Hans Lippershey that time he became a master lens grinder and spectacle maker and established a shop. He remained in Middelburg until his death, in September 1619. Hans Lippershey is known for the earliest written record of a refracting telescope, a patent he filed in 1608. His work with optical devices grew out of his work as a spectacle maker, an industry that had started in Venice and Florence in the thirteenth century, and later expanded to the Netherlands and Germany. Lippershey applied to the States General of the Netherlands on 2 October 1608 for a patent for his instrument ""for seeing
Jacob Metius government's support. When Metius perceived that the States General was reluctant to review his claim, he prohibited anyone from seeing his telescope. The States General voted Jacob Metius a small award, although it ended up employing Lippershey to make binocular versions of the telescope. At his death, Metius’ tools were destroyed according to his wishes in order to prevent anyone from claiming the honor of inventing the telescope. There is a claim by Johannes Zachariassen, Zacharias Janssen's son, that Jacob Metius and Cornelis Drebbel bought a telescope from him and his father in 1620 and copied it, although this is