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Fontana, Francesco (1602-1656).
Novae coelestium, terrestriumque rerum observationes
Neapoli, apud Gaffarum, 1646.
"The most important discovery published in this book is the first observation of spots on the surface of Mars and the first two plans of Mars, made in 1636 and 1638. Fontana with his new telescope was able to show in the illustrations of this book, features of the surface of the moon never seen before. There are also beautifully illustrated accounts of Saturn's rings, The Transit of Venus and Jupiter's belts."*
Fontana began drawing the moon in 1630, and several of his early maps were circulated and even printed in the works of other astronomers in the early 1640's. Not until 1646 did Fontana manage to put together his own book. It contains woodcut illustrations of a number of planets, but the lunar engravings make up the bulk of the work. In fact, this might be called the earliest lunar atlas, since it includes images of the moon at many different phases."Fontana claims here to have invented the telescope in 1608, and brings forward evidence to that effect. It is, however, generally recognized that the telescope was invented by Galileo 1609. He also claims in the last chapter on the microscope to have invented the microscope in 1618. He describes its construction and some observations he has made of fleas, ants, spiders, mites in cheese, hairs, etc. The microscope had, however, been invented by Z. Jansen in 1590" (Riccardi I. 467).*
* These two paragraphs are copied from the booksellers description pasted in the book, during or prior to 1952.
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