Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence (29 February 1804 – 27 March 1879) was a Monegasque-Brazilian painter and inventor, known as the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, three years before Daguerre (but six years after

Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833) was a French inventor and one of the earliest History of photography, pioneers of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving ...

), using the matrix negative/positive, still in use. According to Kossoy, who examined Florence's notes, he referred to his process, in French, as ''photographie'' in 1834, at least four years before

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work. ...

coined the English word ''photography''.

Early life

Hercules Florence was born on 29 February 1804 in

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

s to the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

and already as a 14-year-old boy he worked as a calligrapher and draftsman in

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

, where his parents had been living since 1807. After a period of wandering and working on board of

warships A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is used for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. As well as ...

and merchant ships, Hércules Florence set sail to

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

as a crew member of the French warship ''Marie Thérèze'', arriving in the port of

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

on 1 May 1824, two years after the declaration of independence from

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. He was already an accomplished draftsman and painter with considerable talent and many scientific interests, particularly in the natural sciences and

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

. Soon after his arrival, he got a job in a women's fashion store and then as a lithographer in a bookstore and printing shop, owned by his compatriot Pierre Plancher.

The great expedition

Florence's life changed dramatically when he decided to respond to a newspaper advertisement put by Baron von Langsdorff (1773–1852), the

consul general A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in Brazil, a German-born physician and

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

who was organizing on behalf of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences a scientific expedition to the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

. He was hired as an illustrator and topographic draftsman, together with German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858) and the young French illustrator Adrien Taunay (1803–1828). In the year of 1825 they travelled by sea from Rio to the village of Santos. Florence eventually published his memoirs of the expedition in '' Voyage fluvial du Tieté à l'Amazone''. This expedition lasts from June 1826 to March 1829, when, exhausted, sick, the survivors arrived in Rio, after a large journey in the Paraguay and Amazon Basin.

Shop-keeper and inventor

Soon after the end of the expedition, in 1830, Florence married Maria Angélica de Vasconcellos, the daughter of his acquaintance and benefactor Francisco Álvares Machado, and went to live with her in the city of

Campinas Campinas (, ''Plains'' or ''Meadows'') is a Brazilian Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in São Paulo (state), São Paulo State, part of the country's Southeast Region, Brazil, Southeast Region. According to the 2020 estimate, the city's popul ...

(then named Vila de São Carlos), in the province of

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

. There he became a successful farmer, publisher, and owner of the first printer in the town, and in Campinas, he remained for the next 49 years until his death in 1879. Maria died in 1850; four years later he married Carolina Krug, a German immigrant born in 1828 in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

. Together they founded in 1863 a school for girls, the Florence College, which was moved to Jundiai after Hercule's death. He fathered a total of 20 children, being 13 with Maria Angélica and 7 with Carolina. Soon after settling in Campinas, Hércules Florence began a prolific career as inventor and businessman. During the Langsdorff expedition, he had developed a new system of using

musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

to record the

song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

s of birds and vocalizations of other animals, which he named "zoophonia". Then, in 1830, when he was searching for a simplified way of printing his more than 200 illustrations performed during the Langsdorff Expedition, other than using expensive and time-consuming engravings on wood and metal ( xylography and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

), he invented a new process, similar to the mimeograph, which he named "polygraphia", and began using this commercially in his printing office. As his technique evolved, he was able to combine colors, and to produce uncounterfeitable bank notes. In 1833, with the help of a pharmacist friend, Joaquim Correa de Mello, Florence began to study ways of permanently fixing

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...

images, which he named "photographia". They settled on

silver nitrate Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . It is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides. It was once called ''lunar causti ...

on paper, a combination which had been the subject of experiments by Thomas Wedgwood around the year 1800. Unlike Wedgwood, who was unable to make photographs of real-world scenes with his camera or render the

photogram A photogram is a Photography, photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow im ...

s that he did produce light-fast, Florence's notebooks indicate that he eventually succeeded in doing both. Unfortunately, partly because he never published his invention adequately, partly because he was an obscure inventor living in a remote and undeveloped province, Hércules Florence was never recognized internationally as one of the inventors of photography during his lifetime. He died in

, Brazil. A photographic image of several pharmaceutical flask labels, produced by Hercules Florence in Campinas, Brazil, in 1833 and entitled ''Epréuve Nº2 (photographie)'', currently in the collection of the Moreira Salles Institute (IMS) in São Paulo Brazil, (acquired by the IMS in 2002 from the collection of Pedro Corrêa do Lago), is described by the IMS as the "oldest photographic record existing on the American continent, based on the sensitivity of silver salts to light".
Hercule Florence – Apresentação
. Instituto Moreira Salles. Retrieved Jan. 17, 2018.

Cultural references

A film documentary, featuring Adriana Florence, a grand-grand-granddaughter of Hércules Florence living in Campinas, Brazil, has been made by the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

and retraces part of the Baron von Langsdorff expedition's itinerary. It also visited the St. Petersburg's Langsdorff museum collections. The director was Mauricio Dias.
Tras las Huellas de la Expedición Langsdorff
Discovery Channel in Spanish.

Bibliography

* Florence, Hércules. '' Voyage fluvial du Tieté à l'Amazone'', published in Portuguese as ''Viagem Fluvial do Tietê ao Amazonas''. Hércules Florence, Brazilian edition with translation by Francisco Álvares Machado and Vasconcellos Florence, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, 1977. * Vieillard, J.: ''A Zoophonia de Hercule Florence''. Editora da Universidade de Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, 1993. * William Luret: "Les trois vies d'Hercule Florence", éditions JC Lattès, Paris 2001 * Kossoy, Boris: "Hercules Florence, o pioneiro da fotografia no Brasil",O Estado de S.Paulo, Suplemento Literário,São Paulo,1973. * Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: "Pioneer of photography in Brazil", Image, 20 (1) Rochester, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, March 1977. * Kossoy, Boris: The pioneering photographic work of Hercule Florence, New York/London, Routledge, 2018. * Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: A descoberta isolada da fotografia no Brasil, 3ed., Editora da Universidade de São Paulo - Edusp, São Paulo, 2006 (1st ed. 1977). * Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: La découverte isolée de la photographie au Brésil, Paris, l'Harmattan, 2017. * Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: el descubrimiento aislado de la fotografía, Madrid, Cátedra Ed., 2017. * Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: die entdeckung der fotografie in Brasilien, Vienna, Lit Verlag, 2015. * . * *

References

External links

Dicionário das Artes Visuais
(in Portuguese)
Documents and publications about Hercule Florence
a
Instituto Hercule Florence
s Corisco IHF database {{DEFAULTSORT:Florence, Hercules Brazilian artists Immigrants to Brazil Brazilian inventors Pioneers of photography 1804 births 1879 deaths People from Campinas