Читать книгу Magic Shadows. The Story of the Origin of Motion Pictures онлайн

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Now da Vinci’s camera, the original “dark room” camera and progenitor of the modern pin-hole box camera, was ready for showmen to turn it to successful uses. Just after the middle of the 16th century, a young Neapolitan was prepared to spread the knowledge of the sporting use of the device throughout the world.

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Porta, a Neapolitan, blends fancy and showmanship for magic shadow entertainments in the 16th century—Barbaro and Benedetti put a lens in the “pin-hole” camera or camera obscura.

The first contact of the new dramatic art, then being developed in Europe and especially in England, with the magic shadow medium was made by a remarkable Neapolitan, Giovanni Battista della Porta.

Porta, a boy wonder, who would have felt at home in the modern Hollywood, put the room camera to theatrical uses. In a way Porta was both the last of the necromancers, who used lens and mirror devices to deceive, and the first legitimate screen writer and producer of light and shadow plays with true entertainment values.