MICROSCOPY ON PAPER: The first published record of microscopic observations was printed in the book Apiarium in 1625 (above, lower). Although the authors, Italian naturalists Federico Cesi and Francesco Stelluti, described the anatomy of bees in their text, the first microscopy illustrations were published five years later in Stelluti’s book, Persio. The arrangement of the bees in his illustration (above, top) echo the trio of bees in the family crest of Maffeo Barbarini, also known as Pope Urban VIII. The scientists’ tribute to Barbarini is evident also in their descriptions of the bees as Urbanas (domestic) and Barbaras (rural). According to a 1970 translation of Apiarium by Clara Sue Kidwell, Cesi and Stelluti wrote: “You have distinguished Urban bees by their customs, virtue, worthiness and barbarian bees by their swarms, purity, and harmony in singing.”University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Library); Courtesy History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries (inset)
Around the turn of the 17th century, humans’ narrow, mesoscale view of the world was undergoing a dramatic expansion. Not only was the telescope invented—allowing people for the first time to peer into space at distances we still find hard to fathom—but the microscope as well. And standing in the middle of all these technological advances was Galileo Galilei, remembered chiefly for his contributions to the former invention.
“Many people do not realize that Galileo was indirectly responsible for the first publication of observations made with a microscope,” says Kerry Magruder, the curator of the History of Science Collections at the University of Oklahoma. People often think of Robert Hooke’s famous sketch of a flea or Anton van Leeuwenhoek’s descriptions of cells as the first ...
