Welcome	About	Introduction	Chapter One beginning of time – 999 AD
Chapter Two 1000 AD – 1399	Chapter Three 1400 – 1599	Chapter Four 1600 – 1649	Chapter Five 1650 – 1699
Chapter Six 1700 – 1749	Chapter Seven 1750 – 1799	Chapter Eight 1800 – 1819	Chapter Nine 1820 – 1829
Chapter Ten 1830 – 1839	Chapter Eleven 1840 – 1849	Chapter Twelve 1850 – 1859	Chapter Thirteen 1860 – 1869
Chapter Fourteen 1870 – 1879	Chapter Fifteen 1880 – 1884	Chapter Sixteen 1885 – 1889	Chapter Seventeen 1890 – 1894
Chapter Eighteen 1895 – 1899	Chapter Nineteen 1900 + post cinema	Chapter Twenty 1911 +	Copyright
HOTDOC Internet Archive Channel	HOTDOC X Channel	HOTDOC You Tube Channel

_{Period: 1600 to 1649}

In chapter three I left off explaining that Della Porta lived during the Scientific Revolution and Reformation in Naples.

His most renowned work was Magia Naturalis, first published in 1558. He explored a wide range of topics like astrology, natural philosophy and optics.

He gave an extensive explanation of darkroom activities and the Camera Obscura Effect.

Many of the most important characters in this story are now revealed as we see how the camera and lantern independently of each other, continue to bind the curiosities into legitimate forms of entertainment as well as aids in art.

Men such as Kepler, Scheiner and Horrocks, working primarily in the study of the heavens, consider the camera’s uses in this and in other disciplines.

This Jesuit scholar, astronomer and assistant to Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) wrote about observing the sun using a room camera similar to the one described by Porta. Kepler described this event in his first published work on astronomy, Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (Supplement To Witelo, Kepler, J., Frankfurt, Germany, 1604, p51).

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The first occurrence of the name “camera obfcura” is also found in this work.

Here, found on page 363 of Johannes Kepler’s Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, we find the earliest documented use of the words “obscura” and “camera.”

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If you’ve ever had the privilege of reading a document that is hundreds of years old, such as one of the many that I will present in this study, you will come across a letter that might be strange to you. It’s called the long s, and it appears directly above on the left. It looks like an f.

Modern readers could mistake the long s for errors or misspellings like Congrefs for Congress or obfcura for obscura. But if you look closely, you’ll see that, in contrast to an f, the character either lacks a crossbar entirely or has only a half crossbar on the left side of the staff. Even though it looks more like an f, the letter is actually just a different lowercase s.

The long s can be traced back to Roman times, when Latin cursive writing tended to use an elongated version of the lowercase s. And there’s a lot more history on the long s, but that’s not our history. Our history is pre cinema. Just remember that if you see what appears like an f and the word doesn’t look right or doesn’t pronounce right, it’s likely an s. Just like obfcura instead of obscura.

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AUTOMATONS OF THE EAST
1603
KARAKURI NINGYO
The Japanese love for automata can be traced back centuries. The first Japanese automatons were created during the Edo Period which was roughly 1603 to 1868. These automatons were called karakuri ningyo (roughly translated as a mechanical doll).

Tanaka Hisashige, a Japanese engineer and creator who established what would become Toshiba in 1875, constructed our modern karakuri, closest to the traditional clockwork automatons, which included the archer.

Japanese karakuri ningyo were composed of wood, string, and cogs. The Japanese also adopted Western clockwork technology for these automata. The most common were the zashiki karakuri, small household robots that provided entertainment. Like serving tea.

Recalling Philon’s mechanism for the maid servant robot, the karakuri was activated by placing a teacup in her hands. The mechanism stops when the cup is taken.

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Here below we see a Japanese automaton karakuri ningyo, firing her bow and arrow at hanging targets which may have been chimes.

Automatons are an important and vital part of the story of how we reached Cinematography in the late 19th century.

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SEE the karakuri ningyo (at the :25 second mark) in action up close along with a myriad of other automatons, at the Museum of Automata in York England. Unfortunately the bricks and mortar are no longer in operation.

C. 1600
STEREOSCOPY
JACOPO CHIMENTI (1554-1640)
Jacopo Chimenti, commonly known as Jacopo d Empoli, was an Italian painter who was born and lived in Florence. While he is well-known in the art world as a painter, his contribution to vision and optics, namely depth perception, is found in a pair of ink-wash sketches of the same figure circa 1600, seen directly below. I have found there to be a controversy around whether or not it is a true Stereoscopic View.

Sir David Brewster proposed in 1860 that the little discrepancies between the two sketches were due to binocular disparities, and that when viewed properly, the images provided a convincing sensation of stereoscopic depth. Brewster depended on the evidence of one witness who had seen the images in the Muse´e Wicar in Lille, France, because he did not have access to the images himself.

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From the article i-PERCEPTION, January-February 2017, called Depth Perception and the History of Three-Dimensional Art: Who Produced the First Stereoscopic Images? by Kevin R. Brooks, Department of Psychology and Perception and Action Research Centre, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

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On the true side of this Stereoscopy controversy, I have seen reports that these images by Chimenti were believed to have been drawn for Giovanni Battista della Porta, for his work De Refractione published 1593. Della Porta was trying to prove the three-dimensional effect visually in this book.

Not that it really matters, but the Empoli sketches are not in De Refractione. READ it here at Google Books.

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Many other authorities beyond Brewster have not all agreed that these Chimenti sketches are true Stereograms. I am one of those.

Simply by looking at them you can see they are two separate drawings that look different. As I will be presenting much on Stereoscopy in the coming chapters, I included the doubtful Chimenti sketches because Stereoviews and the many other names they have been given, are a simply fascinating focus of pre cinema.

