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Pinhole Camera
E. B R O Y D R I C K T H R O
Abstract
The longstanding challenge of the pinhole camera for medieval theorists was
explaining why luminous bodies cast onto a screen different images at different
distances from the screen.
I argue that this problem was first solved n o t by FRANCESCO MAUROLICO, as
DAVID LINDBERG concludes in his influential series of articles on the camera, but
by LEONARDO DA VINCI. In studies in the Codex Atlanticus dating c. 1508-14,
LEONARDO explains the changes in screen patterns with distance by applying
a key perspective principle to two kinds of projection pyramids that figure into
pinhole camera imaging.
In contrast, MAUROLICO'S later conclusions a b o u t the pinhole camera
are only partly correct. MAUROLICO gives a mistaken a c c o u n t of why pinhole
images change with distance. He also introduces the erroneous notion that
similar superimposed parts of the camera image actually fuse as the screen
withdraws.
Introduction
Every [object] point is the termination of an infinite number of lines, which diverge to
form a base . . . .
Objects in front of the eye transmit their images to it, by means of a pyramid of lines
9 which, starting from the surfaces and edges of each object, converge from a dis-
tance and meet in a single point.
Each point of the object is seen by the whole pupil, [and] each point of the pupil sees
the whole object.
(LEONARDO DA VINCI: passages respectively from Windsor
19148b, c. 1483-85; Ms. A.3a, e. 1490-92; and Ms. D. 2v, c. 1508)
1 M. H. PIRENNE, Optics, Painting and Photography, Cambridge, 1970, pp. 7-8 and
p. 15, hereafter cited as PIRENNE, Optics; DAVID LINDBERG,"Alhazen's Theory of Vision
and Its Reception in the West," Isis, vol. 58, 1967, pp. 321-41; and LINDBERG, Theories
of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler, Chicago, t976, pp. 156-59.
2 DAVID LINDBERG, "The Theory of Pinhole Images from Antiquity to the Four-
teenth Century," Archive for History of Exact Sciences, vol. 5, 1968, pp. 154-76, and
"The Theory of Pinhole Images in the Fourteenth Century," Archive for History of Exact
Sciences, vol. 6, 1970, pp. 299-325. See also LINDBERG,1976 (as in note 1 above), and his
"Laying the Foundations of Geometrical Optics: Maurolico, Kepler, and the Medieval
Tradition," in The Discourse of Light from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, DAVID
LINDBERG and GEOFFREY CANTOR, Los Angeles, 1986.
3 The Photismi was not published until 1611 (in Naples, by the press of TARQUINIUS
LONGUS), 36 years after MAUROLICO'sdeath. According to MAUROLICO,the work was
completed in 1521. However, it remained in his possession until c. 1574, when he gave
the original manuscript to a representative of the College of Rome, the Jesuit mathemati-
cian and astronomer CHRISTOPHERCLAVIUS,with the object of having it published. (See
EDWARD ROSEN, "Maurolico's Attitude Toward Copernicus," Proceedings of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society, vol. 101 (2), 1957, pp. 187 88; and MARSHALL CLAGETT,
Archimedes in the Middle Ages, Philadelphia, 1978, p. 766.)
F o r KEPLER's analysis of the pinhole camera in his Ad ViteIlionem Paralipomena,
see STEPHEN STRAKER,"Kepler's Optics: A Study in the Foundations of Seventeenth-
Century Natural Philosophy," Ph.D. dissertation, unpublished, Indiana University, 1971,
pp. 385-88 and 390, hereafter cited as STRAKER, "Kepler's Optics"; STRAKER, "Kepler,
TYcho and the 'Optical Part of Astronomy': The Genesis of Kepler's Theory of Pinhole
Images," Archive for History of Exact Sciences, vol. 24, 1981, pp. 267-92; and DAVID
LINDBERG, 1986 (as in note 2 above), sec. 7.
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 345
I maintain the contrary position, that LEONARDO not only did solve the
pinhole camera problem, but was the first Western theorist to do so, in studies
undertaken nearly 100 years before the publication of the Photismi.
In fact, as I seek to show, LINDBERG overestimates MAUROLICO'S success in
dealing with the camera problem - - and even his reliability in formulating it.
While MAUROL~CO does recognize that the pinhole camera image changes its
geometrical proportions with increasing screen distance, he gives the wrong
explanation of why this happens, as LINDBERG himself has acknowledged in
a recent article. And in another respect, MAUROLICO is finally unclear about how
the image changes. In some places in the Photismi, he erroneously maintains
that the pyramids of light that project the similar, superimposed images fuse as
the camera screen withdraws, and the images become one:
from the years c. 1508-14. 5 I will argue that LEONARDO does solve the problem
of changing images - - specifically, by applying a key principle of perspective to
the two analyses of light rays mentioned above. Finally, in section 4, I will
attempt to clarify the issue of the fusion of multiple images, identifying it as
a pseudoproblem brought into the discussion of the pinhole camera by mistake.
Let me begin by considering in more detail the two light pyramids just
introduced. In Figure 1.1, each point source of light, such as B, emits a diver-
gent cone of rays that spreads throughout the surrounding space. One sector of
the circularly spreading light is captured by a suitably positioned aperture.
Moreover, because every luminous body has a finite size, however small, there
must be a multitude of point sources on any such body, each one emitting
a cone of light that spreads out over the aperture.
Figure 1.2 shows the second way to analyze the incident light. Every point
in the space surrounding a set of luminous object points A, B, C, including
a point H on a suitably positioned aperture, is the apex of a pyramid of light
toward which rays from A, B, and C converge. And because every aperture has
a finite size, however small, there must be a multitude of points H positioned
within the boundaries of this aperture to which a set of rays from the same set
of object points converge (these multiple points are not shown in Figure 1.2
- - but we do see them in Figure 2).
LEONARDO recognized that (in simple cases) the two superficially different
analyses of light I have just sketched are geometrically equivalent. This he sums
up in his third statement quoted above: "Each point of the object is seen by the
whole pupil, and each point of the pupil sees the whole object."
Such equivalence is illustrated in Figure 2. Here each of the rays and
aperture points can function in one of two ways. The function actually assigned
depends on how the rays are initially paired - - whether into sets that diverge
h 84
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.2
Figure 1.
Source: M. H. PIRENNE,1970 (see note 1). Reprinted with permission of the Cambridge
University Press.
Source: After D.
~E
SOURCE
Figure 2.
LINDBERG,1976 (see note 1). Reprinted with permission of the Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.
from each point of the source, or into sets that converge to each point of the
aperture.
Because of this equivalence, the image formed by a pinhole camera can be
read in two ways - - as Figure 3 indicates. According to the ray geometry of
Figure 1.1, the camera superimposes images of the aperture in a pattern deter-
mined by the shape of the source (thus, Figure 3 shows multiple circle-shaped
images arranged in the triangular shape of the source). But according to the ray
geometry of Figure 1.2, it superimposes images of the luminous body in a
pattern determined by the shape of the aperture (Figure 3 shows just two
348 E.B. THRO
/
/
Figure 3.
Source: S. STRAKER, 1971 (see note 3). Reprinted with permission of the author.
triangle-shaped source images out of the whole array of such images that is
shaped by the circular aperture). 6
As I stated, LEONARDO'S explanation of the formation of images in the
pinhole camera reflects his understanding of the relation between the two types
of pyramids of light (pairings of rays) outlined above. It also reflects his
understanding of the size-distance principle of perspective, because it involves
6 I take this description of the equivalence from DAVID L1NDBERG,1976 (as in note
1 above), pp. 185-88 and p. 277, note 47; LINDBER6, 1986 (as in note 2 above), p. 63,
note 10; and STRAKER,"Kepler's Optics," pp. 16-22. (However, I would like to point out
in addition that it is easy to construct cases where this equivalence fails - - cases
involving objects that occlude one another from one position at the aperture and not
from other positions.)
M.H. PIRENNE, Optics, pp. 15-17, gives a substantially similar treatment of the two
models of light.
It should be remarked that i f - as was not the case - - opticists before KEPLER had
understood the image forming behavior of light in a lens camera, they might have seen
that these camera images also are subject to the two readings. (A demonstration of the
two readings of lens images is presented by C.A. TAYLOR, Images: A Unified View of
Diffraction and Image Formation with All Kinds of Radiation, London, 1978, p. 5 and pp.
63-69.)
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 349
applying this principle separately to the individual figures formed on the inter-
cepting screen by each of the two pyramids. Grasping this principle and also
the two pyramid types is essential for explaining the pinhole camera on an
optical basis - - in light of the fact, which I will touch on below, that images
formed by this camera are not central projections.
Mathematically, a centrally projected image of a source is formed either by
rays spreading out from a single point, or by rays passing through a single
point. These ideal cases are indicated by Figures 1.1 and 1.2. In the first case,
the images so projected are, at every distance of the intercepting screen, geomet-
rically similar to the aperture and to one another, although varying in size. In
the second case (Figure 1.2), the different-sized images at different screen distan-
ces are geometrically similar to the source and to one a n o t h e r ]
In contrast, of course, the reality of the pinhole camera is that, whichever
analysis of light we choose, there is no single point that can strictly serve as
a center of projection. As just noted, neither the object nor the pinhole aperture
is ever truly a point - - nor even, typically, extremely small.
Furthermore, students of the camera had long observed, even by LEONAR-
DO'S time, that (at least when the aperture is not extremely small) pinhole
images at successive screen distances are not geometrically similar, but chan-
ging. According to these predecessors of LEONARDO, at first one seeg discrete
multiple images. Some said the individual images of the array have the shape of
the aperture; others said, the shape of the source. But they agreed that the
overall image, or pattern of the array, alters its shape variously as the screen
withdraws - - and eventually forms nearly a single figure in the shape of the
light source. 8
STEPHEN STRAKER take the position that MAUROLICO neglects the analysis of
light of Figure 1.1 because he does not recognize its equivalence to that of
Figure 1.2. 9
Consider, in this connection, the corollary to MAUROLICO'S Theorem 1,
which (after repeating the substance of that theorem) not only refers to the
crossing ray analysis of Figure 1.2, but concludes that this description of the
light is valid because the cone analysis of Figure 1.1 is also valid: "Here
[Theorem 1] it has been shown that, from any source of light, there radiates an
infinity of pyramids, whose vertices lie in the source and whose bases constitute
the surfaces of the illuminated body; and there is also an infinity of pyramids
whose bases lie in the source of light and whose vertices are located upon the
illuminated surface."
