The tradition of great teachers thus carried on during the first century after the absorption of Bologna into the Papal States, continued uninterruptedly in the next century, when we find on the list of professors at Bologna such names as those of Malpighi, the greatest mind in the medical sciences of the seventeenth century, and his colleague Fracassati, who, though over-shrouded by Malpighi, still claims a prominent place in the history of medicine. Bologna has a special feature of medical development to its credit which, because of its importance for science in general as well as for medicine, deserves to be mentioned here. During the century after the Popes became the rulers of the city scientific societies were founded here, and as the professors and {246} students of the medical school were also the most interested in science in general, the membership of these societies was largely made up of individuals connected with the medical school. A special society for the cultivation of anatomical knowledge, the first of its kind ever founded, was established in Bologna scarcely more than a century after the city came under the Papal dominion. It was called the Coro Anatomico, or anatomical choir, and had at first only nine members. Among these, however, were such distinguished men as Malpighi, Fracassati, Capponi, and Massari, to the last of whom the initiative of the foundation of the society is said to have been due. Bologna was noted during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the number of foreign students of medicine who were attracted to its hospitable medical school and who carried the tradition of science for its own sake, so characteristic of this Papal Medical School, to all parts of the world.