1607
JOHANNES KEPLER (1571-1630)
Kepler uses the Camera Obscura to try and observe the transit of Mercury on 28 May which he had predicted. No record or description exists of this transit because what Kepler saw was a sunspot.

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1609
Kepler’s use of the telescope was the foundation for his Dioptrice (Concerning Lenses), Kepler, J., Augsburg, Germany, 1611, chapter XLIII, p16 which suggested improvements to the room camera using a lens.

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In Kepler’s Dioptrice he talks of the image in the room being improved if a lens is used which would invert the image. Kepler also mentions amplifying the projection as an advantage. Dioptrice (Concerning Lenses) was first published in 1609.

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1610
CHRISTOPHER SCHEINER (1575 – 1650)
This German Jesuit and pupil of Kircher designed and built what he called his “Pantograph” or, device for making optical copies. He illustrated this instrument seen directly below, in his Rosa Ursina Sive Sol (Scheiner, C., Bracciano, Italy, 1630, Book II, chapter 8, p107, and plate). 

The next year he would observe sunspots. In the image directly above, the viewer is on the far side of the camera and has his head inserted in the device, and completing the drawing.

The telescopic lens mounted in the front of the box (camera), can be seen extending out the window. The image of the sun, and sunspots were projected on the rear screen within the framework which was covered with material. It is believed the device may have been twenty-two feet long.

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The sun as we see it. Using a Camera Obscura with a telescopic lens, Scheiner was able to see such clarity on the surface of the sun (left image).

Look at each individual flame he saw 414 years ago (as of 2024) compared to what we see today.

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This Pantograph was designed and built by Christopher Scheiner for making his optical copies of sunspots in 1610.

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1611 
JOHANNES KEPLER (1571 – 1630)
Kepler’s portable Camera Obscura in the shape of a tent is described in a paper, Reliquiae Wottonianae (1st edition, London, 1651, p413) by Sir Henry Wotton, to lord Francis Bacon.

This is one of the earliest English language descriptions given to the Camera Obscura. In the paper, Wotton tells of Kepler’s tent “which can be moved about, totally closed, and dark with a small hole about an inch and a half in diameter.”

This description comes with no illustration, and thirty-five years later Kircher will speak of a similar apparatus. 

Kepler’s tent may have looked something like this engraving seen immediately above which is taken from an 1876 English encyclopedia by Adolphe Ganot (1804-1887) who was a French teacher of physics whose textbooks were very popular in Europe during the 2nd half of the 19th century. Henry Wotton described a portable tent camera obscura of Kepler’s in 1651.

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The Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) illustrated Opticorum Libri Sex for D’Aguilon. Immediately below is Reuben’s illustration depicting D’Aguilon’s vision of how Stereoscopic Projection worked.

Here below is another illustration by Rubens for Opticorum Libri Sex demonstrating how the projection is computed.

The Opticorum volumes written by Francois d’Aguilon establish a primacy and attest to Rubens’ intriguing engagement with the subject matter.

Printed in 1613 and worked on since at least 1606, the volume appears to be the first for which Rubens designed both the frontispiece and the decorative cartoons. It also appears that Rubens insisted heavily on collaborating on this project due to his keen interest in optics.

Below, dissecting an eyeball, engraving by Rubens, from Opticorum Libri Sex, 1613, section one page one. It appears the victim or corpse, was a Cyclops. READ Opticorum Libri Sex here at Internet Archive.

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Referring to Angelo Sala and the darkening of silver salts, we see below from The History of Photography – From the Camera Obscura to The Beginning of The Modern Era, by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, (Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, p30) Gernsheim’s research into the matter;

In 1647 Sala publishes the first of two editions (2nd in 1682) of his Opera Medica Chimicae in which he tells of the invention of his caustic stone or hollenstein by smelting silver nitrate. More on this later. Stay tuned.

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Here are Scheiner’s four different representations from Oculus of the room-type Camera Obscura. In the top right he shows us how the use of a second lens in the aperture can erect the image to the upright state.

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Drebbel improves on the lenses of telescopes, microscopes, the Camera Obscura, and the Lanterna Magica. His development of his precision lens-grinding machine may have prompted Christiaan Huygens to say the following about the work of Drebbel;

In thirty-five years, I have never seen anything on this standing viewer tube.

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1622
Here, in a letter from brother Constantijn Huygens in 1622 (letter dated 17 March) who had acquired a portable Camera Obscura from Drebbel. Huygens wrote:

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A little later, on 13 April 1622, Constanijn Huygens adds that “other instrument” was Drebbel’s Magic Lantern:

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A few pages further on in the 13 April 1622 letter, Constantijn Huygens proceeds to return to the Camera Obscura of Drebbel’s:

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1608
And even before this, in a letter Drebbel wrote to his acquaintance in Alkmaar, Holland, Ysbrandt van Rietwyck in1608, Drebbel described a demonstration where he transformed his appearance using his optical devices or as Tierre states, his “camera magica.”

He says that he could make himself appear under all sorts of guises by its means;

This account by Tierre highlights the visual impact of his inventions but does not include any visual representations created by Drebbel himself. [Gerrit Tierie, Cornelius Drebbel (1572–1633), 1932, pp49,50]. That passage has also been quoted in more recent accounts (Tom Shachtman, Absolute Zero; Encyclopedia.com entry on Drebbel; and various JSTOR studies).

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1622
In a private discourse written in 1622 (possibly to his brother Ludwig), Constantijn Huygens Jr. writes that “the art of painting is dead” and exclaims the beauty of the Camera Obscura image.

