Joachim Friedrich Meyen (1747) - A drawing of an old type of device

An important invention of the Renaissance was the microscope. Invented in 1590, the microscope was a major help in other scientific discoveries. The microscope uses two different lenses to bend light and enlarge images. Therefore, a person could see things that were too tiny to observe with the naked eye. In 1660, the microscope was used to study bacteria for the first time. A microscope at that time could enlarge images 270 times their normal size.

A profession of botanical illustrator began to emerge in the eighteenth century with advances in the printing processes. Botanical Illustrations became accurate in color and detail. Amateur botanists, gardeners, and natural historians provided a market for botanical publications. The photographic process has not made botanical illustrations obsolete since illustrators were able to combine accuracy, an idealized image from several specimens, and the inclusion of the face and reverse of the features such as leaves with details given at a magnified scale.