Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9443
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    Details of a fly

    Date
    1665
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural Philosopher
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCN 45230
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 304mm
    width (print): 194mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
          > Microscopy
    Biology
       > Entomology
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > insect
    Description
    Microscopic study of a fly, namely, the feet of a fly showing three joints and two tallons (Fig. 1. top) and a single joint (Fig. 2. top right as viewed); the author’s window as seen in the hemisphere a fly’s eye (Fig. 3. top left as viewed), and; a detail of a fly’s wing (Fig. 4. bottom).

    Inscribed above: ‘XXIII’

    Plate 23 from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon (1665), the first fully-illustrated book on the topic of microscopy. In the preface Hooke asserts that he had discovered ‘a new visible World’.

    Robert Hooke (1635-1703) British natural philosopher was a founding member of the Royal Society, elected in 1663. Before his career with the Royal Society, Hooke had been apprenticed to painter Peter Lely (1618-1680), where he learned to draw and paint. Though he did not engrave the images in Micrographia himself they were engraved after his illustrations.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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