Michele Mercati

Michele Mercati was a physician who was superintendent of the Vatican Botanical Garden under Popes Pius V, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, and Clement VIII. He was one of the first scholars to recognise prehistoric stone tools as human-made rather than natural or mythologically created thunderstones.

8 April 1541

Born on the same birth day (8 April): Allu Arjun • Alois Brunner • Anthony Farrar-Hockley • Chris Kyle • Claudio Merulo • Donita Sparks • Frédérick Bousquet • Grigori Kuzmin • Henry N. Cobb • Manolis Angelopoulos • Maria Maksakova Sr. • Roquan Smith • Steve Howe