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): Alexi Laiho • Derrick Walker • Douglas Trumbull • Félix Hernández • Giuseppe Tartini • Hirsch Jacobs • John Schneider (screen actor) • Lloyd Bott • Marie Byles • Mazinho • Michael Jones (rugby union) • Michelle Donelan • Richard Neutra • Roquan Smith • Tilly Armstrong • William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke