16 
COMPARISON BETWEEN A CAMERA LUCIDA PANORAMA AND A 
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC SURVEY 
PIETRO BROGLIA n EVA SAVINA MALINVERNI n , LUIGI MUSSIO n 
( ' Observatory of Brera - Merate 
( ] DIIAR - Polytechnic of Milan 
e-mail: eva@ipmtf4.topo.poliml.it 
Commission VI, Working Group 3 
KEYWORDS: cartographic projections, altimétrie mapping, panorama, camera lucida, photogrammetry. 
ABSTRACT: The authors had the opportunity to collect, analyze and compare different kinds of representation acquired 
by means of ancient and modern technologies. The idea was born out after having found an ancient perspective, realized 
in the nineteenth century, by means of a camera lucida, in the Archive of Brera Observatory - Milan (Italy). To validate 
the accuracy of the panorama, i.e. the capability of this old technique, to obtain a good altimetric mapping, a modern 
terrestrial photogrammetric survey was set up and compared. 
THE CONTRIBUTE OF THE ASTRONOMERS OF 
BRERA OBSERVATORY TO THE CARTOGRAPHIC 
REPRESENTATION 
This paper resumes, develops and completes a recent 
research about the use of camera lucida to draw 
panoramas (Broglia et al., 1999). 
Thanks to the geodetic and cartographic research, in the 
XVIII century, of the astronomers of Brera Observatory - 
Milan (Italy) and the young engineers of the Pavia 
University (Italy), many documents were collected which 
testify their capability to realize an accurate and realistic 
survey of the territory. They always used scientific 
methods and tested new technologies, like the "camera 
lucida", which is a technique of drawing mountainous 
landscapes more accurate than the traditional "tavoletta 
pretoriana" (Hammond et al., 1987). 
A lot of important documents collected in the Archive of 
Brera Observatory, give evidence the great work, between 
the XVIII and XIX century, of famous astronomers and 
geodesists, like Boscovic, De Cesaris, Reggio, Oriani and 
Carlini (Carlini, 1862). Their researches were very 
important; in fact during their campaigns of measurements 
the altimetric information was provided to complete the 
cartographic representation and some other important 
objects of geodetic knowledge (latitude and longitude) 
(Monti et al., 1980). 
Among these personalities, the figure of Ruggero 
Giuseppe Boscovic is recalled for his Dalmatian origin (he 
was born in 1711 in Ragusa and died in 1787 in Milan). 
He was a Jesuit, Professor of Mathematics in the 
University of Pavia and of Astronomy in Brera. He 
became Director of Brera Observatory at its foundation. 
Furthermore he contributed at the progress of the 
knowledge of the form of the earth, trying to realize the 
trigonometric measurements from the France to the 
Adriatic Sea and the mountains of Istria and realizing the 
geodetic network of the first order in the Papa State. He 
opened the new age in the history of the Italian 
Cartography. In fact, after a period in France (from the 
1773), he returned in Italy (in the 1779), to collaborate 
with the astronomers of Brera about different cartographic 
problems. Boscovic obtained important results, developed 
theory and applied methods and instruments sometimes 
for the first time used. 
Regarding it, in the same period some ingenious 
astronomers and surveyors collaborated together with 
opticians, physicians and mechanicists to improve new 
instruments and to obtain surveys more accurate than the 
traditional ones. In less time, important contributions were 
achieved, like the "camera lucida", which can be 
considered the precursor of the photographic systems 
(Amici, 1819, 1823). Indeed Francesco Carlini, another 
astronomer and director of Brera Observatory, showed 
the possibility of obtaining more perfect panoramas with 
the system of Daguerre, using its capability to acquire 
objects of dim light, like mountains, observed from a long 
distance (Carlini, 1841). 
Some panoramas were collected in the Archive of Brera 
and among these, in the papers of Carlini, the panorama 
of the hilly landscape of Lecco (Italy) was recently found. 
It covers an arc of 180 degrees, from Mont. Barro to Mont. 
St. Martino. It is a strip of two papers, 95 cm large and 15 
cm wide, sewn one to other (Figure 1). This panorama is 
very interesting, because it shows every details of the 
landscape with accuracy and regular proportions, as it 
was made in scale. For these reasons and for its style it 
cannot be a simple sketch made by free hand. The 
purpose of the previous research was to investigate and 
to pursue studies and hypothesis regarding the author 
and the localization of the point(s) of view, from which the 
panorama was (were) obtained. 
Figure 1. Panorama of the mountains from Lecco (Italy)