Leonardo da Vinci's Solution to the Problem of the

Pinhole Camera
E. B R O Y D R I C K T H R O

Communicated by ENRICO GIUSTI

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)

The Islamic scientist k n o w n in the West as ALHAZEN (IBN AL HAITHAM, C.

965--1040) was the first to introduce the idea that light radiates in all direc-
tions from every luminous object point. This idea suggested to LZONARDO DA
344 E.B. THRO

VINCI, as well as to other successors of ALHAZEN, tWO ways of analyzing the

light reaching the aperture of a pinhole camera or the pupil of an eye equipped
with a lens. 1
As my epigraphs m a k e clear, LEONARDO analyzed this light moving from
a luminous body to an aperture sometimes as diverging pyramids of rays
and sometimes as converging pyramids of rays. I argue in this article that
LEONARDO'S understanding of these two pyramids enabled him to solve the
longstanding problem of the pinhole camera - - to explain why luminous
bodies cast onto its screen geometrically different images at different screen
distances.
Quite a different conclusion has been reached by DAVID LINDBERG in his
influential history of the pinhole camera. 2 According to LINDBERG, the earliest
successful analysis of the camera image change in the West was presented by
FRANCESCO MAUROLICO in a manuscript (Photismi de Lumine et Umbra) comple-
ted, but not published, before JOHANNES KEPLER'S better known account. 3 F o r
example, LINDBERG states:

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

A comparable analysis [to that of A L H A Z E N ] w a s not to be found in the West before

the publication of JOHANNES KEPLER's Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (1604) and
FRANCESCO MAUROLYCO'SPhotismi de Lumine et Umbra (1611). Others who have
been credited with the first correct Western analysis of the camera obscura such as
... LEONARDO DA VINCI . . . contributed little if anything to this aspect of the
problem. ("The History of the Pinhole Camera in the Thirteenth Century," Archive
for History of Exact Sciences, vol. 5, 1968, pp. 156-57)

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:

A source of light . . . radiating through any aperture produces an infinity of pyra-

mids which . . . gradually unite into one; and finally all become a single pyramid
. . . . (Theorem 22, Corollary 6)
The rays can be extended to the point where spaces FK and HE [the spaces
representing the offsets of two discrete images] become insensible in comparison with
FH and KE [the spaces occupied by the given images themselves] and . . . both
figures may be thought of as one. (Theorem 22)4

LEONARDO, however, in addressing the pinhole camera problem, does not

make MAUROLICO'S claim about a coalescence of image parts. LEONARDO does,
though, suggest how the appearance of such a coalescence could result from
a loss of visual resolution in long distance observation.
M y discussion of LEONARDO'S solution to the pinhole camera problem will
proceed as follows. In section 1, I will describe the camera problem in some
detail,~ placing it in the context of the theory of central projection. In section 2,
I will evaluate MAUROLICO'S work on the pinhole camera, concluding that his
analysis advances our understanding of the geometry of the images, but finally
falls short of a complete solution because of a critical geometrical flaw in his
scheme. In my third section, I will examine a set of texts and illustrations in the
Codex Atlanticus representing LEONARDO'S studies of the pinhole camera dating

4 Throughout this article, the English translation I use is that of HENRY C R E W , in

The Photismi de Lumine of Maurolycus: A Chapter in Late Medieval Optics, Newark,
1940.
346 E.B. THRO

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.

1. Two Analyses of Light and The Problem of the Pinhole Camera

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

s I believe my analysis of LEONARDO'Swork on the pinhole camera is the first such

discussion to make extensive use of CARLO PEDRETTI'S landmark study, The Literary
Works of Leonardo da Vinci: A Commentary to Jean Paul Richter's Edition, vols. I and
II, Oxford, 1977. These two volumes supplement the compilations of LEONARDO'Snotes
undertaken by RICHTER (The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols., 3ra edn.,
New York, 1970); EDWARD MACCURDY (The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols.,
New York, 1955) and A.P. MCMAHON (Treatise on Painting [Codex Urbinas Latinus
1270] by Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols., Princeton, New Jersey, 1956) by supplying material
on imaging through apertures hitherto scarcely available or else not authoritatively
translated into English.
T h e PEDRETTIand RICHTERtexts are hereafter cited as PEDRETTI, Commentary, and
as RICHTER. The dates of LEONARDO'S texts and diagrams I give throughout are from
PEDRETTI, Commentary.
 Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 347

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

2. Maurolico on the Pinhole Camera Problem: Steps toward a Solution

In remarks leading up to his discussion of the pinhole camera (which is

dealt with in Theorem 22 of the Photismi), MAUROLICO demonstrates his recog-
nition of the double function of the light rays and projection points involved in
producing the pinhole camera image. Before turning to Theorem 22, it is
worthwhile establishing this fact - - for surprisingly, both LINDBERG and

7 See, e.g., DECIO GIOSEFFI,"Perspective," in The World Encyclopedia of Art, 1965,

pp. 184 ft. See also R.M. EVANS, An Introduction to Color, New York, 1948, pp. 50-52,
for the first case (rays spreading out from a point); and ALFRED BLANK,"The Geometry
of Vision," British Journal of Physiological Optics, vol. 14, 1957, sec. 3, for the second
case (rays passing through a single point).
s For example, LINDBERG, 1968 (as in note 2 above), p. 156, tells us that in
ALHAZEN'Sview the multiple images formed on a near screen individually have the shape
of the aperture; and STRAKER,"Kepler's Optics," p. 392, attributes to KEPLER the view
that these images individually have the shape of the source.
350 E.B. THRO

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).

Let us look critically at MAUROLICO'Streatment.

MAUROLICO correctly states that the images of the apertures (i.e., the offsets
of the multiple images) projected from the source do not increase at the same
rate as ("proportionally to") the images of the entire source projected through
the extreme ends of the aperture.
But, as LINDBERGhas noted in an article of 1986, MAUROLICOis incorrect in
identifying these differences in image size change with the sizes of the relevant
angles. 11 The actual reason why the rates of increase are different is this. The
apexes A and B of the pyramids that project the aperture images are at different
distances (further away) from the screen than are the apexes C and D of the
pyramids that project images of the entire source through the extreme points of
the aperture.

la However, LINDBERGdoes not go on to observe a second main case in which

MAUROLICO - - and apparently A L H A Z E N a s well - - were led astray by a mistaken
estimate of the relevance of the size of the vertex angle of pyramids of light to the rate of
change of their associated screen images: the case of change not in screen distance, but
object distance. See the following two pages and note 13 for further discussion.
352 E.B. THRO

MAUROLICO, it is evident, has not succeeded in explaining the change in the

geometrical proportions of the image because he does not understand the
fundamental "size-distance" principle of perspective projection (and surveying).
This principle, which governs the projection of any set of points (or planar
objects) onto a parallel plane, relates image and object sizes and distances. It
applies to each of the projection situations in Figure 4 because object and
image may, of course, be on the same side or opposite sides of the center of
projection. This principle tells us that the ratio between the size of the projec-
ting object and its distance from the projection center equals that between the
size of the screen image and its distance from that center. And this principle,
which actually identifies triangles as similar or proportional if their tangents are
equal, also implies that when object size and distance are constant, image size
varies directly with the distance of the screen from the center of projection.
It is not difficult to state this principle so that it facilitates a comparison
between the two different projections of our example. 12 For each of the projec-
tions in Figure 4, the '"final distance" may be described as including the initial
distance of the screen from the center of projection, plus a percentage increase.
The percentage increase is the measured or absolute distance interval covered
by the receding screen compared to its initial distance from the center of
projection. While this measured change is the same in each of the projections of
Figure 4, the final distance will reflect a greater "scaling up" of the initial
distance in the case of the shorter projection pyramid - - and, of course, the
final, increased, image will be similarly affected. That is, the final image will be
a larger multiple of the initial image in the case of the source images projected
through the ends of the aperture than it is in the case of the offsets (aperture
images) projected from the source.
This type of comparison may also be made for a second aspect of change in
pinhole camera imaging. I am referring to a movement that changes the
distance of the source from the aperture. Again, the final distance will reflect

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

t3 It might be supposed that MAUROLICO, as a translator of EUCLID, grasps EUC-

LID'S basic principle of similar triangles that in today's mathematical terminology is
called a "tangent function." However, as TEN DOESCHATE~; VELTMAN point out, there
was a common confusion surrounding this principle in the centuries after EUCLID.
Opticists were often unclear about the relation between the angle of a pyramid of light,
measured in arc degrees, and the tangent of this angle, which considers the pyramid with
respect to its base, i.e., to a planar section of this pyramid, and therefore to a measure
354 E.B. THRO

3. Leonardo's Contribution and Solution

3.a Leonardo's Contribution: A Current View

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

1508-14 in the Codex Atlanticus in a series of drawings and related discus-

sion of imaging t h r o u g h pinholes and apertures of various sizes and
shapes. 15
Responding to this and earlier work, DAVID LINDBERG, in publications span-
ning 17 years, offers a consistently dismissive j u d g m e n t of LEONARDO'S contribu-
tion to the theory of the pinhole camera. In 1968, for example, LINDBERO
asserts,

[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)

As I said, I disagree with LINDBERG. In m y view, in the diagrams and texts

I will discuss, LEONARDO offers a clear and complete statement of the pinhole
camera p h e n o m e n o n and a full explanation of its cause. 16
Before turning to this discussion, however, I would like to address one
special aspect of LINDBERG'S dissatisfaction with LEONARDO.

(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

As VELTMAN has suggested, LINDBERG seems to think LEONARDO'S work

generally lacks scientific weight because it often relies on drawings rather than
verbal explanations. 17 VELTMAN'S observation is pertinent here: first, because
LEONARDO does make diagrams of pinhole camera images central to his analysis
in the Codex Atlanticus, and second, because he is the sort of accomplished
draughtsman that LINDBERG claims would be able to copy what appears on
a camera screen without really understanding it. is
In my judgment, such a worry is excessive in the case of LEONARDO'S
drawings of pinhole camera images. The diagrams in the Codex Atlanticus are
technical illustrations. Like all such drawings, they aim at a recording of
patterns that necessarily involves abstraction. Here, to abstract the geo-
metry of the proportional changes characterizing pinhole camera images while
looking at the screen, LEONARDO not only would have to correct for the
disruptive influence of such factors as variable lighting of the subject, the
thickness of the rim of the hole (which blocks or scatters oblique rays), and
diffraction, but he also would have to "read in" the internal geometry in the
superimposed light patches (which is obscure or absent from the image). 19 This
list makes it plain that mere copying is not a meaningful option for the
scientific observer.
Furthermore, it is well known that LEONARDO pioneered techniques of scien-
tific illustration in the analysis and interpretation of shadow projections gene-
rally. M a n y scholars remark that the scope of LEONARDO'S treatment of light
and shade - - in the early Ms. C and the late (lost) Ms. W - - goes well beyond
what he could have observed, that the project certainly was driven more by
theory than experience. There is no basis for excepting pinhole camera images
from such a generalization, for these are nothing other than a species of shadow
projection. 2~

1_7 VELTMAN, Linear Perspective, p. 12 et passim.

18 LINDBERG explicitly raises this concern in connection with HENRY of LARGER-
STEIN in his article of 1970 (as in note 2 above), p. 313.
1_9 L.P. CLERC, Photography: Theory and Practice, 2nd edn., New York, 1946, pp.
20-21; and PIRENNE, Optics, p. 49. See also TAYLOR, 1978 (as in note 6 above), for
photographs of screen images formed through various apertures, especially Figure 3,
p. 57 and Figure 3.9, p. 67.
2o For LEONARDO as a scientific illustrator, see P. GALLUZZI,"Leonardo da Vinci:
From the 'Elementi Macchinali' to the Man-Machine," History and Technology, vol. 4,
1987, pp. 235-66; and VELTMAN, Linear Perspective, pp. 13 ft. and pp. 20-22. LEONAR-
DO'S theory of shadows is discussed in M. KEMP 8,: J. ROBERTS, Leonardo da Vinci:
Artist, Scientist, Inventor, with a preface by E.H. GOMBRICH, New Haven, 1989, p. 174
and pp. 213-15. See also PEDRETTI, Commentary, p. 131 and p. 168.
Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 357

