319:, he believed they could reveal nothing that he himself had not already discovered) and the Medicean court’s fear of losing its unchallenged primacy in optical production. For this reason the strategy pursued by Ferdinando II was not so much that of purchasing a few models as of discovering the secret of their construction. In Florence, Fontana’s optical devices were carefully examined by the grand-ducal artisans and Galileo himself, as well as Castelli, reflected on the possible techniques adopted by the Neapolitan telescope maker. Near the end of 1638 negotiations were even held, during which Fontana offered to give the Grand Duke exclusive rights to his method of processing lenses for the price of 2,000 scudi. The amount was deemed too high, and no agreement was reached.
315:
deduced from a letter written the following April in which
Renieri states that he has ‘been glad to find out that the spyglasses from Naples are not so miraculous as others have written, because, at the great price that was asked for them’, he had despaired of ever having one. In fact Fontana had to struggle against the stubborn reluctance of Galileo, now old and blind, to recognise the superiority of the new Neapolitan telescopes (although admitting that their magnification power was greater than those produced in
275:. Near the end of the decade this collaboration terminated, perhaps due to Fontana’s close ties with the Neapolitan Jesuits, hostile to the ideas of Galileo. Fontana had also built small telescopes at least as early as 1626, and was already producing instruments eight palms long by 1629. It was some years, however, before his fame spread beyond Naples and the narrow circle of the Linceans, whose chief interest was naturalist research. In early 1637, some of Fontana’s lenses arrived in Rome.
137:
287:, published in Augsburg in 1611 but Fontana was very likely the first to apply it in practice and certainly the first to make it widely known. Unlike the so-called Galilean telescope, fitted with a diverging eyepiece, the Keplerian telescope produces upside-down images (not a serious drawback for astronomical purposes) but offers the advantage of a much larger and brighter field of view.
331:
Moon when full, and has the same cavities and prominences as are found on the Moon; Mars appears a little smaller than
Jupiter, and at its centre is a prominence shaped like a very dark cone.’ In September he sent him an interesting drawing of Saturn, done by Fontana himself, which Santini then sent to Peter Linder, in Venice. Still from Milan, Giovanni Giacomo Cozzolani informed
845:
294:– the renowned pupil and collaborator of Galileo – who was staying in Rome at the time. Among them, in June of the following year, was the objective for a telescope 14 palms long (~ 3.1 m). This instrument was enthusiastically accepted by Castelli, who used it for planetary observations and urged the Grand Duke of Tuscany
279:
marked a major turning point, showing that the telescope, far from having fully expressed all its potential, could still be greatly improved; and not in size alone. Since his first model known to us
Fontana had, in fact, adopted the converging eyepiece. This optical combination had already been theorised by
358:
In
October of 1639, tired of trusting to the mediation of Castelli, Fontana wrote directly to the Grand Duke offering him a 22-palm telescope. As proof of the instrument’s outstanding quality the letter, which has only recently come to light, 12 contains enclosed a drawing of Jupiter made by Fontana
330:
that had once been
Galileo’s, the fame of Fontana’s telescopes had spread through much of the peninsula. In March 1638, from Naples, Glorioso had informed Antonio Santini in Milan, of an ‘admirable’ 8-palm telescope, and in the following July, of a 14-palm model with which ‘Jupiter looks like the
314:
of ‘a portrait of the Moon, sent by F.D. Benedetto
Castelli, with the report of a new telescope invented by a certain Fontana in Naples,’ asking Galileo if he had heard anything of this. In the reply, which has been lost, Galileo must have belittled the quality of Fontana’s telescopes, as can be
278:
By early 1637, Fontana was already making telescopes much larger than those commonly used at the time. Since he had first entered the field of astronomy, in fact, the structure of the telescope had remained unchanged, as well as its size, and hence its magnifying power. Fontana’s instrument thus
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Despite
Castelli’s wholehearted support, Fontana’s optical products received a very cold welcome, being considered inferior or only slightly superior to those produced by the grand-ducal craftsmen. Dating from March 1638, for instance, is a letter in which
36:
339:) of the wondrous new phenomena observed with Fontana’s ‘spyglass’. Information, albeit confused and fragmentary, on the new 14-palm telescopes, evidently able to show the surface details of planets for the first time, reached
395:
Hockey, Thomas (2007). Hockey, Thomas; Trimble, Virginia; Williams, Thomas R; Bracher, Katherine; Jarrell, Richard A; Marché, Jordan D; Ragep, F. Jamil; Palmeri, Joann; Bolt, Marvin (eds.).
