Re: 1675 spotlight?


"Lawrence Stromski" <a@xxxxx> wrote in message
news:XPWdnQP8rImLFcbeRVnygQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi All,
>
> I'm reading Stephen Jeffreys 'The Libertine' at the moment, Scene Two
> takes place in Dorset Gardens Theatre, London, England, 1675. The stage
> directions make reference to a 'spotlight picking out Elizabeth Barry...'
> Having done some initial research into stage lighting around the 1600-1700
> I'm a little bit lost. Most of the material I can find talks about candles
> being dimmed with metal tubes placed over the top and colour being
> achieved by putting lights into coloured bottles. I find it hard to
> believe there could have been any 'spot-lighting' as we know it, the first
> reflectors were years away.
>
> Does anyone have any insight into what kind of spotlighting there might
> have been, if any and what a 1675 lighting instrument would have looked
> like? Information on lighting before gas isn't easy to come by :-)

I think technology advanced much sooner than you give credit. Early lenses
(water filled "burning glasses) were known to the Greeks and Romans.
Archimedes is supposed to have built huge focussing mirrors in 212 in
Syracuse - large enough to set fire to and sink Roman ships. Probably not
actually built but suggests that the principle was known. Lenses were first
ground in Europe at the end of the 13th century and the first projector
(Magic Lantern) was invented around 1665.

David


.

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