The sciopticon manual, explaining lantern projection in general, and the sciopticon apparatus in paricular (1877)

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SCIOPTICON MANUAL. 49 At the same time I cast my eye upon Agnolino Gaddi, who was terrified to such a degree that he could scarce distinguish objects, and seemed to be half dead. Seeing him in this condition I said, " Agnolino, upon these occasions a man should not yield to fear, but should stir about and give his assistance, so come directly and put on some more of these." The effects of poor Agnolino's fear were overpowering. The boy hearing a crepitation, ventured once more to raise his head, when, seeing me laugh, he began to take courage, and said "that the devils were flying away with a ven- geance." " ' In this condition we stayed till the bell rung for morning prayers. The boy again told us that there remained but few devils, and these were at a great distance. When the magician had per- formed the rest of his ceremonies, he stripped off his gown and took up a wallet full of books which he had brought with him. " ' "We all went out of the circle together, keeping as close to each other as we possibly could, especially the boy, who had placed him- self in the middle, holding the necromancer by the coat, and me by the cloak. As we were going to our houses in the quarter of Banchi, the boy told us that two of the demons whom we had seen at the amphitheatre went on before us leaping and skipping, some- times running upon the roofs of the houses, and sometimes upon the ground. The priest declared, that though he had often entered magic circles, nothing so extraordinary had ever happened to them. a ' Whilst we were engaged in this conversation, we arrived at our respective houses, and all that night dreamed of nothing but devils.' " Although Cellini declares that he was trembling with fear, yet it is quite evident that he was not entirely ignorant of the machi- nery which was at work, for in order to encourage the boy, who was almost dead with fear, he assured them that the devils were under their power, and that ' what he saw was smoke and shadow/ " Mr. Koscoe, from whose life of Cellini the preceding description is taken, draws a similar conclusion from the consolatory words addressed to the boy, and states that they ' confirm him in the belief that the whole of these appearances, like a phantasmagoria, were merely the effects of a magic lantern produced on volumes of smoke from various kinds of burning wood.' If we suppose that the necromancer either had a regular magic lantern, or that he had