Halloween: Magic Lanterns
The origins of magic lanterns flicker mysteriously across history. Some think that certain written accounts of ancient Egypt allude to the earliest form of magic lanterns. Its ghostly presence seems to haunt Medieval times as well, and 13th-century Franciscan friar Roger Bacon is said to have described its use as an aid in sorcery. Polymath Renaissance artist Benvenuto cellini (goldsmith, soldier, painter, musician, and sculptor -- his Perseus with the Head of Medusa in Florence is most famous) described what may have been a magic lantern when he witnessed a secret ceremony during which images of demons amidst clouds or fog were seen. Magic lanterns more clearly declare themselves in history in 1646, with the publication of Ars Magnas Lucis et Umbrae (the Great Art of Light and Shadow) by Athanasius Kircher, a German priest. Thomas Walgensten, a Danish teacher, made a small career out of giving magic lantern shows to European royalty around the 1660s.
