Pier Antonio Micheli (1679-1737), Italian botanist, professor of botany in Pisa, curator of the Florentine Botanical Garden, author of Nova plantarum genera iuxta Tournefortii methodum disposita. Discovered the spores of mushrooms. Leading authority on cryptogams. Coined several important genera of microfungi including Aspergillus and Botrytis.

Born in Florence in 1679. According to a short description from the libraries of Harvard University, he taught himself Latin and began the study of plants at a young age.

His Nova plantarum genera (1729) was a major step in the knowledge of fungi. In this work, he gave descriptions of 1900 plants, of which about 1400 were described for the first time. Among these were 900 fungi and lichens, accompanied by 73 plates.

On one of his collecting trips, in 1736, he contracted pleurisy, of which he soon after died in Florence.

Eponymy

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in 1737, Linnaeus called the genus Michelia after him.

Pier Antonio Micheli