The Pforzheimer Collection recently acquired a  rare piece of ephemera: the only known copy of an 1811 broadside advertisement for an "Omnigenous Routine of Amusements" produced in London by one Mr. Bologna, Jun.

John Peter Bologna (1775-1846), also known as "Jack Bologna" was an actor and dancer best known for his pantomime performances alongside the celebrated clown Joseph Grimaldi, his close friend and brother-in-law. Bologna was also an amateur machinist, and devised a number of the mechanical special effects and tricks used in his plays.

Bologna's show, at King's Arms Hall, Cornhill—deemed "a very ingenious mechanical and philosophical Exhibition" by the actor, composer and writer Charles Dibdin—is apparently described in the Pforzheimer Collection's broadside more completely than anywhere else. It demonstrated several imaginative machines and featured performances of theatre, dance, music and magic. Below follows a summary of each part of the exhibit.

The 2 a la Russia Rope Dancers

The broadside claims the dancers to be "[j]ust arrived from Petersburgh," but it is important to note that Bologna grew up in a circus family; his father, Pietro Bologna, was a noted clown and rope dancer, and his siblings Louis and Barbara were both performers. It is possible the rope dancers were, in fact, Bolognas.    

The Swan of Oblectation

Automaton swans began appearing in Europe in the 18th century, the most famous extant being James Cox's Silver Swan, built in 1773, now at the Bowes Museum in Teesdale, Durham, England. Bologna claims that the Swan of Oblectation (meaning delight or pleasure) is the "ne plus ultra" of the genre: not only could it swim around in a bowl full of water, changing course upon cue, it could play card tricks.

The Curious Mechanical Windmill and The Conjurer from Constantinople

For an audience before the advent of electric motors, a machine that could "go and stop at the word of command" must have been quite a wonder. The broadside doesn't provide enough information to allow for much speculation as to the workings of the device; perhaps it was clockwork, or perhaps the commands directing the windmill were simply a ruse concealing a human in control.

The Conjurer from Constantinople performed "numberless deceptions with cards, watches, figures, &c." Bologna's show seems to be his sole appearance.  

Lilliput Island, or the World in Miniature

A shadow-puppet play "taken from the justly admired Ombres Chinois," Lilliput Island was entirely the production of Bologna and had several scenes displaying his range of talent. The play began with an "elegant" Stag Hunt, with moving figures of the horses and dogs, culminating in "the whole Bustle of the Chace." This was followed by several comedic pieces, and A Gamekeeper and His Man, which promised "shooting, fishing, &c. exemplified in a peculiar and uncommon manner."

Musical Glasses and Philosophical Fire-Works

Musical glasses —  also collectively called a "glass harp" —  were at the height of their poularity in 1811. Tones are made by rubbing wet or chalked fingers around the rims of different sized goblets, sometimes filled with varying amounts of water. Though Bologna identifies the musical glasses performer only as "a celebrated professor," the pairing with "philosophical fire-works" strongly suggests it was John Cartwright, long-time master of the instrument, who had counted Marie Antoinette among his students. Cartwright had included the "fire-works" — a gas-powered light show, free of noise and smoke — in his musical glasses performances for years. In Bologna's exhibition the imitation pyrotechnics formed pictures of "Temples, Palaces, Groves, &c."

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Bologna's 1811 exhibition was not his first. Around 1803 he produced a moderately successful magic lantern show called Phantascopia at the Lyceum. Little description of it is known to survive, save that it was meant to be an improved version of the wildly popular skeleton-and-ghost-filled Phantasmagoria horror spectacle which debuted in London in 1801, having been developed on the Continent a few years earlier. Phantasmagoria influenced the titling of Fantasmagoriana, the collection of ghost stories read by Shelley, Byron and company during the summer of 1816, when Mary Shelley was inspired to begin writing Frankenstein.