MAUROLICO must have recognized the equivalence of the "diverging" and
"converging" ray patterns in order to infer the latter from the former - - because
this inference depends upon the possibility of alternate pairings of one and the
same set of rays. 1~ Thus it does not seem that MAUROLICO, in turning his
attention to the pinhole camera in Theorem 22, would suddenly have been
aware only of the second of these two characterizations of the projection
situation.
In Theorem 22, MAUROLICO presents an explanatory diagram and des-
cription of the pinhole camera. In the concluding section of this article, I will
take up MAUROLICO'S problematical idea, mentioned earlier, that there is an
actual fusion of discrete camera images at a certain screen distance. Here,
however, I would like to focus on what seems to be MAUROLICO'Schief purpose
in Theorem 22. This is to show why the geometrical proportions of the
pinhole camera image change as the screen recedes and why this image m a y be
said increasingly to resemble (but not duplicate) a single figure of the projecting
light source. The passage reads in part (see Figure 4):
[L]et there be any source of light AB and an aperture CD of any form whatever;
suppose the rays ADE and BCF to be produced as far as the plane EF and to
intersect at the point G; likewise ACH and BDK. Then FCH and KDE may be
considered as pyramids of light, having their vertices at C and D, and their bases in
FH and KE respectively. Thus it happens that, if the plane FE is placed parallel to
AB, both the bases, FH and KE, appear similar to the source AB, because of the
similarity of the pyramids.
Since now the angles FCH and KDE are larger than the angles FBK and HAE,
it happens that when the rays are produced the length of the bases FH and KE do
9 LINDBERG, 1986 (as in note 2 above), pp. 43-45; and STRAKER,"Kepler's Optics,"
p. 297.
10 It is obvious that MAUROLICO's Theorem 1 and its corollary simply repeat
LEONARDO's statement of the equivalence between the cone analysis and crossing ray
analysis of the light - - "Each point of the object is seen by the whole pupil, and each
point of the pupil sees the whole object" - - once we replace the term "object" with "light
source" and the term "pupil" with "illuminated surface."
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 351
not increase proportionately with FK and HE: for if the rays are produced still
farther, the ratio of the lengths FH and KE to those of FK and HE increases . . . .
Evidently the lengths FK and HE are the distances apart of the bases FH and
KE of the pyramids which have the shape of the light-source, AB. Therefore it
follows that, in proportion as the rays are produced, the bases FH and KE will
acquire similarity to one another and to the light-source AB, since FH and KE are
figures similarly situated.
A B
F K H E
Figure 4.
Source: H. CREW, 1940 (see note 4).
12 The size-distance principle of perspective and its variants are discussed by G. TEN
DOESSCHATE, Perspective: Fundamentals, Controversials, History, Nieuwkoop, 1964, pp.
35-36 and pp. 40 ft.; and by KIM VELTMAN, Studies in Leonardo da Vinci I: Linear
Perspective and the Visual Dimensions of Science and Art, Munchen, 1986, pp. 30-42,
hereafter cited as VELTMAN, Linear Perspective.
What I have called the "general formulation" of the size-distance principle is most
often used for cases in which image size is inversely rather than directly related to object
distance (it is easy to derive the latter case from the former) and is given by an
expression of the form: s = S/((z/d) + 1), where s is the final (diminished) image, S is the
initial image, z is the change of object distance, and d is the initial object distance. The
spatial relations described by this formula are also said to specify the "homogeneous
coordinates" of objects that are imaged in perspective (D.A. AHUJA ~; S.A. COONS,
"Geometry for Construction and Display," I B M Systems Journal [nos. 3 and 4] 1968,
p. 202. See also D. BALLARD& C. BROWN, Computer Vision, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1982,
secs. Al.l.4 and A1.7.5).
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 353
a larger scaling up of the initial distance in the case of the shorter projection
(that from the light source to the aperture) than in the longer projection (that
from the light source to the screen); and thus the final image will also reflect
a greater percentage change in this shorter distance case. However, because
there is an "inverse proportion" relation to be considered (i.e., a diminishment in
the image is involved), the final image will represent a greater percentage
reduction of the initial image in this case of the source than in that of the offset.
That MAUROLICO does not understand the size-distance principle is under-
scored by the fact that he is also in error about this second aspect of the
change. Thus, in a continuation of the passage I quoted above, MAUROLICO says
that the phenomenon of increasing coincidence of the bases F H and K E will be
"all the more marked" (my emphasis) as the constant object AB recedes to
a greater distance from the aperture. ("So also in proportion as the source AB
recedes from the aperture will F K and H E become smaller in comparison with
F H and KE.") It seems that, for MAUROLICO, the images of the source and
offsets are both shrinking, of course, as the object receds, but the overall image
increasingly resembles the source because the relative changes in the image
elements again depend upon the relative sizes of their pyramidal angles, and
those associated with the offsets are smaller than those associated with the
source.
