Los Roget and the invention of the telescope. A historiographical construction in Spain from the 19th to the present

Abstract

Certainly, the telescope was never invented, in the sense that it was not invented by a single person and in a single place, but it was the result of a long and complex process, in which different characters, spaces, ideas and materials participated. Among them we find the Rogets, a family of spectacle makers who were traditionally built in Spain as national heroes, but who have been contextualized by the most up-to-date historiography. This article studies the academic treatment that these Rogets have had in the Spanish historical literature on science and technology, as well as in the international arena, with the aim of understanding and exposing in a comparative way the historical construction of the Rogets and the origins of the telescope in Spain, from de end of 19th century to the present, as well as the new results on these artisans and the multiple technical, mathematical and socioeconomic origins of the telescope.