This constellation was invented by the 17th century Polish astronomer, Johannis Hevelius, to fill a gap between Cygnus, Cepheus and Andromeda. He invented several other constellations at the same time. Of these, seven, Canes Venatici, Lacerta, Leo Minor, Lynx, Scutum, Sextans, and Vulpecula, were later popularized by the English astronomer John Flamsteed, and have come to be recognized by the International Astronomical Union.

Here is a plate from Flamsteed's "Atlas Coelestis", published in 1753.

Here is Hevelius' depiction of Lacerta from his "Sine Uranographia", published 63 years earlier. Notice one is the reverse of the other. Why is this? The simple answer is that his charts were drawn from God's perspective, from outside the celestial sphere.

The most famous object in Lacerta is the Quasi-Stellar Object (QSO) BL Lacerta, but at 17th magnitude, it's not very remarkable visually. It's believed to be a supermassive black hole (>100 Msun) surrounded by a large accretion disk. For those really interested, you'll find it at 22h02´43" +42º 16´.

Lacerta may not be much to look at, and it doesn't have a lot of famous bright objects, but it shouldn't be overlooked.

The open cluster NGC 7243, located along the southwest edge of a keystone including alpha, beta and 8 Lac, should be easily visible in binoculars, with a magnitude of 6.5 and a size of 21'.

Within this keystone is IC 5217, a very small planetary nebula for which a OIII filter is almost a necessity. This is probably out of range of anything smaller than 12", as it's only about 6" in diameter.

Another notable open cluster is NGC 7209. It's roughly 25' in size and is composed of about 75 10th magnitude stars. In dark skies this too ought to be visible in binoculars.