Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen, 1878
JOHANNES KEPLER developed the scientific principles of the camera and its use in astronomy.
But Porta showed himself a real showman by his final word—describing how hunting, battles and other illusions may be made to appear in a room. Here artificial objects and painted scenes were substituted for the natural outdoors as the pictures for the room camera in a method originally suggested by Alberti. Porta said, “Nothing can be more pleasing for important people, dilettants and connoisseurs to behold.”—An early premiere audience of invited guests!
Porta recommended the use of miniature models of animals and natural scenes, the first stage sets for “motion pictures,” with puppet-like characters. He wrote, “Those present in the show-room will behold the trees, animals, hunters and other objects without knowing whether they are true or only illusions.” Porta revealed that he had put on shows of this kind many times for his friends and the illusions of reality were so good that the delighted audience could scarcely be told how the effects were achieved. He also told how the audience could be terrified.
Porta concluded this account with a description of how to use the camera in order to observe an eclipse, something which Bacon or one of his contemporaries had already worked out. Before good instruments were developed, the room camera was an excellent device to save the astronomer’s eyesight and still give him a good view of an eclipse. The giant 200-inch telescope at Palomar in California is closely related to the original use of the camera for astronomical work.
There does not seem to be any evidence that Porta developed a portable camera, the direct ancestor of the modern photographic camera. He also did not appear to have much success with his lenses, as he found the concave mirrors as good as or better than a camera obscura with a lens.
The general subject of the chapter which included the camera was “Herein Are Propounded Burning Glasses” “and the Wonderful Sights to be Seen by Them.” (Recall Archimedes and his Burning Glasses.) Let Porta tell it: “What could be seen more wonderful, than that by reciprocal strokes of reflexion, images should appear outwardly hanging in the air and yet neither the visible object nor the glass seen? that they may seem not to be repercussions of the glasses, but spirits of vain phantasms.”
In a book on refraction, published in 1593, the eye and the camera obscura were compared by Porta. He also covered refraction, vision, the rainbow, prismatic colors (all subjects treated by the early experimenters in optics).
Porta had a great, though mixed, influence. Even in his own mind he did not seem able to decide whether the magic shadows should be used to deceive the public as effects of secret powers or whether they should be used for genuine entertainment and instruction.