Johann Wiesel

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Johann Wiesel with one of his telescopes. Engraving by Bartholomäus Kilian , 1660
Telescope with initials IWAOF (Iohann Wiesel Augustanus Opticus Fecit) Skokloster Castle

Johann Wiesel (* 1583 in Burrweiler ; † March 27, 1662 in Augsburg ) was an optician , instrument maker and the first commercial telescope maker in Germany.

Life

Johann Wiesel was born in the Palatinate in 1583. The telescope was invented by Hans Lipperhey in Holland in 1608 . The following year, the businessman Thomas Barnet brought his first telescope to Augsburg , which he had acquired at the Frankfurt spring fair in 1609. In 1610 Galileo Galilei discovered the moons of Jupiter with a telescope. In 1611 the first theory of the telescope, Johannes Kepler's Dioptrice , was published by Marcus Welser in Augsburg .

Since Wiesel was a Protestant, he emigrated when his homeland got a new Catholic liege in 1604 . Nothing is known about his life before his arrival in Augsburg, and when and where he learned lens grinding . In 1621 he became a citizen of Augsburg through marriage and is referred to as a scribe. From 1625 in Augsburg he offered glasses , telescopes, lanterns, burning glasses, mirrors and early forms of the microscope for sale. Around 1630 he worked for the Emperor Ferdinand II and the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I , and later also for the Danish King Christian IV. He is initially referred to as a perspective maker , later as an opticus .

From 1643 he worked with Anton Maria Schyrleus de Rheita and together with him developed the terrestrial telescope ( Erdfernrohr ) with four convex lenses. This shows an upright image and has a larger field of view than the previously known telescope types. In the preface to Rheitas Oculus Enoch et Eliae (1645), in which this invention is described, he praises Wiesel as "the leading master of this art in all of Europe".

In 1645 Wiesel became a member of the merchants' room through his second marriage. In 1649 he was elected to the Great Council of the City of Augsburg and in the following years also made a contribution to the training of interested Augsburg merchants, for example he trained Johannes Koch von Gailenbach (1614–1693).

Wiesel built a wide variety of optical products: various telescopes - its largest had moved about 6 meters long - binocular binoculars , glasses of any kind, magnifying glasses , microscopes, periscopes , burning glass , so-called landscape mirror (as a drawing aid), wind goggles (to protect against Street dust ), flea cans (cans to enlarge insects) and other curiosities. From orders, invoices and letters of thanks, it can be seen that Wiesel's telescopes have been delivered to London, Paris, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Dresden, Gdansk, Vienna and Rome.

In 1654 he introduced the field lens already used in the telescope into the microscope, which at that time was often called the collective lens . (This invention is often incorrectly attributed to Balthasar de Monconys (1611–1665). Monconys acquired the microscope in Augsburg in 1664.) Wiesel received recognition from Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1651), Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (1651), Johannes Hevelius (1661) and Caspar Schott (1664, posthumously).

Wiesel signed his instruments, the lenses of which were mostly fixed in cardboard tubes, with Johann Wiesel Augustanus Opticus . His workshop was later continued by his son-in-law Daniel Depiere.

Johann Wiesel lived from 1637 to 1642 in the so-called Wieselhaus in Augsburg.

Processing of Wiesel's work

Johann Wiesel was long forgotten. Very few of his instruments are still preserved today. His correspondence with Duke August and Prince August zu Anhalt was in Wolfenbüttel. Wiesel's product and price lists, which are among the earliest sources on the history of optical instruments in Germany, are of particular interest.

In 2012, the Augsburg State and City Library showed an exhibition about weasels on the 350th anniversary of his death. The listed Wieselhaus in Äußere Pfaffengäßchen 23 in Augsburg, a Renaissance building that Johann Wiesel lived in from 1637 to 1642, was renovated from 2009 to 2013 and the Fugger and Welser Adventure Museum was set up in it, which is dedicated to the Fugger and Welser trading dynasties .

literature

  • Inge Keil: Augustanus Opticus: Johann Wiesel (1583–1662) and 200 years of optical craft in Augsburg ; Berlin, 2000 limited preview in the Google book search
  • Helmut Gier: The Augsburg optician and telescope maker Johann Wiesel (1583–1662). In: The Wieselhaus in Äußere Pfaffengässchen in Augsburg . Publisher: Catholic Study Fund, City of Augsburg, Housing and Foundation Office, Schrammel Architects, Augsburg 2013.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Augsburger Stadtlexikon - The city history of Augsburg. (No longer available online.) In: stadtlexikon-augsburg.de. August 21, 2009, archived from the original on April 7, 2014 ; accessed on January 6, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadtlexikon-augsburg.de
  2. ^ Helmut Gier: The Augsburg optician and telescope maker Johann Wiesel (1583–1662). In: The Wieselhaus in Äußere Pfaffengässchen in Augsburg . Editor: Catholic Study Fund, City of Augsburg, Housing and Foundation Office, Schrammel Architects, Augsburg 2013, p. 7th ff .
  3. ^ Inge Keil: Augustanus Opticus: Johann Wiesel (1583–1662) and 200 years of optical craft in Augsburg. (Colloquia Augustana, Volume 12); Berlin, 2000. ISSN  0946-9044 .
  4. ^ Ilka Fleischer: Microscope Museum - History of the 17th Century. (No longer available online.) In: mikoskop-museum.de. Archived from the original on February 16, 2015 ; accessed on January 6, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mikrebs-museum.de
  5. ↑ Astronomers in the 17th century. In: ingolstadt.de. April 18, 1987, accessed January 6, 2015 .
  6. ^ Jochen Brüning: Augsburg in the early modern times. Akademie, 1995, ISBN 978-3-05-002645-9 , p. 158. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  7. ↑ Hans Krebs: Pioneer on the telescope. In: augsburger-allgemeine.de. January 6, 2015, accessed January 6, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Augsburger Allgemeine : “New insights and outlooks in the Wieselhaus”, article from September 28, 2013, Augsburger Land edition, p. 45.
personal data
SURNAME Wiesel, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German telescope maker
DATE OF BIRTH 1583
PLACE OF BIRTH Burrweiler , Germany
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1662
Place of death Augsburg , Germany