Travelling microscope signed « Cadot A Lyon 1732 ».

The whole object is presented as a brown leather cylindrical case with two caps.

The upper part, once withdrawn, opens on the green gilt decorated vellum draw tube topped with the wooden eyepiece. The lower, outer barrel has a fine screw adjustment on the outside for raising and lowering between the objective and the eye lens. The objective is held in a wooden cell that screws on the nose and has a pinhole opening. The maker’s name is engraved around the upper ring that is attached to the disc forming the base by two flat brass pillars.

The slide holder consists of two rollers on opposite sides fixed to the upper side of the base. Below the base is a second disc the same size as the base that has a vertical steel spring that press on the roller, tending to draw the lower disc up against the base (an arrangement devised by Filippo Buonanni, microscope maker in Roma, active up to 1725).

The central hole in the base and the lower plate indicates that the instrument was intended for examining transparent objects by holding them to the light.

NB. : this microscope is in the spirit of a compound monocular made by Giuseppe Campani, Roma, before 1665 (ref. the Billings collection AFIP 49001 – 60 – 4713 – 412).

Dimensions: 15,4 cm long x diameter 4,5 cm.

Lyon 1732.

Reference : SARL 43

Price on request.

Also discover many more microscopes in the dedicated section of our French website : « Microscopes ».