Wrote Letter L-182 of 1686-10-30 to Antonio Magliabechi, a cover letter for copies of two of his books
Text of the letter in the original Dutch and in English translation from Alle de Brieven. The Collected Letters at the DBNL - De Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren.
The original manuscript on three pages, written and signed by Leeuwenhoek, is preserved in Florence at the Bibliotheca Nazionale (1883). It was never published in full but is excerpted in Rijnberk's De briefwisseling tusschen Leeuwenhoek en Magliabechi.
Leeuwenhoek was sending two volumes of his letters to Magliabechi and this letter accompanied it, delivered by hand by Daniel Papenbroek.
Looking at the date, Alle de Brieven / Collected Letters speculates that Leeuwenhoek sent Ontledingen en ontdekkingen van het begin der planten in de zaden van boomen (Analyses and discoveries of the beginning of plants in the seeds of trees) and Ontledingen en ontdekkingen, van de cinnaber, van het been en huyd (Analyses and discoveries of the cinnabar, of bone and skin), both published by Boutesteyn. They contained the letters numbered by Leeuwenhoek as Letter 46 through Letter 52.