  In the last few years it has been alleged the possible identification of the
sitter in Jusepe de Ribera's Allegory of Sight with the Neapolitan optician
Francesco Fontana (c. 1585-1656), known for contributing to the diffusion of
the Keplerian telescope. The present paper aims to demonstrate the
impossibility of this identification, grounded on the erroneous assumption that
Fontana was already renowned as an optician around the mid-1615s, and, on the
basis of known sources, suggests a more reasonable chronology of his activity,
which postpones the spreading of his fame out of Naples to the end of the next
decade.
