Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.19953

    ‘Ancient’ microscopes

    Date
    1768
    Creator
    Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt (1733 - 1796, German) , Engraver
    After
    Martin Frobene Ledermuller (1719 - 1769, German) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Library reference
    48660
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 245mm
    width (print): 195mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
          > Microscopy
    Biology
       > Natural history
    Content object
    Description
    Studies of various microscopes from history, including a globe microscope, designed by Otto von Guericke and Nicolaas Hartsoeker (a), the simple microscope, described in Johann Christoph Sturm’s Collegium experimentale (b), the Leeuwenhoek microscope, by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (c), a microscope designed by Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter (d) and more.

    Inscribed above: ‘TAB: XXXI.’

    The accompanying text is headed: ‘Sur les microscopes anciens & modernes’ [‘On ancient and modern microscopes’].

    The author writes of Figure A.: ‘Hartsoecker & Otton Guericke, en fondant du verre, ont trouve par hazard un petite microscope dans une goute de verre, et de la est sans doute venu le globe (a. Tab. XXXI). L'on a ete oblige de se de ces globes jusqu'a ce que dans la suite l'on s'est avise, de les polir en forme de lentilles & de les enchasser dans des etuis; par ou on les a rendu propres aux plus grands grossissement [‘Hartsoecker & Otton Guericke, while melting glass, found by chance a small microscope existed in a drop of glass, and from there came the globe microscope (a. Tab. XXXI). We were obliged to use these globes until we decided to polish them in the shape of lenses & encase them in cases, by which the greatest magnifications became possible’].

    Plate 31 from Amusement microscopique, tant pour l'esprit que pour les yeux, contenant... estampes... d'apres nature...by Martin Frobene Ledermuller, plates volume (Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt, Nuremburg, 1768).

    Otto von Guericke (1602-1686), German scientist, inventor and politician.
    Nicolaas Hartsoeker (1665-1725), Dutch mathematician and physicist.
    Johann Christoph Sturm (1635-1703), German philosopher and founder of a scientific academy known as the Collegium Curiosum, whose Proceedings, Collegium experimentale, he also edited.
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, (1632-1723) Dutch naturalist, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1680.

    Martin Frobene [Frobenius] Ledermuller (1719-1769) German naturalist was employed in various capacities as a notary, turning to microscope studies after an illness induced temporary deafness.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Germany
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline