Antoine Molteni  Pierre François Antoine Molteni (1786 – 7 January 1866), also known as Antoine Molteno or François Molteno, was a manufacturer and trader in optical instruments and other scientific equipment, who built the first devices used by Louis Daguerre and founded the "Maison Molteni" in Paris. Antoine Molteni was the son of Italian immigrant Joseph Antoine Balthazard Molteno (1746/7-1808). His family was from the Milan area. However, he was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1746 or 47, originally as Giuseppe Molteno. He came to Paris and began trading in optical instruments in 1782 in rue Sainte-Apolline. He and his wife separated at this time too. Joseph Antoine Molteno was instrumental in the creation of the Robertson fantoscope and when he died on 4 April 1808 (aged 62), he passed on the business to his son Antoine. Italian surnames were changing at the time, as the older system of male, female, and plural suffixes gradually gave way to the modern system whereby the plural "-i" suffix is used consistently throughout. The family therefore used both variants of their surname - Molteno and Molteni. From his premises at 11 rue du Coq Saint-Honoré, Molteni ran his enterprise for the coming decades, from what became known as the "Maison Molteni". On 2 April 1817 he drastically expanded the company, together with Joseph Duroni, to include further workshops and stores such as at Palais-Royal. Molteni began working closely with Louis Daguerre in the 1830s, after they were introduced by Alphonse Giroux. Molteni made the first devices used by Daguerre in 1839, and they continued to work together until the Molteni family moved to the new No. 36 rue Saint-Nicolas in 1846 (which became No. 62 rue du Château d'Eau in 1851). They kept their strong interest in photography, but expanded to include a range of precision instruments. Their factory and warehouses were located on the same street, where their steam engines, rolling mills and metal smelters served the laboratories and manufacturing lines. The Molteni family also designed and built naval & marine instruments, mathematical, geodesic and measuring devices, photography apparatus and many of the early lighting systems.