The origins of the telescope - DWC - KNAW

But although Galilei was certainly eager to be seen as an ingenious inventor,
in this case Fugger was too hard on him. As a matter of fact, in his
Sidereus Nuncius, published in March 1610, Galilei admitted that the telescope
had originated in the Netherlands. 44 From his correspondence we also
know that Galilei was aware of the fact that the first demonstration had been
at the court of Count Maurits. 45 However, in all these reports the name of
the demonstrator – Lipperhey – was never mentioned. And, as time went by,
Lipperhey was forgotten.
1614-1637: The canonisation of Jacob Adriaensz Metius as the inventor
In the Netherlands this development was stimulated by the printed works
of Adriaen Adriaensz Metius, professor of mathematics at the University of
Franeker, the second institution of higher learning in the Netherlands. Adriaen
was the learned brother of the Alkmaar ‘inventor’ Jacob Adriaensz Metius, and
in all his astronomical works, starting with the 1614 edition of his Institutiones
astronomicae et geographicae, he claimed that around 1608 his brother Jacob
had invented the ‘far sights’ (‘verre ghesichten’), with which one could observe
several planets unknown to the ancient astronomers, among which were also
some ‘planets’ moving around Jupiter. And although Adriaen Metius claimed
that his brother Jacob had kept his telescopes secret, other sources suggest that
at least some of Jacob’s telescopes were disseminated among relatives and close
friends. It is known for certain that at least in 1613 Adriaen himself used a
telescope for astronomical observations. That year he showed the instrument
to his Groningen colleague and friend Nicolaas Mulerius, who used another
one for the observation of sunspots. A few years later Mulerius used such a
‘newly invented spectacle’ for the investigation of the great comet of 1618. 46
Another ‘mathematical glass’ was used by Pierius Winsemius, a close friend
of the Metius family, this time for the observation of ships some 30 miles
away. 47 And probably in 1614 even Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, in Aixen-Provence,
possessed one of the first telescopes made by Jacob Adriaensz
Metius, ‘the true first inventor’ of the ‘new Galilean telescopes,’ bestowed on
44 Van Helden, Invention (1977), 45.
45 Galilei, Opere, 10 (1900), letter 231: Galileo [from Venice] to Benedetto Landucci [in Florence],
29 August 1609.
46 Waterbolk, ‘Van scherp zien en blind zijn’ (1995) Cf. Mulerius, Hemelsche trompet (1618): ‘Want
wyluyden connen se anders qualic sien, dan met behulp van de nieu gevonden bril.’ (‘Because we
could only see them properly with our newly invented spectacles’).
47 Winsemius, Chroniqve (1622).
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huib j. zuidervaart