In reality, as I just noted, the rate of change of the individual source images
is actually faster than that for the offsets (i.e., the source images, though
shrinking, are becoming more offset, less overlapping) as the source AB increa-
ses its distance from the aperture.
MAUROLICO has correctly related the change in the geometrical proportions
of the pinhole camera image to two elements of the light ray geometry. These
are the two pyramids with their apexes at the sources A and B, and the two
formed of the same rays - - though differently paired - - with their apexes at the
opposite ends (C and D) of the aperture.
We may say, then, that MAUROLICO is proposing to solve the pinhole camera
problem by allowing that this instrument does not form an image that is
a central projection, and by treating its image as a projection from multiple
centers. But I must take issue with LINDBERG'S conclusion that, when MAUROLI-
CO wrote Theorem 22, "the problem of radiation through apertures is thus
solved - - or nearly solved." Because of MAUROLICO'S mistaken idea that image
size changes vary with the size of the pyramidal angles, he neither explains nor
accurately predicts the alteration of the pinhole camera figures. 13
KIM VELTMAN presents evidence that LEONARDO was the first perspectivist to
formulate systematically the various principles of the size-distance relation.
Thus LEONARDO m a y have been the first student of optics w h o could have
solved the pinhole camera problem. 14
LEONARDO had read writers on optics discussing the problem of the pinhole
camera, including JOHN BACON, VITELLIO and Jor~N PECHAM, who explored this
subject from the 1250's to the 1270's, and perhaps even ALHAZEN. LEONARDO
himself studied the c a m e r a at various times, but m o s t intensively between
Footnote 13 (continued)
that can be made on a projection plane. Some leading opticists failed to realize that
there are no proportional relations between the size of the angle and the size of its base,
but only between this base and the length of the pyramid (i.e., a relation with what can
be considered the "projection distance" in perspective imaging). This confusion was
precisely MAUROLICO's. (For EUCLID on the tangents of angles, see VELTMAN, Linear
Perspective, pp. 48 ft. and p. 442, notes 56 and 57; and see also C.D. BROWNSON,
"Euclid's Optics and Its Compatibility with Linear Perspective," Archive for History of
Exact Sciences, vol. 24, 1981, pp. 164-93. MAUROLICO's translations of EUCLID are
discussed by P.L. ROSE, The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics, Geneva, 1975, p. 170,
p. 176 and p. 179; while a chronological account of his treatises is given by MARSHALL
CLAGETT, "The Works of Francesco Maurolico," Physis, 16, 1974, pp. 149-98. The
confusion between the two measures of angles is pointed out by VELTMAN, Linear
Perspective, p. 50 et passim, and by TEN DOESSCHATE, 1964 [as in note 12 above], pp.
35-36 and pp. 40 ft.)
Interestingly, this same confusion can be observed in the writings of ALHAZEN. He
too embraces the erroneous view that the camera image "sharpens" as the object imaged
recedes from near to far - - an error that, like MAUROLICO'S, must be based on the
mistaken view that the relative sizes of the vertex angles of the pyramids of light
involved determine the relative sizes of these images. (For general descriptions of ALHA-
ZEN'S solution, see A.I. SABRA, "Ibn A1-Haytham, Abu 'Ali al-Hasan," Dictionary of
Scientific Biography, 6, pp. 189-210; and LINDBERG, 1968 [as in note 2 above]. Neither
writer identifies ALHAZEN'S mistake about the sharpening of the image with receding
objects. See also my note 11.)
14 As VELTMAN shows in secs. 1.2 and 1.3 of Linear Perspective, LEONARDO descri-
bes quantitatively the effect on the perspective image of altering the distance of one of
the three variables of linear perspective - - the position of the eye, of the image plane,
and of the object - - while holding the other two constant. However, the fourteenth
century astronomer and mathematician LEVI BEN GERSON gives a formulation of the
perspective size-distance principle in his Astronomy (Book 5 of Bellorum Dei - - "The
Wars of the Lord" - - a Latin translation from the Hebrew dated 1342) that shows
a thorough grasp of the systematic relations between all the variables involved in
projecting objects from a center onto parallel planes. Specifically, LEVI offers a method
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 355
[A] proper solution to the problem of finite apertures requires a geometrical analysis
of pyramids issuing from the luminous body and an understanding of the manner in
which the images of [i.e., projected from] individual points [on the object] are
superimposed to produce a composite image - - elements entirely absent from the
theory of point-apertures.
[Yet, while LEONARDO] correctly describes the phenomena of large apertures, he
offers no explanatory analysis whatsoever. ("The History of the Pinhole Camera in
the Thirteenth Century," Archive For History of Exact Sciences, 1968, vol. 5, p. 157
and note 6)
(later cited by KEPLER) for finding the distance to the center of projection when two
objects are seen under the same angle, and we know their sizes and the distance
separating them. (Cf LEVI's discussion given in chapter 6 of BERNARD GOLDSTEIN'S
English translation, The Astronomy of Levi Ben Gerson [1288-1344], New York, 1985
- - and in GOLDSTEIN'S commentary on this chapter - - with a note reproduced in
RICHTER 57 [Ms. A.376] in which LEONARDO touches on this problem of finding the
center of projection. Cf also VELTMAN,Linear Perspective, p. 41, who links LEONARDO's
grasp of perspective principles to his studies of conic sections.)
15 For LEONARDO'S reading, see PEDRETTI, Commentary, pp. 119-20. RICHTER re-
produces a number of LEONARDO notes referring to imaging through apertures, and
PEDRETTI includes much additional material on this subject in his Commentary. Among
the most important notes of RICHTER and PEDRETTI that I do not refer to in this article
are RICHTER, nos. 66, 70, 71, 81, 130, 213 and 864; and PEDRETTI, notes to Richter 47,
60, 69, 70, 111 and 188.
16 An absence of orderliness in the text may contribute to LINDBERG'Simpression of
an absence of analysis. It must be remembered that, although the series of "blue paper"
studies on light and shade in the Codex Atlanticus (dating from c. 1508-14) represent
what PEDRETTI calls a "painstaking elaboration of notes for the proposed treatise on
light and shade," some of the pages are lost and the discussion is interrupted at various
points.
356 E.B. THRO
Figure 5.4
Figure 5.3
Figure 5.2
Figure 5.1
Figure 5.
Source: Codex Atlanticus
CA 277 v-a, c. 1513-1514.
Ambrosian Library, Milan.
Reprinted with permission.
358 E.B. THRO
The first set of LEONARDO'S diagrams and texts I will examine (CA 277 v-a
- - blue paper, CA 229 v-b, CA 177 r-b and CA 241 v-c - - blue paper) is
especially valuable as an analysis of the initial shapes of the pinhole images and
the eventual alterations in their proportions. The second set (CA 241 r-d) draws
our attention to the pyramids of rays that project these figures and the trigono-
metric principles that govern the image alterations.
I turn first to a general description of the diagrams o n CA 277 v-a, c. 1513
(see Figure 5).
LEONAROO chooses in these diagrams, as MAUROLICOdoes in his treatment of
the pinhole camera, to emphasize the second of the two possible analyses of
light: the projection, through the individual points of an aperture, of multiple
images of the light source.
Thus, Figure 5.2 (selectively) depicts three individual circle images in
a roughly triangular pattern projected by a spherical source through three
points of a fairly large triangle near to the screen. Figure 5.1, on the lower right,
recalls an observation of MAUROLICO'S about his own illustration showing just
two source images: the overall shapes are actually formed of shapes "without
number built up from an infinity of pyramids [that] step by step come to-
gether" (Theorem 22). And in LEOYARDO'Supper diagrams (Figures 5.3 and 5.4)
the initial discreteness of multiple images gives way to a superimposition that
becomes more and more complete. The image array forms a pattern that
increasingly resembles the source.
Let us also take note of a fragmentary text on the same sheet, which CARLO
PEDRETTI in his Commentary (note to RICHTER 211) links to these diagrams.
Again focusing on the example of a spherical source (but now a distant celestial
body) that projects its image through an angular aperture, LEONAROOobserves,
"IT]he percussion of the solar ray when passing through any kind of angle does
not project the impression of the angles but that of circles, which [impression]
will be much greater or less in proportion as the projection is more remote
from or nearer to these angles." In this passage, LEONARDO anticipates
21 Cf my figures 5.2 and 5.4 from the Codex Atlanticus with Figures 6 and 7 in
STRAKER, "Kepler's Optics," pp. 34-35.
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 359
MAUROLICO. He correctly states that the extending screen distance is the cause
of our changing impression of the circular source images as they increasingly
coincide. 22,23
LEONARDO duplicates MAUROLICO in another respect, as we can see by
turning our attention to another g r o u p of drawings. LEONARDO varies the
projection situation to address a case MAUROLICO refers to in Corollary 6 to
T h e o r e m 22 - - and arrives at a like conclusion.
There are several diagrams dealing with this variant projection case. Some
are in an earlier series of studies in the Codex Atlanticus (CA 229 v-b and C A
177 r-b, c. 1508-10 - - these fragments were, according to PEDRETTI, originally
joined together as they appear in Figure 6). The other relevant diagrams are in
a later study, C A 241 v-c (see Figure 6.4), and, according to PEDRETTI, should be
seen as finished versions of some of the earlier studies. This finished w o r k
especially reveMs LEONARDO'S skills and deliberateness in technical drawing;
they clearly have been drawn with a compass.
Let us first consider the drawing of Figure 6.1, below left. This is a diagram
of a projection of a r o u n d source n o w carried not t h r o u g h a moderate-sized
aperture, but t h r o u g h actually separate and multiple small holes. This sketch
(Continued on p. 362)
Footnote 23 (continued)
LEVI seems to be the first scholar in the West to correct this misapprehension of the
angular image. LEVI grasps that rays crossing at the apexes of an angular aperture carry
circular images of a circular source to the screen, and that, at any appreciable distance
beyond the aperture, this will "round the corners" of the angles of the image that is cast
by any point of the source. LEVI'S proof is illustrated by Figure A.1 (LINDBERG's
adaptation of LEVI's original figure; see LINDBERG, 1970, as in note 2 above, p. 305). As
LEVI explains,
[I]f a ray should pass through an opening formed by straight lines, the ray is not
received on the opposite wall in the form of straight lines near the corners, since the
rays are dilated in every direction at each corner . . . . And the ray would arrive at
the corner of the opening in the form of a quadrant of a circle, the center of which is
the point of the corner. (Chap. 5, trans, by STRAKER, "Kepler's Optics," p. 208)
<
Figure A.1.
