Re: medieval photography
eml@gate.net
Thu, 19 Oct 1995 08:53:04 -0400 (EDT)
Allan Janus
>
>
> Well, there was the Cathedrale di camera obscura - Leonardo got hold of
> a disused cathedral and blackened all the stained glass, except for the
> very center of the rose window, which he replaced with a bullseye lens.
> He then covered the alterpiece with plaster. While it was still wet, he
> coated the entire expanse with a solution of lunar caustic. An ingenious
> mechanism removed the lens cap from the front of the cathedral, and the
> exposure of the town square began. Leonardo immediately ran into
> difficulties - the fresco needed to be kept damp with constant
> applications of fresh plaster, which covered up the lunar caustic before
> the exposure - which Leonardo calculated to be 6 months - had
> progressed. Leonardo hired an out-of-work band of German landknechts to
> keep applying the plaster and lunar caustic, but when he fell behind in
> their pay, they looted and pillaged the town. This tragic occurrence,
> coupled with the impossibility of fixing any image and the difficulty of
> making a 65 foot contact print on the wall of a cathedral (hard to get
> the paper - nothing changes) set back the progress of photography for
> another 300 years. Finally, although Leonardo would never admit it,
> there was absolutely no interest in huge photographs of Italian city
> squares - so the wet-piazza process remains relatively unknown to this
> day.
>
> Allan Janus
>
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>
Bravo! Bravo! A magnificent accomplishment! Muenchausen, Barnum,
and even Goebbels himself must be doffing their hats to you in Hell
at this very moment! You, sir, have my profound and undying admiration!
Best Regards,
Edward M. Lukacs, LRPS
Miami, Florida, USA
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