a very important contribution with his studies on helminthology and on the transmission of syphilis from the mother to the fetus. History of the work Antonio Benivieni did not publish his works when he was alive, after his death his brother Girolamo, while reorganizing his belongings, found some writings that he described as very interesting clinical cases; then he sent them to Giovanni Rosati, an important physician, who suggested publishing them because of their brilliance so they published a part of those writings calling them “Antonii Benivenii, De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum et sanationum causis, Florentiae” (1507). The title would appear to have been suggested by Celsus's " Abdditae morborum causae", in these writings the observations of Benivieni imply that he knew about medicine, surgery and obstetrics. The work was subsequently published again in Latin and in the nineteenth century we have the first Italian translation by Carlo Burci, which was based on the sixteenth-century edition because the original manuscript at that time was lost; it was later found by Burci himself, who discovered that the original manuscript contained a dedication. This dedication was to Lorenzo Lorenzani and stated that the plan of his work was to divide his observations into three groups of one hundred; this dedication and some unpublished observations were subsequently published by Francesco Puccinotti and Burci in the treatise “Storia della Medicina". Nowadays the original manuscript is lost and no trace remains. Benivieni's findings Some of the protocols which resemble the ones used nowadays in autopsy are described in De Abditis Morborum Causis ("The Hidden Causes of Disease ''), which is now considered one of the first works in the science of pathology. This is one of the reasons why he has been referred to as the "father of pathologic anatomy.” The observations, which are about 111, are mainly clinical and yet stand out for Beninvieni’s skills in medicine, surgery and obstetrics. The following are particularly noteworthy: on Gallic disease (n. 1), important for the year of compilation; on liver stones in a woman (No. III); on the bone resection he performed on a young girl (n. XXV); on a dead fetus which he extracted with the hook (n. XXIX); on the vascular connections (n. LXVIII); on lithotripsy (n. LXXX); the various teratological observations are also important. Furthermore other interesting pathological observations to point out are: the presence of an abscess between the laminae of