Source: D. LINDBERG, 1970 (see note 2). Reprinted with permission of Springer-Verlag.
Footnote 23 (continued)
rectilinear triangle KGC, so that the left ray A goes by the angle C and bends to the
side . . . .
Figure A.2.
Source: After a drawing by LEONARDO DA VINCI - - CA 236 r-a, Ambrosian Library,
Milan. With permission. Original drawing reproduced in C. PEDRETTI, Commentary, note
to RICHTER 198 (see note 5).
(A note on the terminology: "Convex obtuse angle" seems to refer to any of the
various "double-cones" formed in three dimensions, each with an apex at the aperture
and having one base on the source and another on the screen. These solid figures of
light, because they are closed, have no concavities, but are "convex" [i.e., protruding].
And the term "obtuse" refers to their being rounded rather than angular - - cones rather
than pyramids [thus, KEPLER later uses the word "obtuse" to describe circles].)
Although a comparable conclusion about this special case of pinhole imaging was
reached by HENRY of LANGENSTEIN(C. 1363-73; it should be added that LANGENSTEIN'S
treatment is inconsistent overall - - see LINDBERG, 1970, as in note 2 above, pp. 312 ft.),
a similarity between LEVI's and LEONARDO's expressions of their observations suggests
the former's work may have directly influenced the latter's.
This shared conclusion that the shadow image of an angular object (aperture) formed
by a round light source is never a "true image" of the angular object is perhaps first
reached by LEONARDO as early as 1499, as shown by two passages (RICHTER 188, Ms.
1.37b and RICHTER 452, Ms. 1.37b) that are both illustrated by the same diagram
362 E.B. THRO
recalls MAUROLICO'S claim that the same principles operating in his Figure
4 also govern imaging through "two or more vent holes." MAUROLICO'S insight
was that isolating light rays by "vent hole" imaging simply corresponds to an
analytic treatment of finite-sized apertures (the latter is the case of innumerable
vent holes), z4 As we see, LEONARDO also clearly understands that there are no
fundamental differences between the images formed in the two cases, because
his drawings on the upper right of this sheet (Figures 6.2 and 6.3) and on CA
241 v-c (Figure 6.4), which are related to the vent hole projections, are similar
to those of the single aperture projection of Figure 5. 25
In CA 229 v-b, LEONARDO gives a s u m m a r y verbal description of the pattern
of coalescence in vent hole imaging that PEDRETTI points out applies not only to
the sketches of Figures 6.2 and 6.3, but was intended for inclusion with the
drawings of Figure 6.4. In PEDRETTI'S translation of this passage in his Commen-
tary (his note to Richter 184 supplies the first English translation), LEONARDO
writes: "Iron b o a r d pierced through by the point of a bit and brace, and it is
made to receive the rays of the sun in such a way that [their projection
through] each hole enlarges to the size of the circle A N [-labeled in the lowest
figure of 6.4]; and there will be a ring of superimposed (circular) ray projections
occupying the space of the smaller circle M [labeled in the middle figure of 6.4],
which will be hot and bright."
Because these remarks apply to all the drawings I have included in
Figure 6 - - and so apply within a context that distinguishes the different rates
of change of the different screen elements - - the passage strengthens my
argument that LEONARDO anticipated MAUROLICO'S chief conclusion about
pinhole camera images. As LEONARDO'S statement makes clear, Figures 6.2,
Footnote 23 (continued)
showing the sun's rays passing through the branches of a tree and through a triangular
hole. And in notes following 188 (RICHTER 189, CA 187 v-2, c. 1490-91 and R~CHTER
191, CA 241 v-d, c. 1513-14 - - the verso of the sheet containing my Figure 7),
LEONARDO goes on to say that such a true likeness between shadow and obstacle
(aperture) will not obtain unless both light source and obstacle are round and centered
with respect to each other, and the projection is made onto a paralM plane (see also the
note to RICHTER 188 by PEDRETTI, Commentary).
24 LINDBERG, 1986 (as in note 2 above), p. 40. Also see STRAKER,"Kepler's Optics,"
p. 299.
25 CA 277 v-a and CA 229 v-b are evidence against STRAKER'Sclaim that LEONAR-
DO did not see "the possibility that a finite opening might be thought of as a multiplicity
of tiny openings and the image on the wall behind as a composite of all the images cast
by the tiny openings" ("Kepler's Optics," pp. 248-49).
Figure 6.
The images of 6.2 and 6.3 are projected from nearer and farther screen distances,
respectively. The images of Figure 6.4 are all projected from approximately the same
distance - - in between the nearer and farther distances.
Source: Codex Atlanticus, c. 1508-1514 (CA 177 r-b for 6.1, CA 229 v-b for 6.2 and
6.3, and CA 241 v-c for 6.4). Ambrosian Library, Milan. Reprinted with permission.
364 E.B. THRO
Figure 6 (continued).
