THIS was our first look at the realm of the invisible. In 1665, Robert Hooke鈥檚 Micrographia brought microscopic observations out of his laboratory to a wider world.
Hooke believed that, through the lens of a microscope, nothing could be 鈥渟o small as to escape our inquiry鈥�. The 38 copper engravings from his book, now republished by The Folio Society, detail many objects smaller than a grain of sand, in the manner of the diaries of travelling contemporaries who sketched rare exotic specimens on their travels around the New World.
Advertisement
Hooke chose subjects he thought looked attractive for his idealised and ordered catalogue of the microworld, including poppy seeds (above), an insect larva (below the poppy seeds), and a louse clinging to a human hair (below). Before drawing the head of a fly (top), Hooke first detached it so he could observe the organs inside the animal鈥檚 abdomen.
But he showed more tenderness to a tiny ant (bottom). Fearing that killing the insect would squash its miniature parts and destroy their beauty, he instead submerged it in alcohol so it would revive after the study was over 鈥渁s if it had been awaken out of a drunken sleep鈥�.
Micrographia by Robert Hooke is available from
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒rawing the invisible鈥�
