Robert Hooke (1635–1703) was an Englishman who achieved much across many fields of human inquiry. He was an artist, biologist, physicist, engineer, surveyor, architect, and inventor. However, his crowning glory was Micrographia. It provided an exquisitely illustrated introduction to the previously unknown microscopic world. In Hooke’s words, he used ‘a sincere hand, and a faithful eye, to examine, and record the things themselves as they appear’. He completes the book’s preface with: “And it is my hope, as well as belief, that these my Labours will be no more comparable to the Productions of many other Natural Philosophers, who are now every where busie about greater things; then my little Objects are to be compar'd to the greater and more beautiful Works of Nature, A Flea, a Mite, a Gnat, to an Horse, an Elephant, or a Lyon.”
Several sources were used to download the images, mainly:
www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/15485#page/1/mode/1up
This was the first important work on microscopy. It was published in January, 1665.
