

ON INSTRUMENTS FROM ITALY. 105 



original inventor of spectacles. This was Messer Salvino degli 

 Armati, S:c. A figure of this man was to be seen, lying at full length 

 on a stone slab, in civil costume, with an inscription around it, which 

 ran thus 



*' Qui giace Salvino d'Armato degli Armati di Fir. 



Inventor degli occhiali. 



Dio gli perdoni le peccatx. 



Anno D. MCCCXVII." 



[Here lies Salvino, etc., of Florence. The Inventor of Spectacles. 

 May God forgive his sins. A.D. 1317.] 



Redi, in a letter on the invention of spectacles, quotes Frate Ales- 

 sandro Spina, a Dominican, as their inventor ; speaking of whom, 

 Frate Bartolommeo da San Concordio wrote in 1313: "Frater 

 Alexander Spina vir modestus et bonus, quaecumque vidit, aut audivit 

 facta, scivit et facere. Ocularia ab aliquo primo facta, et comunicare 

 nolente, ipse fecit, et comunicavit corde ilari, et volente." From 

 which it would appear that as Armati would not explain his method of 

 making spectacles, Spina had found it out for himself. With regard 

 to the date of their invention, Redi quotes a passage from the papers 

 of the family of Sandro di Pippozzo, a Florentine, written about 1299, 

 in which may be read : " I find myself oppressed with age and should 

 not be able to read or write, without glasses called spectacles, in- 

 vented lately for the comfort of old people when their eye-sight grows 

 weak." These various quotations agree in establishing the fact that 

 spectacles were invented shortly before the year 1299, by a native of 

 Florence called Armati. Let us now return to Galileo. 



In June, 1609, it was rumoured in Venice that an artificer in 

 Flanders had presented to Count Maurice of "Nassau an eyeglass so- 

 cunningly contrived that it made objects far off appear as if they were 

 close at hand. When Galileo heard this he immediately returned to 

 Padua, and after having thought over the matter for a day and a night, 

 he set to work to make his telescope. When it was known in Venice 

 that he had succeeded in constructing the enigmatical machine, he 

 was invited by the Venetian Republic to present them with his tele- 

 scope ; he complied with this request on the 23rd of August, 1609, 

 and dedicated it to the Doge. This solemn presentation you see re- 

 presented in the photograph of the Gallery. Then the Senate, as a 

 mark of appreciation, by a decree of the 25th of August, 1609, elected 



