ORIGINS OF MODERNITY

natural history

Moffett, Thomas (1553-1604)
Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum.
Londini : Ex officinâ typographicâ Thom. Cotes et venales extant apud Guiliel. Hope, 1634.

Moffett's Theatre of Insects is the completion of an unfinished manuscript by one Thomas Penny. A work on the natural history of insects it was published posthumously in 1634. The manuscript predates the 'invention' of the microscope, or better, the new use to which lenses were being put from the second decade of the 17th century, for the microscope was never really invented. Henry Power refers deferentially to Moffett a number of times in his Experimental Philosophy (See the Natural Philosophy section of this exhibition).