Who first observed the Golgi apparatus?

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Diagram of the Golgi apparatus showing its stacked, curved membranes with labeled parts including cisternae, cis face, trans face, lumen, and various vesicles involved in cellular transport and secretion. — Golgi apparatus A membrane-bound organelle of eukaryotic cells, the Golgi apparatus is made up of a series of flattened, stacked pouches called cisternae that function as a series of compartments that progressively refine and direct cellular products to their proper destinations. .

The Golgi apparatus was first observed in 1897 by the Italian cytologist Camillo Golgi.

While studying nervous tissue using his own staining technique—known as the reazione nera or "black reaction"—Golgi identified an "internal reticular apparatus" within neurons. Although some contemporary scientists initially questioned the existence of this structure, suggesting it might be an artifact of the staining process, its presence was definitively confirmed in the 1950s through the use of the electron microscope.1