Lancisi, physician to three successive popes, was the leading Italian clinician of his day. He was also interested in epidemiology and public health, and wrote a treatise on the Italian malaria epidemic of 1715, in which he suggested that mosquitoes might be responsible for the spread of the disease, and recommended the draining of the marshes where the insect bred. Lancisi also published, at his own expense, Eustachio's long forgotten anatomical plates in 1714. Lancisi was also an ardent book collector and assembled a personal medical library of over 20,000 volumes, which he donated to the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Rome. De motu cordis et aneurysmatibus, published posthumously in 1728 by his former assistant, Francesco Soldati, contains classic descriptions of various cardiac aneurysms, including the first description of syphilis of the heart. The book continues the work begun in his De subitaneis mortibus, published during his lifetime in 1707. It contains seven full-page engravings, drawn by Niccolo Ricciolini, and engraved by Niccolo Oddi and F. Mastrozziso. A second edition was issued in 1738.