Scientific book

The first edition of this book was in 1558 and resulted in the dissemination of the camera obscura and the consolidation of its technology. The book covered a multitude of topics of what at that time was considered “natural magic”: astrology, astronomy, chemistry, optics, etc. In the fourth volume of this work, dedicated to catoptric experiences (the part of optics that studies the reflection of light), Della Porta, the eminent Italian sage of the sixteenth century, accurately described the camera obscura, bringing together all the studies made by the scientists who preceded him. A new edition was published in 1588, expanded to twenty volumes instead of the four of the first, where he defined the possible uses of the camera obscura, which could not only be used to capture latent images of the real world, but also as a form of entertainment or optical spectacle.