The Rat Swallower, as performed by Laterna Magica Galantee Show.
The magic lantern or Lanterna Magica was the ancestor of the modern slide projector.
- 1558:Giovanni Battista della Porta describes projection with a lantern in his four volume, latin publication entitled Magiae naturalis, Naples 1558. The etymology of the sobriquet lanterna magica may harken back to this title. China-phile Joseph Needham reports the device may have been first described in China.
- 1658: The description of projection with a lantern is included in the first English language edition of Magiae naturalis which is published with the English title: Natural Magick by John Baptista Porta, A Neopolitane: In Twenty Books: 1 Of the Causes of Wonderful Things 2 Of the Generation of Animals 3 Of the Production of new Plants 4 Of Increasing Household-Stuff 5 Of Changing Metals 6 Of Counterfeiting Gold 7 Of the Wonders of Load-Stone 8 Of Strange Cures 9 Of Beautifying Women 10 Of Distillation 11 Of Perfuming 12 Of Artifical Fires 13 Of Tempering Steel 14 Of Cookery 15 Of Fishing, Fowling and Hunting 16 Of Invisible Writing 17 Of Strange Glasses 18 Of Statick Experiments 19 Of Pneumatic Experiments 20 Of the Chaos Wherein are set forth All the Riches and Delights Of the Natural Sciences.
- 1671: A projecting lantern is described in Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher in 1671. He was describing an already existing device familiar to and employed by the Jesuits since the mid sixteenth century. With an oil lamp and a lens, images painted on glass plates could be projected on to a suitable screen.
- 17th-18th centuries: Physicists develop the use of optics and experiment with the system, improving it over the course of time. The impetus to develop the system was the use it found in phantasmagoria performances, especially those of Étienne-Gaspard Robert.
- 19th century: a thriving trade of itinerant projectionists travels around the United Kingdom with their magic lanterns and a large number of slides to put on shows in towns and villages. Some of the slides came with special effects, by means of extra sections that could slide or rotate across the main plate. One of the most famous of these, very popular with children, was The Rat Swallower, where a series of rats would be seen leaping into a sleeping man's mouth. During the Napoleonic wars, a series was produced of a British ship's encounter with a French navy ship, ending patriotically with the French ship sinking in flames, accompanied by the cheers of the audience.
The invention of photography enabled the inexpensive creation and reproduction of slides, and thereby greatly expanded the repertoire of available images. Slide shows would feature famous landmarks, foreign lands, and personages. Posed photographs were sold in series, telling uplifting stories and moral tales. Though there was a huge market for these lanterns and slides in the 19th century, they eventually fell out of favour after the invention of moving pictures, and the few surviving lanterns and slides are sought-after collector's items.
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