ABSTRACT
“What is Plato’s famous cave” − wonders Paul Valéry in 1939 for the centenary of photography − “if not a camera obscura, the largest ever conceived, I suppose? If Plato had reduced the mouth of his grotto to a tiny hole and applied a sensitized coat to the wall that served as his screen, by developing the rear of the cave he could have obtained a gigantic film.” 1 With this “wall” that “served as” and “functioned as” a “screen” before the thing and the word itself were even invented, and that, in his famous allegory, Plato described as “a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets” 2 appears one of the first paradigms of the concept of screen as it has existed since shadow theaters and as it has emerged in the late 19th century, notably with the invention of the cinematograph.