Here is a nine part short series on The Camera and Art I first presented on my X account Pre Cinema History @RealPreCinema in 2020.

This law, which was independently considered about 600 years earlier by Ibn Sahl, was not published during Snell’s lifetime and only gained widespread recognition after Christiaan Huygens detailed his findings in 1703.

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Dioptrics is the branch of geometrical optics concerned with the formation of images through a lens

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SEE a short bio on Snell.
N.B. This video incorrectly shows images of Johannes Kepler beginning at the :22 mark, instead of Snell. Otherwise, it’s very good. Obviously an AI voice.

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Marolois fled from France with his protestant father to the Netherlands, where he also served Maurits. With his book La Perspective contenant la theorie et la practique d’icelle in 1614, he became one of the most widely read Dutch perspectivists, thanks in part to its vibrant and educational illustrations. 

By that time, his works had been translated into Latin, Dutch, and German.

^{– Otto B. Wiersma}

1630
CORNELIUS (JACOBSZOON) DREBBEL (1572-1633)
Returning to my look at pre cinema history, Drebbel in 1630 spoke of the Camera Obscura and helped in the development of the Magic Lantern, likely alongside Kircher.

Drebbel is very likely to have been the inventor of the Magic Lantern, if that can be said, and I think it can be, in that Drebbel is well documented as having a hand in it’s development and also in presenting it to other serious players in the story, such as Christiaan Huygens.

Drebbel’s work in the matter all transpired at least sixteen years before the Ars Magna dissertation. However for a variety of reasons, Athanasius Kircher is the name synonymous with it’s existence.

Kircher plays a more prominent role in this study for the simple reason he published and promoted more on the lantern than did Drebbel. And, there is also the possibility and I think it’s a strong one, that the submarine over-shadowed the lantern over several centuries.

1631
PIERRE GASSENDI (PETRO GASSENDRO) (1592-1655)
This astronomer uses the Camera Obscura to observe the transit of Mercury across the sun and describes it in his Institutio Astronomica (Gassendro, Petro, Paris, France, 1647) below.

Gassendi’s interest in observation prompted him to use the Camera Obscura to measure changes in the Moon’s apparent diameter as a function of its orbit around the Earth and the apparent diameter of the Sun.

Once again, it is amazing what sciences the Camera Obscura has been used in besides optics.

Pictured below from Institutio Astronomica (Gassendro, Petro, Paris, France, 1647) on pp140 and 141 showing the changes in the Moon’s diameter as a function of its orbit around the Earth, thanks to the Camera Obscura.

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Leucheron’s illustration accompanying the description is a reproduction from Scheiner’s Oculus of 1619 and clearly shows the use of the second lens in order to erect the image.

Perhaps as a joke or social comment, Leucheron presented the illustration upside down.

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N.B.
I have seen reports that a different person named Van Etten wrote Recreations Mathematiques. I have also seen reports that Van Etten was simply a pseudonym for Jean Leucheron. The Title Page for the 1653 edition of Recreations Mathematiques contains neither name.

1634
JOHN BATE flourished between 1626 and 1635
Bate describes the Dadaeleum and Zoetrope with illustration in his Mysteries of Nature and Art (Bate, John, London, 1634, book four, p29). The work of Bate was an inspiration to Issac Newton. John Bate was a writer of popular science and mechanical amusements, not a trained scientist.

His book was a kind of how-to manual for mechanical tricks, fireworks, waterworks, drawing, and optical curiosities. It was published in London in 1634, with a second edition in 1635. It’s usually cited as one of the earliest English-language sources to describe philosophical toys. Frontispiece of Mysteries of Nature and Art and his Zoetrope.

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The word Zoetrope wasn’t coined until the 19th century (William George Horner, c. 1834, who called it the Daedaleum). Bate’s version is cruder: the pictures are static figures (like men, animals, or birds) drawn in slightly different postures. When spun and looked at through the slits, the figures appear to move.

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This is nearly two centuries before Horner’s Daedaleum and then Plateau’s Phenakistoscope (1829). Bate’s description shows that the principle of persistence of vision or the newly coined “apparent motion” through interrupted glimpses was conceptually present as early as 1634 in England.

But Bate’s contemporaries likely saw it as a curiosity, not as a serious instrument of science or entertainment. It didn’t catch on, probably because the execution was too crude to give a smooth illusion.

Below John Bates’ Experiments of Motion, with two illustrations, from Mysteries of Nature and Art, contained in four several treatises, p29 1634, monochrome woodblock print, ink on paper.

Bate does not name his machine, but in the final sentence he states; “fo that you would think the immages to bee living creatures by their mocion” in old English. Today we say “so that you would think the images to be living creatures by their motion.”

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Here’s what John Bate described in 1634, as quoted in historical accounts:

“A light Card, with severall images set upon it, fastened on the four spokes of a wheel, which was turned around by heat inside a glass or horn cylinder, so that you would think the images to be living creatures by their motion.” [SIC]

John Bate is a forgotten forerunner of animation devices, bridging the world of fireworks, magic tricks, and optical illusions long before 19th-century optical toys revived the idea.

1635 
ATHANASIUS KIRCHER (1602-1680)
Our first glimpse of Kircher in this look at the origins of Cinematography comes in 1635. He was a scholar at Rome who was promoted to professor of mathematics. Among other optical activities, he observed the sun using the Camera Obscura as others had, and will.

Kircher was diverse in his experimentation’s and studies. A major player in this study, Kircher will return to this story many times. Following the China mission he will begin displaying the Lanterna Magica throughout Europe and writing about it extensively in his many editions of Ars Magna.

Kircher was greatly influenced by the things of the Orient.

