A tudásközvetítés történeti példája: Hubert Sattler kozmoráma-bemutatói
A Historical Example of Knowledge Circulation: The Exhibitions of Hubert Sattler’s Cosmoramas

Summary/Abstract: This study focuses on a specific group of “image exhibitors” who played a prominent role in the dissemination of knowledge and the popularization of science in the 19th century, taking as a point of departure two documented appearances of Hubert Sattler in Pest. Alongside the operators of dioramas and panoramas, entrepreneurs presenting cosmoramas also regularly visited the capital during the century. Their programs aimed to mediate contemporary geographical and ethnographic knowledge in a manner that required minimal language and reading proficiency from the audience. These exhibitions, typically timed to coincide with annual and seasonal fairs, were held in specially designed venues and featured paintings that depicted architectural and geographical landmarks of both distant and nearby countries. Spectators could access visual information through optical devices that created an illusion of spatial depth, often supplemented by explanatory texts. Drawing on paintings and accompanying booklets preserved in the legacy of the Austrian world traveler Hubert Sattler, as well as contemporary press materials, this study examines, on the one hand, the strategies of guiding the spectators’ attention and the implied modes of reception that emerged from the interplay of visual and textual elements. On the other hand, through an analysis of periodical press sources and relevant research in cultural history, the paper seeks to reconstruct those aspects of mid-19th-century popular culture that may have shaped the reception of cosmorama images in Hungary – particularly among the urban lower-middle and middle-class audiences.

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