The problem is that the files themselves have a namespace,
Michelf. So the class
Markdown doesn't actually exist.
The simplest way would be composer. If you don't want to use that you can use CI's autoload and let it know the namespace and where it's located. In app/Config/Autoload.php:
Code:
$psr4 = [
'Config' => APPPATH . 'Config',
APP_NAMESPACE => APPPATH,
'App' => APPPATH,
'Michelf' => '/var/www/ci2/php-markdown/Michelf/'
];