1635-1636
REMBRANDT’S BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST
Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast, painted c. 1635 is wonderfully suggested by Research Professor Koen Vermeir, as appearing to be seeing a projected image of the finger of GOD writing on the wall.

The “writing on the wall” described in Daniel Chapter 5 v5-29 appears to be projected from a mirror or lantern, informing King Belshazzar that he has been found wanting. This makes Rembrandt’s painting one of the first Phantasmagoria images from 1635. And of course this event itself comes from Old Testament times.

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Rembrandt didn’t invent cinema, but he devised a visual grammar that inevitably migrated to the screen

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From the Book of Daniel chapter five and specifically verses 5 and 6 we read;

⁵ “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

⁶ Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.”

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To offer a better understanding of the Rembrandt painting I offer the key verses from which his painting is based on.

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Koen Vermeir, an historian of science and culture, has explored how visual technologies and spectacle influenced early modern imagination. His suggestion that Belshazzar’s Feast gives the effect of a projected image (as if the hand of God were projected light) is perceptive.

The supernatural handwriting on the wall could be seen as analogous to projected moving images, a central element of cinema. Although cinema didn’t exist in Rembrandt’s time, there are several ways to understand pre cinema in a broader sense.

Devices like the Camera Obscura, Magic Lanterns, and Shadow Plays are seen as forerunners to cinema. While Rembrandt may have used the Camera Obscura for studies of light, the Magic Lantern, projecting images with light, was first developed around the 1640s, just after this painting.

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It anticipates:
🎞️ The use of light as narrative force
🎞️ A focus on spectatorship and astonishment
🎞️ The idea of divine or ghostly projection, a recurring trope in early cinema (e.g., Méliès)

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Belshazzar’s Feast doesn’t use projection or motion, but it resonates powerfully with the spirit of cinema. It functions as a kind of visual proto cinema, capturing suspense, light effects, and an audience (in the painting) reacting to an ethereal image.

It’s not a cinema precursor in the mechanical sense, but definitely in the narrative and visual language of cinematic thought. This kind of visual storytelling—frozen drama, chiaroscuro lighting, supernatural appearances—echoes across early cinema and beyond.

Rembrandt’s divine finger is light manifesting as presence, a luminous message that terrifies its witnesses. This links directly to how early horror and fantasy films used projection and light to summon the supernatural.

A fine example of this is Georges Méliès The Haunted Castle (1896);

🎞️ Méliès used light tricks, double exposure, and sudden appearances of ghosts or devils as a spectacle
🎞️ Like Rembrandt, he stages the supernatural as visual shock, emerging out of darkness, shocking the characters who turn to face something just revealed
🎞️ The framing of Méliès’s scenes often mimics a theatrical proscenium, as Rembrandt does with the banquet hall

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In Belshazzar’s Feast, the drama is not the writing itself but the reaction to the writing. Faces turning, hands raised, eyes bulging. This technique, showing spectators reacting to the spectacle is core to cinematic storytelling. An example is Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925);

🎞️ The Odessa Steps sequence focuses intensely on the reaction shots of civilians under attack. The horror is communicated through their faces, not just the action
🎞️ Eisenstein, steeped in art history, studied Baroque composition and chiaroscuro. The shock, light, and diagonal motion in Rembrandt’s scene echo the dynamic montage of this sequence

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Rembrandt’s lighting is not just atmospheric—it conveys inner turmoil and fate, very similar to the use of shadows in German Expressionist and film noir traditions.

Example: F.W. Murnau – Faust (1926);

🎞️ In Faust, light becomes symbolic—divine, infernal, psychological. The glowing words in Belshazzar’s Feast are echoed in supernatural writing in smoke, contracts, or burning light in Murnau’s films
🎞️ Rembrandt’s use of deep shadows and spotlighted flesh anticipates the Expressionist style, where shadow mirrors psychological dread

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The hand in Rembrandt’s painting appears suspended in space, luminous, disembodied. This mirrors early cinematic experiments with projected images that had no clear source.

Example: Walter R. Booth – The Mysterious Retort (1906);

🎬 Booth, a magician-turned-filmmaker, used early special effects to show ghostly apparitions and alchemical symbols appearing midair, just like Rembrandt’s disembodied divine hand
🎬 In both cases, the image becomes the event—not just something seen, but something that happens through sight

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Belshazzar’s Feast doesn’t use projection or motion, but it resonates powerfully with the spirit of cinema

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Rembrandt doesn’t just foreshadow cinema technically, he invents a visual grammar of suspense, awe, and psychological tension through light and expression. Filmmakers from Méliès to Murnau, Eisenstein to Griffith, borrowed from the same principles.

Belshazzar’s Feast can be read as a cinematic moment before cinema existed—not a film, but something that understands how light, vision, and time can tell a story. You can clearly see the intense beam of light spotlighting the supernatural writing.

Rembrandt freezes that moment of revelation and terror. Dramatic and bold contrasts, deep shadows, sharp highlights, all focuses our attention exactly where he wants it: on the divine message and the stunned reaction of the onlookers.

Rembrandt didn’t invent cinema but he devised a visual grammar that inevitably migrated to the screen.

Schwenter’s illustration seen here immediately above of his scioptric ball, or as he called it, an “ox-eye lens.”

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He described a setup where a room is closed off except for a single hole fitted with a glass lens, and a white sheet is placed at a distance to capture the light from outside, forming an inverted image. He likened the room to the eye, the hole to the pupil, the lens to the crystalline humor (the eye’s lens), and the sheet to the retina.

This analogy emphasized that vision results from light entering through a small aperture and forming an image on a surface, similar to how light projects images in a Camera Obscura.

