Ars magna, lucis et umbrae, in decem libros digesta. Quibus admirandae lucis et umbrae in mundo, atque adeò universa natura, vires effectusque.
First edition of the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher’s (1602-80) extraordinary, extensively illustrated work on ‘optics’ in the most capacious sense, which discusses in detail shadow, color, refraction, projection, distortion and luminescence, vision, the eye, illusion, lens, instrumentation, automata, natural wonders, the very nature of images, etc., and also provides early..... More