L’occhiale all’occhio (1660), Primary Source for 17th Century Lens Grinding Techniques

Carlo Antonio Manzini, astronomer and designer of lens-grinding Machines, wrote his L’occhiale all’occhio as a comprehensive guide to the state of the art of lens-grinding in 17th century Italy. Importantly its woodcut diagrams are the earliest we have of these devices. The details of the work in terms of practical techniques was meant to alleviate the secrecy of the oral tradition of passed along knowledge, kept by particular craftsmen, as the spread of the telescope put these skills in demand. For the convenience of others I post the link here of a viewer for a copy of the manuscript, and its PDF, (unfortunately whoever copied the text did not look closely at the results and a series of odd numbered pages are off-margin). The text is in Italian.

L’occhiale all’occhio (1660)