Dolfini Teatro Rotondo

Museo del Precinema Collection, Padua, Italy #MPP-001

Italy, late 18^th century

Dimensions:

Lens: ƒ

 

Figure MPP-001.1 – Dolfini Teatro Rotondo
Photo © Ana Mendes.

This is an unusually ornate "optical machine " whose multiple biconvex lenses are meant to enhances the 3D effect of a roll of engraved images.^[xxx] It is included in the Optical Machine Taxonomy.

 

The roll mechanism for changing scenes is rare for European optical machines. Although it was standard in Indian Bioscopes and Iranian Shahr-E Farangs. It would be interesting to see how the original Teatro Rotondo images were arranged: was it a narrative sequence between different locations or a travelling panorama?

 

The box is styled as a neoclassical "theatre-in-the-round." Its original six or seven lenses were arranged in a semi-circle. It would be interesting to see if there were any attempt to invoke viewing-in-the round – perhaps if the image[s] were exhibited on a curve.

 

The elaborate styling is well in excess of what one sees in the finest Mondo Niovos used for street exhibition and is on a par with the ornate tower from the Friggeri palace. This device was housed for "nearly two centuries in the Villa Dolfin-Boldù in Rosà," belonging to the aristocratic Dolfino family. These splendid optical machines are evidence both of the value that the elite placed on such devices in the 18^th century and of the uses of multi-lensed optical machines as indoor entertainment presumably for select guests of the owner.

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Contact: rbantjes@stfx.ca