jan 3, 1645 - Athanasius Kircher and the (pre) Magic Lantern

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Athanasius Kircher's 1645 edition of "Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae" -

First edition of Kircher’s principal contribution to optics, treating light, shadow, colour, refraction, projection, distortion and luminescence, and providing early descriptions of the camera obscura and magic lantern.

“The use of mirrors to project secret messages into dark spaces was taken up in the seventeenth century by Athanasius Kircher, who, though he ridiculed the extravagant claims of Agrippa, described methods for projecting texts using both sunlight and candles, with the aid of both flat and concave mirrors, and a convex lens. Kircher described this art as “Catoptric Steganography”, and if we are to believe that the magic lantern anticipated the slide-show, Kircher’s Catoptric Steganography was the early modern version of the Powerpoint presentation” (Lefèvre, p. 44).

(https://www.sophiararebooks.com/pages/books/4288/athanasius-kircher/ars-magna-lucis-et-umbrae-in-decem-libros-digesta-quibus-admirandae-lucis-et-umbrae-in-mundo-atque)

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