Quick Facts
Biography
Francesco Fontana (1580–c. 1656) was an Italian lawyer (University of Naples ) and an astronomer.
He created woodcuts showing the Moon and the planets as he saw them through a self-constructed telescope. In 1646 he published most of them in the book Novae coelestium terrestriumq[ue] rerum observationes, et fortasse hactenus non vulgatae. In 1645, he claimed to have observed a satellite of Venus (Paul Stroobant demonstrated in 1887 that all similar observations were not related to a putative satellite of Venus).
The lunar crater Fontana and the crater Fontana on Mars are named in his honor.
Note: See Donato Creti for paintings of planets from the next century.
Microscope
Fontana also claimed to have invented the compound microscope (two or more lenses in a tube) in 1618, but the invention is generally credited to one of three or more Dutch lens-makers: Cornelis Drebbel, Zacharias Jansen (or Jansz) or his father Hans Zansz.