2-701-804 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The flying ship of Bartolomeu de Gusmao, c1709 (1932). On 17 April 1709, Friar Bartolomeu de Gusmao (1685-1724), a Portuguese Jesuit priest and naturalist, petitioned King John V of Portugal, claiming to have invented a flying machine. The King granted Gusmao the sole right to build the device and if it succeeded, great academic acclaim. However The Church in Rome strongly requested him to desist from such acts of heresy. From "Die Eroberung Der Luft", (The Conquest of the Air), cigarette card album produced by the Garbáty cigarette factory, 1932. Eugene and Moritz Garbáty, who were Jewish, were driven out of business by the Nazis in the late 1930s, and forced to sell their factory which lay empty for over 70 years. [Garbaty Cigarettenfabrik, Berlin-Pankow, 1932]