Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine.
Illustration from Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, Athanasius Kircher’s seminal 1646 treatise on light and shadow. In explaining the principle of the camera obscura, the illustration associates the image and the shadow with the devil.
In Athanasius Kircher's 1665 work "Mundus Subterraneus" he explored the subterranean world and all its wonders, such as the "Norvegianus Vortex", the network of fires inside the earth, Giants, Dragons and sympathies between the macro and microcosm:
