578 SUMMARY OF OUERENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



whilst he had always used and continued to use to the end of his days, 

 telescopes with a convex and a concave lens without showing that he 

 had read or in the least appreciated the proposal made by Keppler, ever 

 since 1611, to use two convex glasses in order to have telescopes with a 

 large field and more powerful and convenient. 



In any case it is impossible to form a decided opinion on such a 

 matter, the data failing, but the very fact, that from 1624 onwards, 

 Galileo thought no more of the occJiialino (probably because he found 

 it less powerful and less useful than the occMale of Drebbel), as he had 

 not occupied himself with it or had scarcely remembered it from the 

 year 1610 to 1624, seems sufficient to show that the occhialino, like the 

 Microscope of 1610, was a small Dutch telescope with two lenses, one 

 convex and one concave, and not a reduced Kepplerian telescope like 

 that invented by Drebbel in 1621. 



The name of Microscope, like that of telescope, originated with the 

 Academy of the Lincei, and it was Giovanni Faber who invented it, as 

 shown by a letter of his to Cesi, written April 13th, 1625, and which 

 is amongst the Lincei letters in the possession of D. B. Boncompagni. 

 Here is the passage in Faber's letter : — 



" I only wish to say this more to your Excellency, that is, that you 

 will glance only at what I have written concerning the new inventions 

 of Sig. 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 Microscope, let your Ex- 

 cellency 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 Sig. Eikio's epigram is finished, it may be 

 printed the next day; in the meanwhile I will get on with the rest. 

 I humbly reverence your Excellency. — From Rome, April 13th, 1625. 

 Your Excellency's most humble servant, Giovanni Fabek (Lynceo)." 



Faber himself, in the ' Eerum Medicarum Novae Hispanise Thesaurus,* 

 of Hernandez, (14) which was being printed at the expense and by the 

 care of the Lyceum, and came out in a few imperfect copies in 1630, 

 reappearing in 1649, and definitely in 1651, speaking of the occhiale by 

 which to see minute objects (p. 473), wrote thus : — 



" Vidimus et ad miraculum usque obstupuimus ante paucolos dies 

 (15) domi meae per Tubum opticum mirse perspicuitatis artificiosissime 

 elaboratum a duobus Germanis huius artificibus fabrisq. nobis allatum 

 donatumque; quern a Telescopij imitatione et rerum minutarum con- 

 spectu Microscopium nominare libuit." 



And a little further on (p. 474), after having spoken of the Can- 

 nocchiale, which had received the name of Telescope from the President 

 of the Lyceum, Frederic Cesi, he continues : — 



" Ab hoc nobis alterum Microscopium appellare visum fuit . . . 

 quod quidem a Galileo etiam anno proximo elapse in urbem allatum, 

 nunquam tarn en ita diligenter elaborari ab ullis artificum manibus vel 

 ipsius vel collegarum jussu potuit quam ab istis Germanis, qui sedulam 

 in hoc operam praestitere, nee pauca huiusmodi Microscopia quae urbem 

 totam in admirationem pertraxerunt, elaborata nobis exhibuerunt." 



The preceding quotation was a part of that ' Scritto delle noue 

 invenzioni del Sig. Galileo ' which Faber was sending to Cesi, that he 

 might look it through with his letter of April 13th, 1625, above quoted. 