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himself, which constitutes as of now the earliest representation of the planet’s bands, whose discovery was later to be claimed by (or attributed to) many other authors.
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211:, where he presented all the observations of the Moon made from 1629 until 1645, the drawings of the bands seen on Jupiter's disc, the strange appearances of
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Fontana also claimed to have invented the compound microscope (two or more lenses in a tube) in 1618, an invention that has many claimants including
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In the autumn of 1639, testing a 22-palm telescope of his own making, Fontana discovered the characteristic bands of
Jupiter's atmosphere.
452:
Gargano, Mauro (2019). "Della Porta, Colonna, and
Fontana: the role of Neapolitan scientist at the beginning of the telescope era".
894:
655:
Del Santo, Paolo (2009). "On an
Unpublished Letter of Francesco Fontana to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand II de' Medici".
179:. But failing to always find truth in the Court, he began to study mathematics and astronomy. He created woodcuts showing the
195:, who commissioned him to make microscopic observations in 1625, and the Neapolitan Jesuits, and in particular Fathers
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706:, classe di scienze morali storiche e filologiche, s. 6, VII (1942), pp. 1008, 1124, 1127, 1131, 1144 s., 1205;
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Fontana began his career as optician around 1620, acquiring a certain reputation with the members of the
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in vain to buy it (it was finally purchased by the Prince of Ecchembergh for the original price of 200
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demonstrated in 1887 that all similar observations were not related to a putative satellite of Venus).
199:, Giovanni Battista Zupi and Giovanni Giacomo Staserio. Fontana traced, in 1636, the first drawing of
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517:"On an Unpublished Letter of Francesco Fontana to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand II de' Medici""
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Arrighi, Gino (1964). "Gli "occhiali" di Francesco Fontana in un carteggio inedito di A. Santini".
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Not to be confused with Francesco Fontana, archbishop of Messina and Milan, who died in 1308.
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Del Santo, Paolo (2009). "Italian Optics in the 17th Century: Fontana, Divini and Campani".
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Astrum 2009: Astronomy and Instruments: Italian Heritage Four Hundred Years after Galileo
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Molaro, Paolo (2017). "Francesco Fontana and the birth of the astronomical telescope".
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692:, XVII, pp. 192, 308, 363, 375, 383 s.; XVIII, pp. 18, 85; XX, p. 442;
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Novae coelestium terrestriumq rerum observationes, et fortasse hactenus non-vulgatae
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Starting in 1637 then, Fontana sent numerous lenses for inspection to
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believed that Fontana had managed to fabricate hyperbolic lenses).
271:, for whom he made numerous microscopes and with whom he worked as
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Atti e memorie dell'Accademia di scienze lettere ed arti in Padova
326:, who from 1613 to 1621 had occupied the prestigious chair at the
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In the meantime however, thanks not only to Castelli but also to
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Notizie istoriche dei mattematici e filosofi del Regno di Napoli
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in 1610, that the Copernicus's heliocentric theory was correct.
200:
180:
712:, a cura di Paolo Galluzzi, Maurizio Torrini, I, Firenze 1975,
650:. Vol. II. Venetia: Combi, & La Noù. pp. 296–300.
751:
Rezzi, Luigi Maria (1852). "Sull'invenzione del microscopio".
