DID GALILEO INVENT THE COMPOUND MICROSCOPE? 121 



si sting of several lenses or a suitable combination of lenses and 

 mirrors.' 



In a pamphlet published in 1881, treating of the invention of 

 the binocular telescope, Govi pointed out that Chorez, a spectacle 

 maker, in 1625, used the Dutch telescope as a microscope, and stated 

 that with it ' a mite appeared as large as a pea ; so that one can 

 distinguish its head, its feet, and its hair a thing which seemed in- 

 credible to many until they witnessed it with admiration.' 



To this quotation he added : 



* This transformation of the telescope into a microscope (or, as 

 opticians in our own day would say, into a Briicke lens) was not an 

 invention of the French optician. Galileo had accomplished it in the 

 year 1610, and had announced it to the learned by one of his pupils, 

 John Wodderborn, a Scotchman, in a work which the latter had 

 just published against the mad " Peregrinazione " of Horky. Here 

 are the exact words of Wodderborn (p. 7) : 



* Ego nunc admirabilis huius perspicilli perfectiones explanare 

 no conabor : sensus ipse iudex est integerrimus circa obiectum pro- 

 prium. Quid quod eminus mille pavssus et ultra cum neque videre 

 iudicares obiectum, adhibito perspicillo, statim certo cognoscas, esse 

 hunc Socratem Sophronici filium venientem, sed tempus nos docebit 

 et quotidianae nouarum rerum detectiones quam egregie perspicillum 

 suo fungatur munere, nam in hoc tota omnis instrument! sita est 

 pulchritude. 



* Audiueram, paucis ante diebus authorem ipsum Excellentissimo 

 D. Cremonino purpurato philosopho varia narrantem scitu dignissima 

 et inter caetera quomodo ille minimorum animantium organa motus, 

 et sensus ex perspicillo ad vnguem distinguat ; in particulari autem 

 de quodam insecto quod utrumque habet oculum membrana crassius- 

 cula vestitum, quae tamen septe foraminibus ad instar larvae ferreae 

 militis cataphracti terebrata, viam praebet speciebus visibilium. En 

 tibi [so says "Wodderborn to Horky] nouum argumentum, quod per- 

 spicillum per concentrationem radiorum multiplicet obiectu ; sed 

 audi prius quid tibi dicturus sum : in caeteris animalibus eiusdem 

 magnitudinis, vel minoris, quorum etiam aliqua splendidiores habent 

 oculos, gemini tantum apparent cum suis superciliis aliisque partibus 

 annexis.' 



To this Govi adds : 



' I have wished to quote this passage of Wodderborn textually, 

 so that the honour of having been the first to obtain from the Dutch 

 telescope a compound microscope should remain ^*ith Galileo, which 

 the latter called occhialino, and that the glory of having reduced the 

 Keplerian telescope to a microscope (in 1621) should rest with 

 Drebbel. The apologists of the Tuscan philosopher, by attributing 

 to him the invention of the microscope without specifying with what 

 microscope they were dealing, defrauded Drebbel of a merit which 

 really belongs to him ; but the defenders of Drebbel would act un- 

 justly in depriving Galileo of a discovery which incontestably was his.' 



I turn now to Wodderborn's account, published in 1610 (the 

 date of the dedication to Henry Wotton, English Ambassador at 

 Venice, is October 16, 1610), which reads thus : 



