The megalethoscope is a larger version (''mega''-) of the alethoscope, (Italian: ''alethoscopio'', from the Greek “true”, “exact” and “vision”) which it largely superseded, and both are instruments for viewing single photographs with a
lens
A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...
to enlarge and to create some illusion of
three-dimensionality. They were used to view photographic
albumen prints that were
coloured
Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...
, perforated and mounted on a curved frame. Night effects were achieved when viewing pictures in transmitted light from a fitted oil or kerosine lamp and a daytime version of the same scene was seen when lit by the reflected light from two side mirrors. They are sophisticated versions of the
peep show
A peep show or peepshow is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot.
Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the development of the ci ...
,
and were designed by
Carlo Ponti
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. (11 December 1912 – 9 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema ...
of
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
before 1862.
Lke the similar
graphoscope
A graphoscope was a 19th-century device used in parlors in order to enhance the viewing of photographs
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photogr ...
which descends from the eighteenth century
zograscope
A zograscope is an optical device for magnifying flat pictures that also has the property of enhancing the sense of the depth shown in the picture. It consists of a large magnifying lens through which the picture is viewed. Devices containing onl ...
predating photography'','' these devices were, and are, often confused with the
stereoscope
A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image.
A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that makes the ima ...
which was of a different design and effect. Improvements to the megalethoscope over the alethoscope, mainly the addition of a compound lens, are detailed in ''The Practical Mechanic's Journal'' of 1867.
Invention
Optician, photographer and publisher of views for the tourist and art-connoisseur markets,
Carlo Ponti
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr. (11 December 1912 – 9 January 2007) was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema ...
invented the alethoscope in 1860. He presented the device to the Société française de photographie in 1861, then in April, to the
Istituto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Venice, earning an honourable mention there in May.
He obtained a patent in January 1862 and commenced marketing it and photographs to be viewed using the instrument.
His invention was awarded Grand Prix at the
International Exhibition
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
in London in 1862. The megalethoscope was produced for him by cabinetmaker Demetrio Puppolin, whose name is inscribed on different models. It was a substantial status symbol, an often elaborate item of furniture that only the well-to-do could afford;
some are highly decorated with pearl inlay and marquetry, and they often held collections of photographs in a cabinet beneath.
Description, operation and effect
![Hotel De Ville burning daytime](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Hotel_De_Ville_burning_daytime.jpg)
The megalethoscope was for the viewing of single, usually 25 x 34 cm.,
albumen prints larger than those for the alethoscope. Ponti produced and published his imagery mostly for the tourist market in the waning era of the
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...
, but also for connoisseurs of art and architecture, in large quantities and to an international clientele through outlets in Europe, England and America.
The megalethoscope and the alethoscope are capable of a certain illusion of relief. Photographic views are seen enlarged through a wide, thick
magnifying glass
A magnifying glass is a convex lens that is used to produce a magnified image of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle. A magnifying glass can be used to focus light, such as to concentrate the sun's radiation to crea ...
that creates an illusion of the subjects'
plasticity
Plasticity may refer to:
Science
* Plasticity (physics), in engineering and physics, the propensity of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation under load
* Neuroplasticity, in neuroscience, how entire brain structures, and the brain it ...
,
perspective depth and modelling. The instrument’s arrangement minimises surrounding indicators of depth that would let us know this is a flat picture, and also because the image is magnified to nearer the scale of the real scene the picture is depicting. As the light coming from the lens to the eyes is
collimated
A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no divergence, would not disperse with distance. However, diffraction pr ...
, it confounds
accommodation; the image appears suspended at an indeterminable range. The broad, thick lens could also enhance
depth perception
Depth perception is the ability to perceive distance to objects in the world using the visual system and visual perception. It is a major factor in perceiving the world in three dimensions. Depth perception happens primarily due to stereopsis an ...
by creating
binocular stereopsis, because each eye views the image through a different part of the magnifying glass;
chromatic aberrations
In optics, chromatic aberration (CA), also called chromatic distortion and spherochromatism, is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point. It is caused by dispersion: the refractive index of the lens elements varies with the wave ...
at the edges of the lens may contribute to
chromostereopsis
Chromostereopsis is a visual illusion whereby the impression of depth is conveyed in two-dimensional color images, usually of red–blue or red–green colors, but can also be perceived with red–grey or blue–grey images. Such illusions have ...
; and depth clues in the image, which were usually architectural interiors or exteriors in
perspective, help to create the illusion.
''The Practical Mechanic's Journal'' of 1867 noted minor improvements over the alethoscope that were made to later models of the megalethoscope, but the relative size of the two otherwise similar instruments is their distinguishing difference;
1. The two lenses ne in front of the otherwhich may be removed through the small door for the purpose of cleaning them, instead of one fixed lens;
2. the substitution of several diaphragms, opening on a hinge...so as to inclose iclarge and medium sized photographic views and cartes de visite
The ''carte de visite'' (, visiting card), abbreviated CdV, was a type of small photograph which was patented in Paris by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero. Each photograph was the size of ...
, for the single diaphragm used in the Alethoscope;
3. the method of fixing ordinary portraits and small photographic views.
By these improvements the magnifying of the views is considerably increased; the relief is more developed, but without exaggeration; the defects of sphericity f the lensare reduced to a minimum; greater clearness is obtained; and by the inclosing of the views in a frame, the eye is prevented from wandering to the margin at the expense of the stereoscopic effect.
Each view is so disposed that it may be seen by reflection or as a transparency, and by day or by artificial light. The instrument is first placed on a table in front of a window, and the photographie view is introduced through the aperture... if it be desired to view the object by reflected light, the two reflectors...are opened so as to throw light on the same, but if by transmitted light, the reflectors are closed, the door...opened, and the light at the middle of the aperture passes through the back of the photographic view. Its effects are more striking with artificial light; and a gas burner or petroleum lamp answers the purpose very well.
The observer places himself before the eye-glass ... of the apparatus ... moves forward or draws back the lens, by means of the two lateral handles ... to suit his sight; and according as the photographic view is required to be on the wide or narrow side, the instrument ... is turned a quarter turn from right to left by means of the buttons ... which carry upwards, or to the right, the notch... intended to receive the photographs. In order to prevent the eyes from being strained by the excess of light at the time the transparent views are changed a rough glass is placed between the two lenses when there is no photograph between the eye and the lamp. Two flat bars...sliding in a groove on the internal frame of the door...are provided, which adjust themselves to the size of the smaller views, such as portraits, etc. and ...the size of the diapbragms used should also be proportionate to that of the photographs to be viewed.
The entire unit could be rotated for either horizontal or vertical format images. The
albumen photographs may be either backlit by an internal light source—usually an oil or kerosene lantern—or lit by daylight admitted via a system of opening doors. The plates for some versions of the megalethoscope are curved with slotted wooden braces for optical correction of
lens aberrations, and pinprick perforations and mechanically thinned areas on the albumen prints have been made for viewing the photographic images under reflected and transmitted light to suggest day or night lighting, fantastic effects (''diavoletti'') and to add colours.
A degree of
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
of megalethoscope views was applied to scenes of events, and as a way to re-enact history, such as a daylight view of an empty St Mark's Square that could be transformed with back lighting into a night scene showing illuminations and lively crowds celebrating of the annexation of the Veneto by the rest of Italy.
Another of the transparencies shows the
burning of the Hôtel de Ville, Paris during the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
.
Sets of images take the viewer on a simulated trip along the
Grand Canal at night, a popular Venetian tourist experience. Ponti's success benefitted from his familiarity with, and repetition of, traditional painted views, and his distribution network through commercial studios beyond Venice, including that of
Francis Frith
Francis Frith (also spelled Frances Frith, 7 October 1822 – 25 February 1898) was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom.
Frith was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, attending Quaker schools at Ackwort ...
in the United Kingdom and
Pompeo Pozzi in Milan.
Rights
The advent of the albumen print process in the early 1850s meant that photography became a medium of mass visual communication in the hands of early entrepreneurs and from the mid 1850s onwards who produced semi-industrial quantities of copies of pictures from commissioned photographers, processing thousands of prints a month by hundreds of employees. Ponti photographed, and commissioned others, to produce specially prepared photographs for use in the Megalethoscope, distributing all the imagery with his own stamp, so that attribution is often contended.
Ponti and his one-time collaborator, and later rival, in Venice were two of the well-known suppliers of travel photographs, beside the brothers Alinari in Florence, Giacchino Altobelli in Rome,
Giorgio Sommer
Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914) was one of Europe’s most important and prolific photographers of the 19th century. Active from 1857 to 1888, he produced thousands of images of archeological ruins, landscapes, art objects and portraits.
He was bor ...
in Naples,
Giacomo Brogi
Giacomo Brogi (6 April 1822 – 29 November 1881) was an Italian photographer.
Giacomo Brogi created his first studio in Corso Tintori, in Florence in 1864. He began traveling around Italy and later traveled to the Middle East in 1868 includi ...
and Constantino Brusa in Milano, and the Studio Incorpora in Palermo. Ponti collaborated with Francesco Maria Zinelli and Giuseppe Beniamino Coen to handle the volume of his sale.
Ponti's rights to the alethoscope and megalethoscope lapsed after1866, due to administrative confusion after the after the
Third Italian War of Independence
The Third Italian War of Independence ( it, Terza Guerra d'Indipendenza Italiana) was a war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire fought between June and August 1866. The conflict paralleled the Austro-Prussian War and resulted in ...
, when Venice, along with the rest of the
Veneto
Veneto (, ; vec, Vèneto ) or Venetia is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about five million, ranking fourth in Italy. The region's capital is Venice while the biggest city is Verona.
Veneto was part of the Roman Empire unt ...
, became part of the newly created
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
. Despite Ponte's legal battles between 1868 and 1876 to prevent it, Carlo Naya began to manufacture and sell the Aletoscopio and Megalethoscopio (in some versions labelled a 'graphoscope') which Ponti tried to counter by issuing variations of the instrument under other names including ''Amfoteroscopio, Dioramoscopio, Pontioscopio,'' or ''Cosmorama Fotografico''. Well aware of their market value, Naya counter-sued Ponti for the many views that he had taken and were sold with Ponti's megalethoscope, though many were actually taken by Naya's assistants.
Developments
Megalethoscope prints continued to be produced into the 1890s, and in the twentieth century, simpler, mirrored devices, like the shomescope (1914), snapscope (1925 to 1935), some of them toys, including the reflectoscope (1930s),
were claimed to provide three-dimensional effect from two-dimensional single images.
References
External links
Image of an alethoscope advertisement*
Princeton University Library
Princeton University Library is the main library system of Princeton University. With holdings of more than 7 million books, 6 million microforms, and 48,000 linear feet of manuscripts, it is among the largest libraries in the world by number of ...
'
Megalethoscope
George Eastman House Online Megalethoscope ViewerGeorge Eastman House blog post on the Megalethoscope
{{Authority control
Audiovisual introductions in 1860
Audiovisual introductions in 1861
Precursors of film
Optical devices
3D imaging
Photography equipment
Photography in Italy
19th-century photography
Virtual reality accessories