227:, an evidence, together with the phases of Venus observed by
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Le opere dei discepoli di Galileo Galilei. Carteggio 1642–48
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Il carteggio linceo della vecchia Accademia di Federico Cesi
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In 1645, he claimed to have observed a satellite of Venus (
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45:
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704:Memorie della Reale Accademia nazionale dei Lincei
223:observed for the first time in 1639 the phases of
159:– July 1656, Naples) was an Italian lawyer and an
690:Edizione nazionale delle opere di Galileo Galilei
594:A Practical treatise on the use of the microscope
175:and then he became a lawyer in the court at the
753:Atti dell'Accademia Pontificia de' nuovi Lincei
8:
765:Galileo e il telescopio di Francesco Fontana
637:, Bononiae 1651, pp. 203, 208, 485 ss.;
540:Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
454:Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
398:The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers
335:, in Bologna (where the news also reached
187:as he saw them through a self-constructed
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23:
789:L'astronomia a Napoli al tempo di Galileo
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219:. With a Fontana's telescope, the Jesuit
207:. In February 1646 he published the book
745:Vicende della coltura nelle due Sicilie
521:Galilaeana: Journal of Galilean Studies
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657:Galilæana: Journal of Galilean Studies
171:Francesco Fontana studied law at the
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900:Italian scientific instrument makers
806:Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
248:with the whole family in July 1656.
191:. Fontana was close to the botanist
812:Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
771:, n.s., XIX (1903), pp. 61–71;
747:, V, Napoli 1786, pp. 222–225;
858:Novae coelestium ... observationes
310:informs Galileo of the arrival in
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570:10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2017.03.02
474:10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2019.01.02
215:, as well as of the stars of the
885:17th-century Italian astronomers
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737:, Napoli 1778, pp. 134–138;
375:or his father Hans Martens, and
259:on Mars are named in his honor.
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647:Elogii de gli huomini letterati
627:, Romae 1646, pp. 16, 831;
850:Francesco Fontana (astronomer)
79:July 1656 (aged circa 71)
1:
808:, Volume 48: Filoni–Forghieri
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49:
40:Portrait of Francesco Fontana
16:Italian lawyer and astronomer
916:
799:Anastasio, Pamela (1997).
631:Giovanni Battista Riccioli
18:
624:Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae
515:Del Santo, Paolo (2009).
419:10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7
324:Giovanni Camillo Glorioso
134:
125:
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741:Pietro Napoli Signorelli
615:, Roma 1630, p. 47;
441:(Subscription required.)
296:Ferdinando II de' Medici
895:Scientists from Naples
596:by John Thomas Quekett
221:Giovanni Battista Zupi
852:at Wikimedia Commons
787:Giovanna Baroncelli,
337:Bonaventura Cavalieri
333:Carlo Antonio Manzini
244:He died of plague in
810:(in Italian). Rome:
801:"FONTANA, Francesco"
269:Accademia dei Lincei
173:University of Naples
98:University of Naples
682:, I, La Haye 1888,
562:2017JAHH...20..271M
466:2019JAHH...22...45G
411:2007bea..book.....H
403:Springer Publishing
328:University of Padua
203:and discovered its
726:, XV, Paris 1983,
676:Christiaan Huygens
619:Athanasius Kircher
613:Persio tradotto...
609:Francesco Stelluti
308:Vincentio Reinieri
292:Benedetto Castelli
890:Italian engravers
848:Media related to
733:Matteo Barbieri,
700:Giuseppe Gabrieli
428:978-0-387-31022-0
146:Francesco Fontana
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105:Scientific career
87:Kingdom of Naples
62:Kingdom of Naples
28:Francesco Fontana
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833:. Rome: 153–169.
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663:: 235–251.
153: 1585
53: 1585
869:Categories
783:: 432–448.
728:ad Indicem
714:ad Indicem
684:ad Indicem
553:1704.05661
527:: 235–251.
383:References
363:Microscope
251:The lunar
161:astronomer
75:1656-07-00
759:: 108 ff.
578:217104393
490:256573189
482:1440-2807
285:Dioptrice
263:Telescope
217:Milky Way
189:telescope
167:Biography
130:Signature
116:Astronomy
94:Education
644:(1666).
317:Florence
255:and the
205:rotation
183:and the
558:Bibcode
462:Bibcode
434:10 July
407:Bibcode
345:England
341:Holland
283:in his
229:Galileo
225:Mercury
185:planets
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777:Physis
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488:
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349:France
281:Kepler
246:Naples
213:Saturn
157:Naples
120:Optics
111:Fields
83:Naples
58:Naples
791:, in
767:, in
702:, in
574:S2CID
548:arXiv
486:S2CID
312:Genoa
300:scudi
114:Law,
816:ISBN
478:ISSN
436:2020
423:ISBN
347:and
201:Mars
181:Moon
69:Died
46:Born
665:doi
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470:doi
415:doi
302:).
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