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All the United States Texas San Antonio Magic Lantern Castle Museum
Magic Lantern Castle Museum is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

Magic Lantern Castle Museum

The only museum dedicated to the history of the "Magic Lantern," a medieval slide projector.

San Antonio, Texas

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AnnaFiddler
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Scientific Magic Lanterns and Accessories   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
Scientific Magic Lanterns and Accessories   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
Magic Lantern Museum   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
  Magic Lantern Castle Museum
Welcome to the Magic Lantern Castle, all ye Delightful Guests   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
A giant metal magic lantern greets guests as they pull in   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
A sampling of backlit magic lantern slides   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
  Magic Lantern Castle Museum
  Magic Lantern Castle Museum
Just a portion of the huge collection of children’s toy Magic Lanterns   Magic Lantern Castle Museum
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About

A magic lantern, the earliest known slide projector, dates all the way back to the late 1600s. Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar of geology and medicine, first published his study of the principles involved in a magic lantern –directing a light source through a lens to project images – in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae.

Images were first painted on glass and projected onto buildings, cloth drapes or wet screens. For audiences of Kircher’s time, seeing images suddenly appear on a flat surface was considered something quite magical.

Until moving images appeared in the late 1890s, the magic lantern was considered the only projection technology available.

Several models of these magic lanterns are housed in a private museum started by Jack Judson, whose passion for restoring and collecting magic lanterns started in 1986 after his retirement. At 87 years old, Jack's enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge for all things magic lantern make tours through his astounding collection incredibly special and unique. If you ask nicely, he might even burn a historic chunk of limelight for you.

Update February, 2018: The museum is now closed and not accepting requests for visits.

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Museums And Collections Castles Museums Collections Inventions Amazing Automata Optical Illusions Optical Oddities

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AnnaFiddler

Edited By

michelle, cookmeneon, Molly McBride Jacobson

  • michelle
  • cookmeneon
  • Molly McBride Jacobson

Published

April 20, 2012

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  • : http://www.magiclanterns.org/
Magic Lantern Castle Museum
1419 Austin Highway
San Antonio, Texas, 78209
United States
29.492141, -98.438667
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