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AN EXPERIMENT NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART
To illustrate his theory, Descartes proposed a striking experiment: take the eye of a recently deceased person (or, if unavailable, an ox or another large animal), remove the membranes at the back to expose the retina, and place the eye in the hole of a Camera Obscura.

By scraping away the flesh until the retina is visible, one could observe the inverted image of external objects projected onto the retina. This experiment aimed to show that the eye operates as an optical instrument, with the retina acting as a screen where light forms an inverted image, following principles established by Johannes Kepler, who localized sensory images on the retina rather than the lens.

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Descartes argued that vision is a physical process, not dependent on Aristotelian “intentional species” (immaterial forms transmitted from objects to the eye which I have spoken on). He claimed that light rays from objects enter the eye through the pupil, are refracted by the lens, and project an inverted image on the retina, which the optic nerve then conveys to the brain.

He clarified that the mind does not directly perceive the retinal image as if there were “other eyes in our brain.” Instead, the brain interprets the patterns of light on the retina to form a coherent perception, emphasizing a separation between physical optics and cognitive processing.

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Descartes’ use of the Camera Obscura extended beyond optics to philosophical ideas about perception and knowledge. The Camera Obscura became a metaphor for the mind as an isolated observer, receiving objective representations of the external world while remaining distinct from it.

This aligned with Descartes’ dualistic view of the mind he called res cogitans, as separate from the physical world  he called res extensa. The Camera Obscura’s orderly projection of light rays symbolized the “light of reason” illuminating the mind, contrasting with the potentially overwhelming sensory input of direct sunlight.

On p47 of Descartes book La Dioptrique (1637) we find this illustration showing that the eye works exactly the same as the Camera Obscura, inverting the image in this example.

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Directly below is William Richard Lavender’s 1903 painting showing Horrocks observing the transit of Venus, housed at the Astley Hall Museum.

Here, below is First Observation of a Transit of Venus and was painted by Eyre Crowe in 1639. It is housed at the Walker Art Gallery / National Museums, Liverpool.

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Above is the memorial to Horrocks which is in Westminster Abbey, London. I have also seen his name spelled Horrox but not often. Horrocks has been referred to by many, as the father of Astronomy. If he is, the Camera Obscura has a lot to do with it.

1640-1644
ATHANASIUS KIRCHER (1602-1680)
Kircher is currently writing his first edition of Ars Magna detailing optics, the Pinhole Image, and the Camera Obscura and will publish it in 1646. He does not speak of the Magic Lantern and will not publish images of it until 1671.

During the four years of writing The Great Light of Art and Shadow, Kircher will put on slide shows with his brand new Lantern, of his participation in the China Mission throughout much of Europe.

Directly below is what I believe is very likely the most well-known and famous picture of a Camera Obscura. It is a room sized double-box Camera-within-a-camera Obscura published in 1646 and is found on page 806 of Ars Magna lucis et Umbrae right here. 

In his 2nd edition published in Amsterdam in 1671 by Johann Jansson, Kircher will offer great insight into the magnification and projection from his Lanterna Magica. It will be a wonderful glimpse into the new model of Magic Lanterns for the future. Highly advanced over Fontana’s model of 1420.

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Here from The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern Manual by Expert, published by E. A. Beckett, London, 1893, our Expert puts it all into perspective on page one.

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From Kircher’s Ars Magna in 1646 we see many illustrations of Pinhole Images and the linearity of light rays. Here is one below on page 129 showing a three-level camera each with their own separate images seen on the interior wall of each level.

Each image is identifiable as upside vs. downside for the purpose of the illustration. SEE it here.

An example of the inverted image through a Pinhole using the sun and moon in Ars Magna lucis et umbrae on p471 immediately below. SEE it here.

If cameras, lanterns and Pinhole Images weren’t enough, here from Phonurgia Nova (New Science of Sound) by Kircher in 1673 is the earliest known book about the science of acoustics. It included a look at a 17th century hearing aid seen on the left below, and and a very conspicuous eavesdropping device on the right.

The image on the right is from a different scan, and shows three ways the eavesdropping device could be used throughout a building. Big brother in 1673.

1640
GIVING LIFE AND SPIRIT TO THE FIGURES IN THE LANTHORN
GABRIEL DE MAGALHÃES (1610-1677)
According to this Portuguese Missionary, accounts of the usage of Chinese Lanterns while on his China mission, were “fairly persuasive.” This is recorded in his monumental work Nouvelle Relation de la Chine, contenant la description des particularitez les plus considerables de ce grand empire, published in 1688. Magalhães wrote it in Portuguese as Doze excellencias da China.

Translated into French and then English, we call it A New History of China.

So incredible are these writings from 1688, that one would come away believing that living pictures existed inside a Chinese Lantern. And these are not the kind that float upwards likely never to be seen again, although heat convection is the propellant that gives life, spirit and illumination to the Lanthorns I am talking about here.

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From page 104 of his 1688 mission report on “that Vast Empire,” (A New History of China, Gabriel de Magalhães, 1688, pp104-109), Magalhães tells us of one particular element of the arts pertaining to pre cinema that when I first read it, sent shivers up my spine;

“Among the Festivals of the Chinese one of those which they celebrate with most joy and solemnity is the Fifteenth Day of the first Moon of their Year. That day they kindle so many Bonfires, and light up so many Lanthorns, that if the whole. Empire yere to be seen at one time from the top of some high Mountain, You would believe it all in a Blaze like some vast Fire-work.” [all sic]

And Magalhães wasn’t talking about the lanterns during the still-happening Spring Lantern Festival held throughout the country on the fifteenth day of the first month of each year. He was referring to the Lanterns from the east that held living pictures inside them, the Chinese Lanthorns that the Eastern scholar Joseph Needham also reported on, and which I have posted on several times over the years on X.

