Vittorio Marchi (1851-1908) of Novellara, his method, and his discoveries in the striatum, the thalamus, and the cerebellum.

In September 1885, the neuropathologists Vittorio Marchi and Giovanni Algeri presented at the 11th congress of the Italian Medical Association, held in Perugia, a new method for anterograde tracing of degenerating fibers after experimental cortical lesions. The method became eponymously known as the Marchi-Algeri, or simply the Marchi method, and remained in use for nearly a century, contributing substantially to progress in neuroanatomy and neuropathology, before being replaced by technically improved and more sophisticated approaches. Marchi made landmark discoveries concerning the nerve cell types of the striatum and the thalamus. With his tracing method, he provided the foundations of our knowledge on the three cerebellar peduncles by conducting experiments of total or partial extirpation of the cerebellum in dogs and monkeys. Luigi Luciani regarded Marchi as the second most important Italian neuroanatomist after Golgi, while Wendell Krieg noted that, under different circumstances, Marchi and the far-reaching applications of his method might have been honored with the Nobel Prize. In 1997, Novellara, Marchi's native town in the province of Reggio Emilia, commissioned a medal from the symbolist figurative artist Romano Pelloni to commemorate the neurological legacy of her distinguished son.