The clitoris was "discovered" (at least by males) and documented for the first time by Matteo Realdo Colombo: a lecturer in surgery at the University of Padua, Italy.

In 1559 he published a book called De re anatomica, in which he described the "seat of woman's delight." He concluded, "since no one has discerned these projections and their workings, if it is permissible to give names to things discovered by me, it should be called the love or sweetness of Venus."

However others made claims to have discovered it. Gabriel Fallopius - Columbus' successor at Padua - disputed the assertion that Columbus discovered claiming credit for himself.

There are also several claims that knowledge of the clitoris was widely known well before either man's 'discovery'. But Colombo's remains the earliest physical documentation of the bud that would one day become a phenomenom leading to the sexual revolution.