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After explaining the size and cost of many of these Lanterns, Magalhães goes on…  “They are twenty Cubits and sometimes more in; Diametre and the Lamps and Candles of which there are an infinite number in every Lanthorn, which art intermixed and placed within so artificially and agreeably that the smoke Gives life and spirit to the figures in the Lanthorn which Art has so contrived that they seem to walk, turn about, ascend and descend. “ [all sic]

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1642
PROJECTING CLOCKS ONTO WALLS
MARIO BETTINI (c. 1582/1584-1657)
Bettini attempted to use a giant convex lens to amplify the light of a candle to illuminate a tower clock at night, projecting its image onto a wall. He described this concept in his encyclopedic work, Apiaria Universae Philosophiae Mathematicae which means Beehives of all Mathematical Philosophy.

The figure below (‘Apiaria …..’ 1642, VI, p27) shows the experiment as imagined by Bettini.

This was a theoretical experiment and a very early exploration of projection technology, which he illustrated in his book. His work was later praised by other prominent scientists of the time, such as Athanasius Kircher.

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World renowned photographer Nicola Severino accidentally stumbled on extensive chapters devoted to experimental studies on sundials by Bettini from 1642 which included the tower clock idea. Severino published this finding in 2009 online HERE titled La Gnomonica di Mario Bettini.

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1642
GOBLET-SHAPED CAMERA OBSCURA
PIERRE HÉRIGONE (1580-1643)
Hérigone, also known by his Latinized name Petrus Herigonius, was a French mathematician and astronomer of Basque origin who spent most of his life teaching in Paris. Hérigone, possibly a pseudonym for Baron Clément Cyriaque de Mangin (who may also have used the pseudonym Denis Henrion), was a member of the Académie de Mersenne and served on scientific committees, including one in 1634 evaluating Jean-Baptiste Morin’s method for determining longitude using the Moon’s motion. In his Supplementum Cursus Mathematici (chapter six, p113) Herigone describes a Camera Obscura in the form of a goblet.

The drinker could keep tabs on his guests without their knowledge. Herigone did not draw his goblet, he only described it. However, Zahn did as I’m showing below.

The six-volume Cursus mathematicus, nova, brevi, et clara methodo demonstratus, or, to give it it’s French title, Cours mathematique, demonstre d’une nouvelle, briefve, et claire methode, was published between 1634 and 1642.

In reality, when the sixth edition was produced in 1644, the leftover copies of the first five volumes were republished with new title pages. 

This was a fictional second edition, as it was made up of unsold and rebound copies of the first edition books. The publication was an elementary mathematics compendium written in both French and Latin.

This work is where Hérigone describes his Camera Obscura in the form of a goblet that was built so that one could spy on others at the table while drinking from the cup. It has a clever optical setup with a mirror, but it looks to have been made just for fun.

This made it suitable for discreet observations, possibly for more clandestine uses, such as surveillance, which aligns with Hérigone’s known interest in practical and playful applications of optics.

_{Slideshow HOTDOC}

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Essentially, it’s a technique where information is concealed through the clever use of mirrors and light projection, making the hidden message visible only under specific viewing conditions or with a particular setup.

Catoptric Steganography therefore, is a method of hidden writing or secret communication using mirrors or reflective surfaces. In simple terms, catoptric comes from the word catoptrics, which is the study of mirrors and reflections.

So, Catoptric Steganography means hiding messages in a way that only becomes visible through reflections.

SEE a parchment scan of Kircher’s Catoptric Theatre here at Internet Archive.

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If the Magic Lantern prefigures the slide show, Catoptric Steganography was the early modern equivalent of some of today’s computer software languages. It was an early form of projection technology, akin to an early MS PowerPoint presentation, designed to create astonishing visual effects that could convey secret information.

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Steganography is the writing of a concealed message in a way that no one except user/sender is aware. Today the scripting language PHP in web development keeps clients/users from knowing what is happening behind the scene.

The same idea as Kirchers Catoptric Steganography.

It started in the 17th century with Kircher pioneering the use of mirrors to transmit secret messages into dark places using reflected light and mirrors. I will have more to say about this topic in the future. Stay tuned. Today it’s computer codes. What might tomorrow hold?

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These scientific etchings you see directly above are pages 686 on the left and 776 on the right. They are from Athanasius Kircher’s Ars magna Lucis et Umbrae’s second edition published in 1671.

The use of mirrors to project text into dark spaces was picked up by Kircher in the 17th century, who while making light of Agrippa’s over-the-top claims, described ways for projecting imagery and text using both sunlight and candles, as well as a variety of mirrors.

The first edition from 1646 known rarely as Kircher’s Encyclopaedia of Optics, was published by Ludovico Girgnani for Hermann Scheus. The work includes some of the earliest microscope observations, predating Hooke and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) of whom I will be talking about in future chapters.

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SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING
Steganography is relatively simple to construct but difficult to detect, which is why threat actors employ it to spread malware, avoid detection, and maintain persistence. Steganography is a millennia-old idea that entails concealing a secret message within a seemingly innocuous file.

The first commercials urging moviegoers to purchase popcorn and Coca-Cola were inter-cut into movie theatre film strips in 1957, and viewers did just that. The era of subliminal messaging in entertainment began, and it has since been employed as a running joke in films like Fight Club or as a sincere effort to sway viewers without their knowledge. _{– Screen Rant}

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The use of mirrors to project secret messages into dark spaces was picked up by Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century, who, while making light of Agrippa’s over-the-top claims, described ways for projecting imagery and text using both sunlight and candles, as well as flat and concave mirrors and a convex lens.

