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[Footnote: Between lines 2 and 3 there are in the original two large
diagrams.]
IV.
Perspective of Disappearance.
The theory of the "Prospettiva de' perdimenti" would, in many
important details, be quite unintelligible if it had not been led up
by the principles of light and shade on which it is based. The word
"Prospettiva" in the language of the time included the principles
of optics; what Leonardo understood by "Perdimenti" will be
clearly seen in the early chapters, Nos. 222--224. It is in the
very nature of the case that the farther explanations given in the
subsequent chapters must be limited to general rules. The sections
given as 227--231 "On indistinctness at short distances" have, it
is true, only an indirect bearing on the subject; but on the other
hand, the following chapters, 232--234, "On indistinctness at
great distances," go fully into the matter, and in chapters
2
35--239, which treat "Of the importance of light and shade in the
Perspective of Disappearance", the practical issues are distinctly
insisted on in their relation to the theory. This is naturally
followed by the statements as to "the effect of light or dark
backgrounds on the apparent size of bodies" (Nos. 240--250). At
the end I have placed, in the order of the original, those sections
176
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