We have been asking who is the oldest person in history to be recorded on video for years. And maybe it’s a Pope

The history of art is the history of its protagonists. And that includes both its great creators, so let’s talk about painting, sculpture, poetry or music, as well as their patron, muses and models. Da Vinci It has been fascinating for years to historians, but it is difficult to address their biography without explaining at least past who was Lisa Gherardinithe woman who probably inspired the celebrated ‘Mona Lisa’. The same goes for the enigmatic Elisa to which Ludwig Van Beethoven dedicated her catchy Bagatela Woo 59 either Margherita LutiRafel’s great muse.

With photography and cinema something similar happens. And although their origins are more recent than those of painting, music or sculpture, historians who take care of their study face questions equally complex and fascinating: who was The first person to go out in a photo? And the oldest? Who is it The oldest voice captured in a support that allows us to reproduce it?

And if we talk about cinema, Who is the oldest person filmed? Did technology and art arrive in time to capture in a recording the gestures and movements of someone born in the eighteenth century, which saw the French revolution wave War of Independence from the US? And if so, can we see it?

The “vestustos” of the image and sound

The question is fascinating because photography has allowed us to see static images of people born in the 18th. This is the case of Conrad Heyera veteran of the US War of Independence that was born in 1749. He was portrayed in 1852, with more than 100 years, thanks to the technique of daguerreotype, so There are those who believe which is the most ancient person (not the first photo, eye) photographed.

The title nevertheless has some “but” than another. Heyer’s image is fascinating, but Other experts think that if we talk about vetustez the merit of being the oldest person portrayed with a camera is John Adamsa worker of Worcester born a few years before Heyer, in 1745. Other sources speak of a slave named Caesar, protagonist of a 1851 daguerreotype conserved in New York Historical Society and who in theory was born in New York in 1737.

If what we are talking about is about the voice, the story is equally fascinating.

We keep A recording 10 seconds from 1860 Taken with a spell and that is attributed to Édouard-Léon Scott by Martinvillea French inventor born in the Paris of 1817. Again if what we are talking about is of antiquity, perhaps The most ancient voice that we keep engraved is nevertheless Helmulth von Moltkea Prussian marshal who lent several recordings at the end of the 1880s. The surprising thing is when Moltke was born: in 1800.

And at the dawn of the cinema? Who is the oldest person than we keep a moving recording? The answer is complicated again, although equally surprising. At the end of the 1870s EADWEARD VERYBRIDGE elaborated in A protopeic in which you can see the gallop of a horse with your rider. Your identity? Some sources They point to C. Marvinborn In 1839.

If it scratches in the origins of the celluloid it is, however, to meet even older “actors”. And also some other surprise. For example, It is usual that when talking about the oldest person ever filmed, the looks are directed to one of the great personalities of the nineteenth century, the Pope Leo XIIIwho also holds the merit of having been The first Pope filmed.

The movie, by William Kennedy Dickson For the Biograph company, was shot in 1898 (there is who attributes it to Vittorio Calcina and the date in 1896) and although it is fascinating and iconic, any Oscar will hardly win. After all, he shows the Supreme Pontiff in more or less everyday situations: on a car or sitting in a chair in the Vatican gardens while making a blessing in the camera.

The really surprising is not however What does Leo XIII doif it is the first pontiff recorded in a movie or who, when and where he took those images for history, but the year of birth of the Pope: Leo XIII He was born in the Lacio region with the name of Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci in March 1810. That is, for ten years he was not a character of the XVIII.

Does that become the oldest person ever filmed? Depends. For some The answer is yes. For others that merit is not so clear. In the articles that address the subject, there is talk of a Rebecca Clark allegedly born in 1804 or Mammy Louof the same year. However, there would be an older candidate, a figure that once aroused much less interest than Leo XIII and to which, therefore, it is also more difficult to follow the historical clue: dismiss.

That your name does not tell you anything is understandable. Despina was an old woman from the Balkans who among other tasks dedicated the hours to spinning wool in the company of her daughters. In 1905 it ended up portrayed in A brief movie that lasts a few seconds.

The important thing is its date of birth: it is said that Despina was then 114, which would have been born at the end of the 18th century, In 1791.

How did an old woman from Avdella end, then part of the Ottoman Empire, recorded spinning wool for the subsequent and turned into a key figure in the history of cinema? Simple: because it was the grandmother of Ianachia and Milton ManakiBalkan cinema pioneers and film authors ‘The weavers’.

We already said it at the beginning: the history of art is the history of its creators … and of their circumstantial protagonistsamong which there are farmers, war veterans, shoemakers, centennial spinners and even a 19th -century Pope.

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In Xataka | Who was the oldest person ever photographed?