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DIVINI AND CAMPANI

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Terrestrial telescope

Inv. 3185 V.51 Terrestrial telescope 1665 Giuseppe Campani Wood, cardboard, leather Length circa 12000 mm

Description Large terrestrial telescope consisting of ten sections. The tubes are made of wood covered with cardboard. The largest, covered with green leather with gold tooling and the coat-of-arms of the Medici family, contains the wooden mounting for the objective lens. The other tubes are covered with red marbled paper. The smallest contains the composite eyepiece. The objective lens V.6 and the composite eyepiece V.7 belong to this telescope. The composite eyepiece inserted inside the telescope carries the inscription "lente meno acuta" ["less acute lens", i.e. less powerful] and the tube in which it slides has two inscriptions "Per la lente più acuta" ["for the more acute lens"], "Lente meno acuta" ["for the less acute lens"]. Depending on the type of eyepiece, this instrument can enlarge objects 223 or 112 times. Towards the middle of the1660s, Giuseppe Campani built a telescope of 52 palms (corresponding to 11.6 m) that, in a specially prepared trial, the so-called "comparison of the spectacles", proved superior to one made by Eustachio Divini. In the same year, Campani presented another instrument of the same length to the Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici, which is the instrument here described. On 11 July 1665 the Grand Duke observed Jupiter and its satellites.