Kircher called this “Catoptric Steganography,” and if the Magic Lantern as I said, foreshadowed the slide-show, then Kircher’s Catoptric Steganography was the early equivalent of the Zoom presentation.

Today, we know it as malicious malware, ransomware and any virus. Minus the mirror(s).

Kircher also depicted the Camera Obscura and the Magic Lantern in Ars Magna. These were the forerunners to the film camera and the motion picture projector respectively.

Kircher was fascinated by natural magic and odd and unexplained phenomenon especially anything to do with optics, which led to an interest in the Camera Obscura.

Author and historian John Hammond emphasized the technical significance of Kircher’s contributions to the advancement of both instrument’s designs.

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1642
MARIO BETTINUS [BETTINI] (1582-1657)
Mario Bettini, also known as Marius Bettinus, was an Italian Jesuit priest, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, and poet born in Bologna. From all indications, Bettini appears to have projected movement in 1642 when he wrote and illustrated it using a ‘Pinhole wall’ that had 12 holes in it, in his book Apiaria universae philosophiae mathematicae.

Specifically, in Apiarium Undecimum (the eleventh section of the work), Bettini discusses a wall with 12 pinholes arranged to project light, likely as part of his exploration of optics and light projection. This setup was used to demonstrate principles of light behavior, possibly related to the Camera Obscura or similar optical phenomena, which were of great interest in the 17th century.

The exact details, such as the arrangement of the holes or the specific experiment, are not fully elaborated in available sources, but it reflects his fascination with visual and mathematical phenomena, often inspired by natural structures like honeycombs or spider webs.

Bettini’s work often combined mathematical theory with practical applications, and the pinhole wall was an example to illustrate how light passing through multiple apertures could create patterns or projections, aligning with his broader investigations into geometry and optics.

Compare the two images. Now fast forward 255 years to 1896 to see Edison’s Projecting Kinetoscope of marching soldiers on a screen in a converted music hall like Koster and Bials on the right.

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Bettini’s approach often combined theoretical mathematics with practical demonstrations, and this setup may have been used to explore geometric properties of light or to create visual effects, such as projecting images or studying light interference.

His work draws parallels with contemporaries like Athanasius Kircher, who also investigated optical devices like the Magic Lantern. Among the many instruments and concepts Bettini explored, the Perspectograph or Prospettographo during his time, is a significant example of his engagement with optical and geometric devices, reflecting his interest in perspective and visual representation, which all lead down the many years and centuries, to cinematography.

The Perspectograph, as described in Bettini’s Apiaria, is an optical drawing instrument designed to aid in the accurate rendering of objects in perspective, a critical technique in art and architecture during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

It was essentially a tool to project or trace the outlines of objects onto a surface, ensuring correct proportions and perspective. Bettini’s work on this device is found within his broader discussions of optics, particularly in the sections of his Apiaria dealing with perspective and light projection, such as in Apiarium Undecimum, where he explores optical phenomena like pinhole projections.

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Bettini’s Perspectograph was influenced by earlier and contemporary developments in perspective drawing. For example, Albrecht Dürer’s Underweysung der Messung (1525) of whom I have spoken about, described similar devices, and later, Athanasius Kircher’s work on optical instruments like the Magic Lantern shared similarities.

Bettini’s Jesuit training and exposure to the scientific culture of the time, including debates over Galileo’s telescopic observations, likely shaped his interest in such tools. Here are two illustrations by Mario Bettini of the Pinhole Image from Apiaria universae philosophiae mathematicae Volume 2, 1642, Apiar VIII, pp48, 50.

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THE FIRST CAMERAS WERE THE SIZE OF ROOMS
In the beginning, when the Pinhole Image was first seen (likely in the cave), the Camera Obscura Room could be any size. The name comes from the Latin, ‘dark room or dark chamber.’ Athanasius Kircher in 1646 illustrates a pretty large one for us (Ars Magna Lucis et Umbra, Kircher, Rome, 1646, 1st edition, plate 28, page 806 of volume 10). In fact, it’s a two-in-one camera.

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The Camera Obscura image seen here from Kircher’s ‘The Great Art of Light and Shadow’ 1646 can be viewed here. We can see the room-within-the-room with two pinholes on the right and left walls. The artist has finished one image on the left, and is completing his second on the right.

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Therefore, the smart phone you have is absolutely no different than the Camera Obscura Room Kircher illustrated for us. Here’s why; The light-tight chamber in your phone is the sealed cavity behind the lens, containing the image sensor.

No light enters except what passes through the lens system. The projection surface instead of a wall is focused directly onto the CMOS or CCD sensor, which converts light into electronic signals. The sensor is effectively the screen in the dark room. And extremely tiny. It needs isolation from stray light, which is why it sits in a black, carefully baffled housing inside your phone.

So, the “dark chamber” hasn’t disappeared in modern digital photography because the science of physics tells us it will always be there. It’s just miniaturized and built into the phone’s camera module. Without that enclosed light-tight space, the sensor would be overwhelmed by uncontrolled light.

In short: in a smartphone or any digital camera, the camera module itself IS the Camera Obscura, and the sensor plane is the projection surface.

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The most mentioned name in reference to the Magic Lantern, Kircher describes it in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbra (The Great Art of Light and Shadow, Kircher, A., 1st edition volume 10, Rome, Italy, 1646) and illustrates a double Camera Obscura of room size on plate twenty-eight of volume ten, in section two.

In the last volume he explains the Magic Lantern and it’s use.

