The first compound microscopes date to 1590, but it was the Dutch Antony Van Leeuwenhoek in the mid-seventeenth century who first used them to make discoveries. When the microscope was first invented, it was a novelty item.

When did microscopes began appear?

In the late 16th century several Dutch lens makers designed devices that magnified objects, but in 1609 Galileo Galilei perfected the first device known as a microscope. Dutch spectacle makers Zaccharias Janssen and Hans Lipperhey are noted as the first men to develop the concept of the compound microscope.

How did microscope start?

Sometime about the year 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his father Hans started experimenting with these lenses. They put several lenses in a tube and made a very important discovery. ... They had just invented the compound microscope (which is a microscope that uses two or more lenses).