GALILEO THE INVENTOE OF THE MICROSCOPE IN 1610 125 



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

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

 anything ought to be left unsaid, do as best 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 

 Lyceum 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 Rome who had one. As soon as Signor Rikio's 

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

 while I will get 011 with the rest. I humbly reverence your Excel- 

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

 humble servant, GIOVAXNI 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 used 

 by Wodderborn, perspicillum, i signified at that time, it is clear,' Rezzi 

 says, ' 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 telescope, or the occhiale as it was then called, was by all 

 named perspictttum, one cannot see why Wodderborn's perspicillum 

 cannot have been a cannocchiale (telescope) smaller than the usual 

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

 a cannocchiale 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 

 ' admirabilis huius perspicilli,' that is, of the telescope in the first 

 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 Yenturi. 



It thus appears as in the highest degree probable that Galileo, 

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

 subsequently invented, or introduced, and zealously adopted in 

 Holland; and when Dutch invention penetrated into Italy in 1624 

 Galileo attempted a reclamation of his invention (w^hich was undoubt- 

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

 seconded and responded to abroad he 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 



