CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/The Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciPublic
Page 83 of 1234
Table of Contents

PROLEGOMENA AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK ON PAINTING

c , you will have moved the opposite ends f b towards each other at the point d . And from the two lines you will have drawn the straight line c d which cuts the middle of the intersection of these two lines at the point n without any intersection. For, you imagine these two lines as having breadth, it is evident that by this motion the first will entirely cover the other—being equal with it—without any intersection, in the position c d . And this is sufficient to prove our proposition.

81.

HOW THE INNUMERABLE RAYS FROM INNUMERABLE IMAGES CAN CONVERGE TO A POINT.

Just as all lines can meet at a point without interfering with each other—being without breadth or thickness—in the same way all the images of surfaces can meet there; and as each given point faces the object opposite to it and each object faces an opposite point, the converging rays of the image can pass through the point and diverge again beyond it to reproduce and re-magnify the real size of that image. But their impressions will appear reversed—as is shown in the first, above; where it is said that every image intersects as it enters the narrow openings made in a very thin substance.

Read the marginal text on the other side.

In proportion as the opening is smaller than the shaded body, so much less will the images transmitted through this opening intersect each other. The sides of images which pass through openings into a dark room intersect at a point which is nearer to the opening in proportion as the opening is narrower. To prove this let a b be an object in light and shade which sends not its shadow but the image of its darkened form through

83