JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Just five years after the announcement of Daguerre’s invention of photography, and just four years after the beginning of the early photo craze, there appeared in the Comptes Rendus in mid-1845 a paper by Friedrich von Martens (1809-1875) on an expansive use of the new media: the panorama. It was certainly the first paper to appear in this journal on the subject; when I checked a likely U.S. source on the subject (Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1846) I found only one mention prior to 1865: a translation of the Martens paper (recorded though as “Merteus”). This seems a little obscure but not unimportant, as Martens may have been either the second (and possibly first) to perfect a panoramic camera, patenting his “Megaskop Kamera” in 1844.
- I’ve decided to share the Martens paper in both the original and the American translation:
- Here’s the text version of the original article, from the Comptes rendus de l’Academie des Sciences..., Paris, June 23, 1845: