In 1668, Francesco Redi, an Italian scientist, conducted an experiment with jars of meat. This experiment was noteworthy because it disapproved the hypothesis of spontaneous generation. He placed fresh meat in each of two separate jars. One of the jars was left open and the other was covered with a cloth. A few days later, the open jar contained maggots while the covered jar contained no maggots, although there were maggots on the exterior surface of the cloth covering the jar.