Name of the item: Projector
Date: 19th century
Manufacturer: Royal, París
Material: Wood, metal and glass
Registration number: MG556 / PR. 02
Catalana de Gas Collection
The world of reproducing and taking images has changed a lot over recent centuries. Can you imagine the old photograph and video cameras?
The idea about image capturing and reproducing devices dates back to the Ancient Greeks, when they used to speak about taking pictures with a camera obscura or pinhole. These devices evolved with mathematical, optical and physical studies.
The device in this image is a slide projector, which is also called a dioscope.
These devices developed from the investment in the camera obscura concept. If we are capable of taking images from outside to inside, why can’t we project images from inside to outside?
In 1659, Christiaan Huygens had already written about how to create a machine to project images, but it wasn’t until 1971, when Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) published the manuscript “La gran ciencia de la luz y la oscuridad”, which explained the functioning of what he called the Magic Lantern.
This apparatus consisted of a box containing the glass slide. The slide was combined with light and a set of lenses projected the enlarged image onto the wall.
This type of projector was a propellant for the cinematographic projection devices that were to come later.