Girolamo CARDANO (1501-1576)

CONSTRAINT : ϕ without fixing the image + immobilised camera obscura.

INVENTION : “Camera obscura cum orbem e vitro”. A glass ball (or bi-convex lens) is squeezed into a venetian blind ; the scene in the street is projected onto the walls of the room-turned-camera-obscura.

WORKS : An infinite number of street scenes of rare frankness and authenticity. All trace of them is lost. (See De Subtilitate, libri xxi, Nuremberg, 1550.) The system was improved by Daniel SCHWENTER, who describes his scioptric ball in Deliciae physico-mathematicae (1636). Oil painting copies of original ϕs include HAUER’s panorama of Nuremberg.