Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek

In Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Master of the Minuscule, the Father of Microbiology is presented in the context of his time, relationships and the Dutch Golden Age. Although he lacked an academic education, he dedicated his life to investigating the microscopic world using handmade, single-lensed microscopes and magnifiers. An expert observer, he planned experiments and designed equipment to test his theories. His pioneering discoveries included blood cells, protozoa, bacteria and spermatozoa, and resulted in an international reputation among the scientific and upper classes of 17th and 18th century Europe, aided by his Fellowship of the Royal Society of London. This lavishly illustrated biography sets his legacy of scientific achievements against the ideas and reactions of his fellow scientists and other contemporaries.

For his discoveries of microscopic life, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek is remembered today as one of the great geniuses of science. Using microscopes he made himself, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek peered into exciting new worlds that no one knew existed before. Beginning in the 1670s, he discovered tiny, single-celled living things that he called “little animals.” His curiosity led him to examine lake water, moldy bread, and even the plaque build-up on his own teeth! Van Leeuwenhoek was also the first to see red blood cells and bacteria.

For his discoveries of microscopic life, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek is remembered today as one of the great geniuses of science. Using microscopes he made himself, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek peered into exciting new worlds that no one knew existed before. Beginning in the 1670s, he discovered tiny, single-celled living things that he called “little animals.” His curiosity led him to examine lake water, moldy bread, and even the plaque build-up on his own teeth! Van Leeuwenhoek was also the first to see red blood cells and bacteria.

For fans of the "Who Was" series, this lively, accessible, and full-color chapter book biography shows how a self-taught scientist was the first to observe the microbial life in and around us. By building his own microscope, Antony van Leeuwenhoek advanced humanity's understanding of our oft-invisible world around us. Microbes are everywhere: in the soil and oceans, in snow, and inside our bodies. But in Antony van Leeuwenhoek's time, people believed that what they saw with their own eyes was all that existed in the world. How did a simple tradesman--who didn't go to college or speak English or Latin like all the other scientists--change everyone's minds? Proving that remarkable discoveries can come from the most unexpected people and places, this eye-opening chapter book, illustrated with lively full-color art, celebrates the power of curiosity, ingenuity, and persistence.

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The remarkable story of how an artist and a scientist in seventeenth-century Holland transformed the way we see the world. On a summer day in 1674, in the small Dutch city of Delft, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek—a cloth salesman, local bureaucrat, and self-taught natural philosopher—gazed through a tiny lens set into a brass holder and discovered a never-before imagined world of microscopic life. At the same time, in a nearby attic, the painter Johannes Vermeer was using another optical device, a camera obscura, to experiment with light and create the most luminous pictures ever beheld. “See for yourself!” was the clarion call of the 1600s. Scientists peered at nature through microscopes and telescopes, making the discoveries in astronomy, physics, chemistry, and anatomy that ignited the Scientific Revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses, mirrors, and camera obscuras, creating extraordinarily detailed paintings of flowers and insects, and scenes filled with realistic effects of light, shadow, and color. By extending the reach of sight the new optical instruments prompted the realization that there is more than meets the eye. But they also raised questions about how we see and what it means to see. In answering these questions, scientists and artists in Delft changed how we perceive the world. In Eye of the Beholder, Laura J. Snyder transports us to the streets, inns, and guildhalls of seventeenth-century Holland, where artists and scientists gathered, and to their studios and laboratories, where they mixed paints and prepared canvases, ground and polished lenses, examined and dissected insects and other animals, and invented the modern notion of seeing. With charm and narrative flair Snyder brings Vermeer and Van Leeuwenhoek—and the men and women around them—vividly to life. The story of these two geniuses and the transformation they engendered shows us why we see the world—and our place within it—as we do today. Eye of the Beholder was named "A Best Art Book of the Year" by Christie's and "A Best Read of the Year" by New Scientist in 2015.