6.3 and 6.4 all show an outer doughnut containing the variably concurrent,
interweaving peripheries of the many circles - - displaying the amount of offset
between the circular images cast by the source; and all the figures also show
a central circle that is the bright region of the overlap of these source images.
However, this bright region represents a larger portion of the whole image
in Figure 6.3, which shows the screen farther away; and the bright region
represents a smaller portion of the whole in Figure 6.2, where the screen is
closer (cfi the latter with Figure 7, arrow, which has the same proportions). For
a case where the bright region of overlap represents an intermediate screen
distance, see Figure 6.4, middle - - also 6.4, bottom, which has similar image
proportions, though contains many more circles. 26
So far we have seen that LEONARDO associates with increasing screen di-
stance an increasing coalescence of circular source images formed through an
26 For one of the clearest instances of changing image proportions that reflect
nearer, moderate and far screen distances (but are the result of a single aperture rather
than vent holes), see the three drawings directly above Figure 5.4, reading from top to
bottom.
Figure 7.
Source: Codex Atlanticus CA 241 r-d, c. 1513-1514. Ambrosian Library, Milan. Re-
printed with permission.
366 E.B. THRO
angular aperture. And, of course, because the circles are becoming more concur-
rent, by definition the offsets (or distances between their peripheries) are not
increasing at the same rate as the circles themselves.
Obviously, this same point applies to the proportions between the area of
offset and the size of the figure in any case where similar images are increasingly
superimposed - - the images involved may be generated by light sources and
apertures of any shapes whatsoever.
And in fact, LEONARDO does explicitly generalize his conclusions about the
changing pattern of the image array beyond the illustrative case of the round
source and the angular aperture. As early as 1489-92, he reaches the conclusion
that: "No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to
prevent, at a long distance, transmission of the true form of the luminous body
causing them" (Ms. A.64.b, c. 1490-92). 27
The second diagram from the top (arrow) represents the simplest and most
vivid vent hole case. The diagram (selectively) represents those rays in the
diverging pyramids of fight issuing from each object point that pass through the
vent holes and produce a shadow image of the punctuated sheet as they spread
out and intersect the image plane. It also (selectively) shows how, paired different-
ly, the same rays converge to the vent holes and cross through to project the
circular images of the source. While it is the latter pyramid of rays that defines
the sizes of these circles, it is the pyramids of rays that have their apexes in the
source that define the size of the areas of non-coincidence between these circles.
In passages relating to the diagrams on this page, LEONARDO not only
alludes to both these types of pyramids. He shows his awareness that image size
(as a fraction of object size) is determined not, as MAUROHCO took for granted,
by the size of the angle subtended by object and image at the projection center,
but by the ratios of the projection distances from that center.
Consider first the pyramids that project the source images. In a draft on CA
241 r-d itself, which PEBRETTI translates in his Commentary (note to RICHTER
184), LEONAROOmentions the dilation of those pyramids that have their apexes
at the vent holes, with their bases cutting circles on the image plane. He gives
an unequivocal statement of the fundamental size-distance ratio involved: "With
reference to the light that penetrates the vent holes, . . . the dilation made by
the rays after their intersection increases to the same breadth beyond the vent
hole as in front of the vent hole, there being as much space from the luminous
body to the vent hole as from the vent hole to the impress of its rays; this is
proved by the straightness of the luminous rays, from which it follows that
there is the same proportion between their breadth and between the distances at
which they intersect" (emphasis added). 2s
LEONARDO also alludes to the pyramids with their apexes at the source,
mentioning the rays that cast shadows of the punctuated sheet or, in his
terminology, the rays that cast the "composite . . . shadows [i.e., shadows with
penumbra] starting at the edges of the vent holes." (See RICHTER 181 for this
terminology and a diagram.)
There are, then, two types of pyramids, and their apexes may be considered
as multiple centers from which the (single) screen image is projected. And,
although LEONARDOdoes not redescribe the size/distance principle just set forth
so that we can see it applying to this second type of pyramid - - he could rely
on it for this type of case as well. That is, by setting the distance between object
and screen from the center of projection in proportion, he could use the
principle to find the size of the opaque region of the sheet (the object) relative
to the size of any shadow of this sheet cast by any point of the light source for
any distance of the screen.
In fact, in the Codex Urbinas f. 54v, c. 1505-10, LEONAROO does give
a formulation of that principle specific to this situation in which object and
28 See also RICHTER47 [Windsor 19151a], which restates this idea, and the note to
that passage in PEDRETTI, Commentary.
368 E.B. THRO
image are on the same side of the projection center: "I say that if the eye, a,
remains stationary, that the size of the painting made by the imitation of [the
object] bc must. be proportionately smaller in size [-than the object] as the glass
plane de is closer to the eye . . . . ,29
LEONAROO could, then, have applied the size/distance principle separately to
the two elements of the screen image - - the source images and shadows/offsets
- - and compared results for different screen distances. But LEONARDOalso knew
the general formuIation of the size-distance principle that I referred to earlier in
discussing MAUROLICO'S Theorem 22. As VELTMAN shows, LEONARDO had arri-
ved at the notion that one might take a change of distance as a common factor
for determining image size changes in cases involving two or more objects at
different distances from the projection center. This formulation enabled him
easily to compare the rates of change in images if the objects or image planes
move by the given amount - - and to do so even if the centers of projection are
not the same (i.e., at the same position in space) in the cases compared.
