Niels Stensen was born in Copenhagen in 1638. He lived for most of his adult life outside Denmark: principally in Italy, the Netherlands, France and Germany. His scholarship brought him an international reputation in the field of anatomy, and as a founder of the scientific study of both geology and paleontology. He is one of the greatest scientists of his age, itself the era of many of the giants of scientific discovery.

In anatomy his pioneering work included the function of the glands, the heart and the brain. As the founder of modern geology he was the first to find out how...