The arrest of Christ, the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 3093, fol. 181), c. 1380
Lanterna haþ þat name for light is yclosed þer Inne, and is y-made of glas, or of horne, ouþer of som other clere þing, and light is y-closed er Inne for þat þe wynde schulde nou3t blowe out þe light; and he ... is ofte y-bore aboute wiþ light þer Inne.
John Trevisa's translation of De Proprietatibus Rerum (British Library MS Add. 27944), c. 1398
A cheape lanterne, wherein a burning candle may be carried, in any stormie or windie weather, without any horne, glasse, paper, or other defensatiue, before it. Make a foure-square box, of 6 or 7 inches euerie waie, and 17 or 18 inches in length, with a socket in the bottome thereof, close the sides will either with doue tails or cement, so as they take no aire, leaue in the middest of one of the sides a slit or open dore, to put in the candle, ich from the bottome to the toppe thereof whmay contain 6 or 7 inches in length, and twoe and a halfe in bredth, though it stand open and naked to the ayre without any defense, yet the winde will haue no power to extinguish the same. The reason seemeth to be because the box is already full of ayre, whereby there is no roome or place to conteine any more, neither can the ayre finde any thorough passage, by reason of the closenesse thereof. The socket would be made to screw in and out at the bottom and then you may put in your candle before you fasten the socket. This is borrowed of one of the rarest Mathematicians of our age.
The lanternmaker, Eigentliche Beschreibung aller Stände auf Erden, 1568
Lantern in carved, gilt, and painted wood, probably from the portego of a Venetian palace, c. 1570 (use the V&A's Access to Images and search for Museum Number 7225-1860); note similarity to the ceiling fixture in a ball in Venice in 1580
