Kircher, with his “hundred arts,” became vir toto orbe celebratissimus—a man well known throughout the world—according to Jerome Langenmantel who edited his autobiography in 1684. However, since his own era Kircher has been relatively unknown.
There was hardly a branch of learning that did not attract Kircher’s attention. He assembled one of the best ethnological collections of his time. He attempted to develop a basic language and was one of the first to make a start towards deciphering hieroglyphics. In the field of magnetism he was a pioneer and in 1632 was one of the first to map compass variation and ocean currents. In medicine Kircher was a proponent of the new and generally disbelieved germ theory of disease, and an experimenter in the use of hypnotism for healing purposes. He contributed much to the early knowledge of volcanoes. As an inventor, Kircher perfected one of the first counting machines, speaking tubes, Aeolian harps and developed the microscope to an enlarging power of 1,000 diameters.
However, despite all his knowledge, his title of “Doctor of a Hundred Arts” and the trouble and fame incidental to the invention of the magic lantern—his least art, or “the hundredth”—Kircher was not prideful of his reputation. He concluded his little autobiography by describing himself as “a poor, humble and unworthy servant of God.” His heart was buried in a shrine to Mary, the Mother of God, which Kircher had constructed on the Sabine Hill in Rome.
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The art-science of projection and the magic lantern were further explained through the publication of three other books which included a description of Kircher’s work and illustrations of his projector systems; namely, George de Valesius’ volume on the Museum of the Roman College in 1678, which pointed out that Kircher had developed magic lanterns using one or more lenses, and that several different models were on display and in use since the time of their invention; Johann Stephan Kesler’s book on Kircher’s experiments published in 1680 and another edition in 1686; and finally there was published in Rome in 1707, a work on the Kircher Museum—the Museum of the Roman College which had by then been given officially the name of its collector. Today only a few small objects remain of Kircher’s original collections. Unfortunately, Kircher’s devices were destroyed shortly after his death.
The museum of Kircher at the Roman College, the first picture theatre in the world, was an amazing place. Every conceivable kind of antiquarian and scientific object was assembled—from Egyptian inscriptions to stuffed animals, fish, rare stones, curiosities from the New Worlds and everything pertaining to the pursuits of the “Doctor of a Hundred Arts.” Any spectator, from one of the eminent Cardinals to a young Roman nobleman and student at the College who was invited to a performance, would certainly have been well prepared for an extraordinary show after looking at the diverse collections at the museum.
In the 17th century there was no doubt as to the identity of the inventor of the magic lantern. Before Kircher’s death in 1680 his magic lantern was widely used in Europe for scientific and entertainment purposes as well as for the art of deception. The question was raised by later writers seeking to claim a national of their own country as the inventor. Kesler wrote in 1680, “In the catoptric art images are exhibited in dark places through the magic lantern which our author (Kircher) invented and which, to his undying memory, he communicated to the world.”
In those days some men liked to keep secret their inventions lest some one else claim the rewards. Two and a half centuries later, Thomas A. Edison sometimes found it better not to take out foreign patents on his inventions because that frequently served only as notice to those who sought to duplicate his work. For this reason Edison did not spend the $150 necessary to obtain foreign patents on his moving picture cameras and viewers.