The Magic Lantern
The history of the Magic Lantern goes very much further back than the Victorians. Recent research has indicated that a form of ‘Magic Lantern’ may have existed in the time of Solomon. Aristotle developed the theoretical basis of the science of optics. With Friar Roger Bacon, born in 1214, the art-science of light and shadow reached a point at which magic shadow entertainment devices could be built. Leonardo da Vinci invented the ‘bulls-eye’ lens, a primitive but effective condenser. In the second quarter of the seventeenth century a Jesuit priest, Athanasius Kircher, was credited with the invention of the ‘Magic Lantern’. The chief problem in Kircher’s day was to provide sufficient light. Early illuminants included the sun, candles and oil lamps. Much later limelight and carbon-arc illuminants were introduced, but the final solution arrived several centuries after Kircher with the invention of electric light.
