GALILEO THE INVENTOR OF THE MICROSCOPE IN 1610 125 



you will glance only at what I have written concerning the new in- 

 ventions of Signer Galileo ; if I have not put in everything, or if 

 anything ought to be left unsaid, do as liest you think. As I also 

 mention his new occhiale to look at small things and call it micro- 

 scope, let your Excellency see if you would like to add that, as the 

 Lvceum gave to the first the name of telescope, so they have wished 

 to give a convenient name to this also, and rightly so, because they 

 are the first in Koine who had one. As soon as Signer Kikio's 

 epigram is finished, it may be printed the next day; in the mean- 

 while I will get on with the rest. I humbly reverence your Excel- 

 lency. From Rome, April 13, 1625. Your Excellency's most 

 humble servant, GIOVANNI FABER (Lynceo).' 



The Abbe Rezzi, in a work of his on the invention of the micro- 

 scope, thought that he might conclude from the passage of 

 Wodderborn, reproduced above, that Galileo did not invent the com- 

 pound microscope, but gave a convenient form to the simple micro- 

 scope, and in this way as good as invented it, for the Latin word u>cd 

 by ^oddeTborn, perspicillum, .-ignified at that time, it is clear,' Rezzi 

 >ays, ' no other optical instrument than spectacles or the telescope, 

 never the microscope, of which there is no mention whatever in any 

 book published at that time, nor in any manuscript known till then.' 



But Rezzi was not mindful that on October 16, 1610, the date 

 of Wodderborn's essay, the name of microscope had not yet been 

 invented, nor that of telescope, which, according to Faber, was the 

 idea of Cesi, according to others of Giovanni Demisiano, of 

 Cephalonia, at the end, perhaps, of 1610, but more probably at the 

 time of Galileo's journey to Rome from March 29 to June 4, 1611. 

 If. therefore, the word microscope had not yet been invented, and 

 if the telesc >pe. or the occhiale as it was then called, was by all 

 named perspicittum, one cannot see why Wodderborn's perspicillum 

 cannot have been a cannocchicde (telescope) smaller than the visual 

 ones, so that it could easily be used to look at near objects, but yet 

 a citinioccJiiiili' with two lenses, one convex and one concave, like the 

 others, and, therefore, a real compound microscope, although not 

 mentioned by that name either by Wodderborn or others. And, 

 besides that, how could it be that Wodderborn beginning to treat 

 admiral lilis huius perspicilli,' that is, of the telescope in the iii-t 

 line, should then have called perspicillum a single lens in the eleventh 

 line of the same page ? Rezzi's mistake is easily explained, remem- 

 bering that he had not under his eyes Wodderborn's essay, but only 

 knew a brief extract reported by Venturi. 



It thus appears as in the highest degree probable that (ialileo. 

 in 1610. was the inventor of the compound microscope ; it was 

 subsequently invented, or introduced, and zealously adopted in 

 Holland; and when 1 Mitch invention penetrated into Italy in 1624 

 < J-dileo attempted a reclamation of his invention (which was undoubt- 

 edly distinct from that of Drebbel) ; but as these were not warmly 

 seconded and responded to abroad lie allowed the whole thing to 

 pass. Nevertheless the facts Govi gives are as interesting as they 

 are important. 



In regard to the discovery of the simple lens Govi points out 