Ars Magna included a fine illustration of the Camera Obscura. Originally, Camera Obscuras were the size of rooms and thus take their name from the Latin dark room or dark chamber. In this image we can see the ‘room within the room’ with appropriate pinholes where the light image strikes the interior wall where the artist can then render their drawing.

The inner walls were semi-transparent, allowing the artist to see his image before he draws it. The ‘F’ and yellow arrow identifies a trap door that was said to be in the floor for entry and exit. Personally I wonder how this could be if the room sat on the ground.

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Here, Kircher describes this light-enhancing apparatus made for the Magic Lantern, how to build it, and how it works;

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Below is the full page and close up of the original Athanasius Kircher device or way of enhancing the light.

Found in his Ars Magna lucis et umbrae 1st edition, Rome, 1646 on p887.

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1646
CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS (1629-1695)
What I believe to be the first documented appearance of the Magic Lantern is that of Fontana in 1420 which I showed in chapter two. However, the first hint of a mindfulness of what the Magic Lantern was capable of, may be found in Huygens dancing skeletons of 1659.

Huygens stated that his illustration of the ten skeletons were to be “representations by convex glasses in a lantern.”

Motion in a quasi-sequential series was purposed by Huygens as we see with the tossing of a skull, and the waving of his arms. Pictured is Huygen’s ten actors.

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Jan van Musschenbroek built this Magic Lantern for Willem Jacob Gravesande who I will be presenting later. After Gravesande’s death in 1742, Leiden University bought his collection of scientific instruments. 

What the lantern represented for Huygens was an apparatus that would display images that moved. You have seen this lantern before, if you follow it’s history.

This lantern seen above, is the very one. It’s seen here in Willem Gravesande’s 1742 edition called Physices Elementa Mathematica and manufactured by Jan van Musschenbroek. SEE it here on page 878 at Internet Archive.

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FAST FORWARD TO 1659
CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS (1629-1695)
The earliest reference by Huygens to a projection lantern is found in his volumes ‘Oevres completes,’ vol. XXII published in 1659. He calls it “la laterne magique.”
SEE it here at Internet Archive

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On page 197 of the same document, we learn more about Huygens’ relationship with the Magic Lantern. Showing his now-famous skeletons, he writes “Pour des répresentation par le moyen de verres convexes à la lampe” interpreted as “To show by means of convex glasses on the lamp.”

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Huygens likely saw and probably had, a copy of Athanasius Kircher’s The Great Art of Light and Shadow from 1646. The first edition had illustrations of the Double Pinhole Camera Room, but no Magic Lantern as the 1671 edition had.

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As historian and collector extraordinaire Henc de Roo at de Luikerwaal states; “Probably this is the lantern he used to project the images of the skeletons.”

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Huygens once had one of his Magic Lanterns dismantled en-route by his brother Lodewijk so it wouldn’t work when it reached its destination and be known by all of Europe as one of his. This was the lantern his father had asked for. He sent the lantern but told Lodewijk;

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The idea that Huygens created a projection lantern by 1659 strongly suggests that;

“He must be considered to be the true inventor, though Huygens himself always tried to conceal the fact that the invention was his.” – Historian Henc R. A. de Roo, the Netherlands.

1647
POLEMOSCOPE
JOHANNES HEVELIUS (1611–1687)
Hevelius was a Polish astronomer, instrument maker, and cartographer, often called the founder of lunar topography. Born in Gdańsk, he studied law but pursued astronomy, establishing a private observatory in his home.

Hevelius meticulously observed and mapped the Moon, producing detailed selenographic charts, including his influential Selenographia (1647), the first comprehensive lunar atlas. He cataloged over 1,500 stars, discovered four comets, and contributed to planetary observations, notably of Saturn and its moons.

Hevelius defined a Periscope-like gizmo that he called a Polemoscope, describing it in his work ‘Selenographia, Sive Lunae Descriptio.’ It had a mirror but was not a camera. Hevelius proposed military applications for it.

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FAST FORWARD TO 1859
M. AUGUSTE CHEVALIER
The Polemoscope, also known as a Polemoscope lens or periscope-like instrument, was a simple monocular or telescopic device designed to allow observation around obstacles or over barriers, such as walls, without direct line-of-sight exposure.

It typically used a combination of lenses and mirrors to redirect light, enabling the viewer to see objects at an angle. A retired military surgeon, Chevalier places a camera on a land-surveyor’s stand, fixing it upon an axis allowing the camera to be turned to different points of the horizon. Pictures are obtained creating a full Panorama.

In 1859 some military engineers made military use of it like a giant Periscope. Pictures below are from A History and Handbook of Photography by Gaston Tissandier, S. Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, London, 1876, p307, figure 76.

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TOP
CHAPTER FIVE

Welcome	About	Introduction	Chapter One beginning of time – 999 AD
Chapter Two 1000 AD – 1399	Chapter Three 1400 – 1599	Chapter Four 1600 – 1649	Chapter Five 1650 – 1699
Chapter Six 1700 – 1749	Chapter Seven 1750 – 1799	Chapter Eight 1800 – 1819	Chapter Nine 1820 – 1829
Chapter Ten 1830 – 1839	Chapter Eleven 1840 – 1849	Chapter Twelve 1850 – 1859	Chapter Thirteen 1860 – 1869
Chapter Fourteen 1870 – 1879	Chapter Fifteen 1880 – 1884	Chapter Sixteen 1885 – 1889	Chapter Seventeen 1890 – 1894
Chapter Eighteen 1895 – 1899	Chapter Nineteen 1900 + post cinema	Chapter Twenty 1911 +	Copyright
HOTDOC Internet Archive Channel	HOTDOC X Channel	HOTDOC You Tube Channel

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