STUDIO DI UNA LENTE PER CANNOCCHIALE DI GRANDI DIMENSIONI LAVORATA DA EVANGELISTA TORRICELLI

Abstract

Abstracttitle SUMMARY /title The Museum of the Department of Physical Science at the University of Naples holds a large telescope lens, work of Evangelista Torricelli. This lens which probably reached Naples in the first half of XVIII Century was forgotten until it was catalogued and placed with the other scientific instruments in the museum in 1984. The authors update the optic measure of the Torricelli lens taken by Gilberto Govi in 1886 and determine the composition of the lens glass by the fluorescence revealed from X-rays. On the basis of an analysis of correspondence by Torricelli they conclude that this is one of the two lenses which the scientist wrote to the gesuit Raffaello Prodanelli from Rome on October 14, 1645.