Borelli, Lana, and Robert Hooke, all of which take definite
place in the history of flight. Borelli ranks as one of the
great figures in the study of aeronautical problems, in spite of
erroneous deductions through which he arrived at a purely
negative conclusion with regard to the possibility of human
flight.

Borelli was a versatile genius. Born in 1608, he was
practically contemporary with Francesco Lana, and there is
evidence that he either knew or was in correspondence with many
prominent members of the Royal Society of Great Britain, more
especially with John Collins, Dr Wallis, and Henry Oldenburgh,
the then Secretary of the Society. He was author of a long list
of scientific essays, two of which only are responsible for his
fame, viz., Theorice Medicaearum Planetarum, published in
Florence, and the better known posthumous De Motu Animalium. The
first of these two is an astronomical study in which Borelli
gives evidence of an instinctive knowledge of gravitation,
though no definite expression is given of this. The second
work, De Motu Animalium, deals with the mechanical action of
the limbs of birds and animals and with a theory of the action
of the internal organs. A section of the first part of this
work, called De Volatu, is a study of bird flight; it is quite
independent of Da Vinci's earlier work, which had been forgotten
and remained unnoticed until near on the beginning of practical
flight.

Marey, in his work, La Machine Animale, credits Borelli with the
first correct idea of the mechanism of flight. He says:
'Therefore we must be allowed to render to the genius of Borelli