A clear statement of this relation (for the case where the objects move and
the image size is inversely related to object distance) is given in R~CHTBR 870
(Ms. F 606, c. 1508): "When various objects are removed at equal distances
farther from their original position, that which was at first the farthest from the
eye will diminish least. ''3~
LEONARDO, therefore, can hardly have failed to identify what can be seen at
a glance by one who knows this principle of analytic geometry: With increasing
screen distance, the vent hole images of Figure 7 that we are examining must
change their proportions in the way LEONARDO shows them to do in the
drawings of Figures 6.2 and 6.3. This is because the sizes of the shadows of the
punctuated sheet, with their longer initial distances from their projection cen-
ters, will "increase less" (more slowly) with screen distance increases than will
the geometrical images of the whole source made through the vent holes.
29 For similar examples in Ms. A.37b and CA 148 v-b, see PEDRETTI, Commentary,
p. 130 and p. 145.
30 For similar but narrower formulations of this general principle, see RICHTER 104
(CA 132 v-b, c. 1495-97) and 106 (Ms. G.29b c. 1510-11). See also KEMP, Geometrical
Perspective from Branelleschi to Desargues, Oxford, 1985, pp. 99-100.
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 369
still valid today. The formulas RAYLEIGHsupplies for the optimal screen distance
are consistent with the just described changes in the geometrical proportions of
pinhole images that occur with increasing projection distance - - barring
a screen so distant that diffraction enters the account. 3~
As I suggested in my introduction, however, in certain flawed passages of
the Photismi - - specifically, in Theorems 21 and 22 and Corollaries 5 and 6 to
Theorem 22 - - MAUROLICO describes a phenomenon that RAYLEIGH'S theory
does not embrace. This is the purported fact that, on a sufficiently distant
screen, superimposed images projected by the finite-sized aperture effectively
coincide - - and the screen displays a single image of the source. LINDBERG
characterizes this as a merging of discrete multiple projections.
In fact, in his several writings on the camera, LINDBERG himself accepts this
supposed merging of multiple projections as a key aspect of the pinhole imaging
problem, and one he wishes to explain. (Indeed, he presents the notion of
merging as central to the explanation of pinhole camera images given not only
by MAUROLICO, but later by KEPLER.)
For instance, in a passage that includes a quotation from MAUROLICO (illu-
strated by Figure 4), LINDBERa states, "The separation between the images beco-
mes ever smaller in proportion to the size of the images, and the separate images
gradually merge into one: 'The rays can be extended to the point where spaces
F K and H E become insensible in comparison with F H and KE.' And the single
image that results is, of course, of the same shape as the luminous source. ''a2
31 The first to supply accurate formulas for the plane of "best resolution" for pinhole
images was Lord RAYLEIGH, in 1910 ("Diffraction of Light," Encyclopedia Britannica,
11th edn., vol. 8 - - see secs. 3 and 4 for a general description of diffraction, and secs.
5 and 7 for discussions of the pinhole camera and telescope. See also R. D~TCHBURN,
Light I, 2nd edn., New York, 1963, secs. 8.6 and 8.8; and PIRENNE, Optics, pp. 18-20 and
pp. 22-23). RAYLEI6H'Sformulas show that this plane is the one for which there is an
equal contribution to image "unsharpness" from two different sources: the size of the
spots of light that are the projected images of the aperture, as described in geometrical
optics; and the size of the diffraction discs produced by the bending of light rays in their
passage through a restricted opening, as described in physical optics. For every size of
aperture (and, for near objects, object distance) there is one screen distance at which the
sizes of these two elements are precisely equal - - and this distance is that of the best
resolved image.
It is true, then, that, at least up to a point, RAYLEIGH'Sformulas are consistent with
the principles of geometrical projection invoked to explain the "problem of the pinhole
camera." But only up to a point. For, as the screen withdraws still further, the diffraction
discs, which increase at a faster rate than the spots of light imaging the aperture, spread
outside them. Diffraction thus precludes the continual improvement of the image that
would be expected to occur if principles of geometrical optics alone governed the image.
The facts of diffraction would seem, then, to rule out the idea that a sufficiently distant
screen bears a perfect image of the source because the spots of light projecting the
aperture separate the multiple source images by insensible amounts.
32 LINDBERG, 1986 (as in note 2 above), p. 52, and see also pp. 35-37.
370 E.B. THRO
33 While, for sources so distant that their rays are approximately parallel, the offsets
maintain their sizes.
34- LEONARDOalSO invokes this notion of merging in a note on the sheet of CA 241
r-d (my Figure 7), translated by PEDRETTI in his Commentary, p. 171.
Although it is not my subject here, it is worth mentioning the importance of the
phenomenon of resolution loss in LEONARDO'Sthinking about optical images. As I argue
elsewhere, LEONARDO saw this resolution loss as having systematic effects on the
perspective geometry of images formed in our own eye in monocular viewing. These
different effects, because they are associated with different ranges of object distance,
imply that extra-retinal information about the size of an object seen under a given visual
angle is not required for the making of rough distance calculations. In short, the image
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 371