"The Puzzle of Brueghel's Paintings of Telescopes", MIT Technology Review

"t’s hard to find an invention more emblematic of the birth of modern science than the telescope. And yet surprisingly little is known about its early development. The inventor of the telescope remains unknown to this day.

Now a study of the paintings of Jan Brueghel the Elder, a Flemish painter of the Baroque era who was working in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 17th century, is throwing some light on the early development of the telescope. It has also uncovered a mystery, say Paolo Molaro and Pierluigi Selvelli at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Trieste. One of Brueghel’s works appears to show a Keplerian-style telescope in a painting dating from 15 years before this design was thought to have been built." Read the complete article on the MIT Technology Review