ON INSTR UMENTS FROM ITAL Y. 1 1 1 



that he had received the instrument which he (Galileo) had lately 

 constructed for minute objects, but that as he had merely begun to 

 taste it, so to speak, he would reserve an account of so admirable an 

 instrument till he had had time to relish its merits more fully. And 

 under similar circumstances (having likewise received the present of 

 a microscope from Galileo), Imperial! writes on the 5th of September, 

 1624 : " I have not words enough to thank you for the microscope 

 which you have been so kind as to send me ; it is very perfect in 

 every respect, and is most admirable, as indeed are all your inven- 

 tions." At the same period Bartolomeo Baldi, asking Galileo to give 

 him one of these instruments, calls it the little newly invented micro- 

 scope (occhialino). Hence we may conclude that Galileo invented the 

 microscope, either about the year 1612, according to Viviani, or about 

 1624 according to the others. Christian Huygens in his work on 

 dioptrics, written in 1678, remarks that he had heard say that about 

 the year 1621 microscopes were seen in the hands of Drebbel. 

 But there exists no document in proof of this. And besides, 

 numerous were the inventions attributed to Drebbel, but the greater 

 number of them belong more to witchcraft than to science. 



Hence we Italians maintain, and I hope that others will agree with 

 us, that Galileo is the inventor and first maker of the microscope. 

 Unfortunately none of his instruments have been handed down to us. 

 The one that I am now placing before you was found among the 

 remains of the Accademia del Cimento ; it is merely a simple tube 

 the lens is wanting. We may mention here that at a later date 

 Galileo effected many improvements in his microscope. 



To my great surprise, hovi ever, I found among the objects in this 

 exhibition a microscope described as follows : Microscope invented 

 and constructed by Zacharias Janssen, telescope maker, at Middle- 

 burg in the Netherlands. I cannot explain to myself how it is that 

 Huygens, who was so bent on bringing under notice the works of his 

 own country, should not have known of this microscope, which has 

 been handed down even to us. But while acknowledging how 

 difficult it is to obtain information regarding all these different 

 discoveries, allow me te observe that I have never seen any document 

 in which mention is made of a microscope before 1624. 



And this is a suitable place to mention the binocular telescope, 



