As soon as his first book was completed Bacon sent it off to the Pope in care of his friend, John of Paris. Unfortunately, Pope Clement IV died within a year of receiving Bacon’s book and no official papal action was taken in connection with his scientific opinions. Bacon continued to teach, study and experiment at Oxford where he held for a time the office of Chancellor. Some say he was eventually imprisoned; the record is not clear.
The most interesting part of Bacon’s work, so far as motion picture prehistory is concerned, is contained in his letter “On the Power of Art and Nature and Magic.” It is in this work that Bacon speaks of the many wonderful devices he knows about and which would be in service in the future. Here we read of self-propelled vehicles, under-water craft, flying machines, gun-powder (the idea of which probably came from the East), lenses, microscopes, telescopes. Bacon claimed that he had seen all these wonderful things with the exception of the flying machine. But even this did not leave him at a loss, for he tells us that he has seen drawings by a man who has it all worked out on paper!
In that book of Bacon there is also the theory of going westward to India—the idea that later resulted in the discovery of America. The idea, therefore, was not original with Christopher Columbus. Bacon deserves great credit, for his views at least had a direct influence. His statements were used without credit by Pierre d’Ailly in his Imago Mundi, published in 1480. We know Columbus consulted this work, for he quoted a passage in his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella when seeking financial support for the voyage. And it was the very passage of Bacon, stolen by d’Ailly, which Columbus used to drive home his arguments with the King and Queen of Spain.
Bacon devoted ten whole years to the study of optics and some of his best work was done in that field. The principal influence on Bacon in this subject was the work of Alhazen, the Arab. The concentration of rays and the principal focus, knowledge necessary for fine camera work, as well as good picture projection, were familiar to Bacon. This was an advance over Euclid, Ptolemy and Alhazen. Bacon recognized that light had a measurable speed. Up to that time most men thought that the speed of light was infinite. (Measurements were not made until the 19th century.) Bacon also studied the optical illusions pertaining to motion and rest, fundamental for the motion picture. He belonged to the school of vision study that believed we see by something shot out from the objects viewed. This is directly opposed to the idea of Lucretius and others who held that something was shot out of the eye to make sight possible. There is no evidence that Bacon actually invented a telescope but he certainly was aware of the principle. He planned a combination of lenses which would bring far things near.
Roger Bacon has often been called the inventor of the camera obscura, or “dark room,” which is the heart of the system for taking and exhibiting pictures. (Illustration facing [page 40].)
However, the original of the modern box pin-hole camera in its simplest form is only a dark room with a very small hole in one wall, and was never actually invented. The phenomenon of an image of what was on the outside appearing upside down in a dark room was surely a natural discovery first observed in the remote past. The “dark room” can easily be considered as a giant box camera with the spectator inside the box. An inverted image of the scene outside appears on the wall or floor with the light coming through a small circular opening, as in a “pin-hole” camera.
Record of the first use of the “dark room” for entertainment or science has been lost in the dim past. As late as 1727 the French Dictionnaire Universel suggested, in desperation, that Solomon himself must have invented the room camera. Until the 13th century, the images in the room camera were faint and upside down because no lens system was used. In ancient days and through the Middle Ages the camera was a wonderful and terrifying thing. The theatre always was some small darkened room. With a brilliant sun and the necessary small hole and a white wall or floor, the outside scene would be projected. Spectators and students certainly were thrilled and awed.
The Romans learned about the camera from the Greeks, who probably had obtained the knowledge from the East where, with brilliant sun in which the best results could be obtained, it is likely the effects were first noticed. Such learned Arabs as Alhazen are believed to have had a knowledge of the use of the room camera, but Alhazen did not leave any good description of it in his writings.
To Bacon must go the credit for the first description of the camera used for scientific purposes. Two Latin manuscripts, attributed to him or one of his pupils, in which the use of the room camera to observe an eclipse is described, have been found in the French National Library. It was pointed out that this method makes it possible for the astronomer to observe the eclipse without endangering his eyesight by staring at the sun.
It is certain Bacon used a mirror-lens device for entertainment and instruction. In his Perspectiva there appears the following passage: