Luca Giamberti wrote to Leeuwenhoek about a gift book from Magliabechi
This letter is known only by reference in a later letter by Leeuwenhoek. It also refers to a lost letter by Leeuwenhoek to Giamberti.
Luca Giamberti was a member of the entourage of Gian Castone De' Medici (1671-1737). During his stay abroad (Düsseldorf and Reichstadt) he corresponded with Magliabechi, inter alia about the lost book for L.
On 2 November 1697, Leeuwenhoek wrote to Antonio Magliabechi about a book that Magliabechi had sent but that had not arrived.
I inform you, Illustrious Sir, that I have duly received your two letters addressed to me and that I learned from one of them that you hahave been pleased to make me happy (quite underservedly) with a book of such importance that scarcely 25 such books are found in the world, and moreover very handsomely bound; and that you entrusted that book to the Very Noble Mr. Luca Giambertius, who, as you thought, had already reached Düsseldorf at that time.
Having been informed of these facts, I wrote to Düsseldorf to this Very Noble Gentleman, requesting him to send the book with which you presented me by a freighter which used to sail from Cologne via Düsseldorf to Dordrecht, a town in Holland, because in that way the Book would no doubt reach me. Hereupon, in a letter of 19 July 1697, the Very Noble and Very Learned Gentleman replied that Mr Lotty, a Physician inbook and the person who was to deliver it; but in vain, for up to the present I have not been granted the least sign of him, which was a great disappointment to me.
