Mirrors can be so arranged that, as often as we wish, any object, either in the house or the street, can be made to appear. Anyone looking at the images formed by the mirrors will see something real but when he goes to the place where the object seems to be he will find nothing. For the mirrors are so cleverly arranged in relation to the object that the images appear to be in space, formed there by the union of the visible rays. And the spectators will run to the place of the apparitions where they think the objects actually are, but will find nothing but an illusion of the object.
Bacon’s description is not clear: the effects and not the apparatus are described. The words could apply to a variation of the camera principle but it seems more likely that only a mirror system, related to the modern periscope, was used. The device did not achieve projection in the strict sense. Bacon’s description clearly states that through the use of mirrors objects were made to appear where they were not. In effect, this reminds us of the illusion of the modern motion picture. There are stories that native people when first seeing motion pictures, attempt to run up to the screen and greet the pictures. It is only through experience that they learn the characters are not actually alive on the screen.
Bacon knew that light and shadow instruments were not always used for worthy purposes of entertainment or instruction but were also used to deceive. He vigorously attacked the practices of necromancy—showing the correctness of his position even though in gossip his name has been linked with the “Black Art”, as was Kircher’s four centuries later.
“For there are persons,” Bacon wrote, “who by a swift movement of their limbs or a changing of their voice or by fine instruments or darkness or the cooperation of others produce apparitions, and thus place before mortals marvels which have not the truth of actual existence.” Bacon added that the world was full of such fakers. It is not surprising that those skilled in the black arts tried to use the strange medium of light and shadow to impose upon the ignorant and unwary.
The death of Roger Bacon in 1294 was the passing of one of the greatest men in the history of light and shadow. With him the art-science had reached a point at which magic shadow entertainment devices could be built. Friar Bacon did much more to prepare the way for devices which were not to be perfected for centuries than merely make a contribution to the knowledge of light, lenses and mirrors. He blazed the way for all later experimental scientists. Up to his time emphasis had been placed on theoretical, speculative thinking. Bacon showed that science must be based on practical experimentation as the foundation for its principles.
III
DA VINCI’S CAMERA
Italy of the Renaissance dominates magic shadow development—Leonardo da Vinci describes in detail the camera obscura—Inventions are by Alberti, Maurolico, Cesariano and Cardano.
To the giant of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, must go the credit for being the first to determine and record the principles of the camera obscura, or “dark room”, basic instrument of all photography. Da Vinci lived in a wondrous age. Michelangelo was painting and sculpturing his unparalleled creations. Raphael was at work. The Italians of the Renaissance led the world in a new culture. The torch of learning and art once held high in Greece, then at ancient Rome, later by the Arabs, was carried high in Italy of the late Middle Ages.
Together with the general Renaissance in Italy there was a rebirth of interest in optics and especially light and shadow demonstrations and devices. The new activity had come after a second “dark age” of nearly two centuries, from the time of Roger Bacon to da Vinci. After this “dark age” the room box-camera was “rediscovered” in Italy. Of course, as noted above, since the camera had never been invented in the usual sense of the term, it was not actually “rediscovered” either. It is likely that da Vinci and others received their stimulus in this general subject from Bacon and perhaps Alhazen or Witelo.