand Duke Cosimo III gave him a medal of honour.

After schooling with the Jesuits, Francesco Redi attended the University of Pisa from where he obtained his doctoral degrees in medicine and philosophy in 1647, at the age of 21.

[4] He constantly moved, to Rome, Naples, Bologna, Padua, and Venice, and finally settled in Florence in 1648.

[9][14] He even showed that by applying a tight ligature before the wound, the passage of venom into the heart could be prevented.

His next treatise in 1684 titled Osservazioni intorno agli animali viventi che si trovano negli animali viventi (Observations on Living Animals, that are in Living Animals) recorded the descriptions and the illustrations of more than 100 parasites.

In it, he also differentiates the earthworm (generally regarded as a helminth) and Ascaris lumbricoides, the human roundworm.

An important innovation from the book is his experiments in chemotherapy in which he employed the "control"', the basis of experimental design in modern biological research.

[22] He taught the Tuscan language as a lettore pubblico di lingua toscana in Florence in 1666.