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

In fact, when we consider LEONARDO'Spinhole camera illustrations, they are

unrivaled in revealing a precise knowledge of the shape changes that near and
far screens theoretically display. This is why, after 500 years, two of the draw-
ings STEPHEN STRAKER relies on to demonstrate the solution to the pinhole
camera problem for a round source and angular aperture differ only trivially
from LEONARDO'S.21

3.b Leonardo's Solution: The Image Changes Described

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)

22 LEONARDO'Sstatement about the changes in source images should be compared

with others about the associated changes in aperture images with increasing screen
distance. There are three passages in RICHTER - - 192-194, dated c. 1490, c. 1515, and c.
1508-10, respectively - - that refer to changes in shadow images of obstacles at in-
creasing projection distances. (Here "obstacles" can be taken to include the rim of the
hole of a pinhole camera and its opaque surround.) LEONARDOcharacterizes the change
occurring as the image plane recedes by saying both that the shadow loses its resemb-
lance to the obstacle, and that it becomes a "more confused" representation of this
object (see also the note to RICHTER 195 by PEDRETTI, Commentary).
23 There is controversy about how much of this conclusion is anticipated in the brief
remarks of LEVI BEN GERSON, w h o discusses some aspects of the pinhole camera, but
does not explicitly discuss the characteristic changes that occur in image geometry at
different projection distances of the screen or object (GOLDSTEIN, 1985, as in note 14
above, p. 142).
On one of the aspects of the pinhole camera that LEVI does directly treat, however,
there is an interesting parallel between his remarks and those of LEONARDO. Both
writers seek to disprove a misconception existing in the West about the images formed
through angular apertures by round bodies, notably celestial bodies.
For instance, one thirteenth century opticist, JOHN PECHAM, has said that this image
must be a single image of the aperture - - as if a celestial body supplies, out of all its
pyramids, a single diverging pyramid of rays passing through the boundaries of the
aperture and intersecting the image plane with a broader base than any of the others
(LINDBERG, 1968, as in note 2 above, pp. 170-72). And, according to PECHAM, the
problem to be explained is why this image gives way to another with the round shape of
the source as the screen withdraws.
360 E.B. TH~o

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.

There is a diagram by LEONARDO in CA 236 r-a (blue paper, c. 1513-14 - - see

Figure A.2) and an accompanying passage making the same point that LEvi does here.
The explanatory passage has been translated for the first time by PEDRETTI, in his
Commentary (note to RICHTER 198):
The luminous ray brought through the angle of an opening will not result in the
impression of an angle, but will result instead in the impression of a portion of
a circle . . . .
T h e . . . shadow produced by a convex obtuse angle with rectilinear sides will project
a figure of triangular shape with curvilinear sides. Let it be proved, and let the
luminous body be A - H , the rays of which concur to the obtuse angle C of the
 Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 361

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

3.c Leonardo's Solution: The Image Changes Explained

LEONARDO'S understanding of the geometrical features of pinhole images

projected at different screen distances is surely the equal of MAUROLICO'S. But,
as I have said, LEONARDO'S understanding of the basis of the change surpasses
MAUROLICO'S. We see this from the diagrams in CA 241 r-d and related texts
(Figure 7), in which LEONARDO explains why the pinhole camera images change
as they do.
Here LBONARDO presents a series of diagrams of projections made through
vent holes by extended luminous sources. In these diagrams, LEONARDO'Suse of
light and shading in the representation of the screen image unambiguously
isolates the elements of the image that are key to the solution of the camera
proNem, and relates each to its appropriate rays. More important, he also
introduces the perspective principle that equates the ratio of object and image
sizes with the ratio of their distances from the center of projection.

27 Although LEONARDOspeaks of a "true form," we may suppose he does not mean

a single image of the source, but rather an approximation to such an image, as shown in
Figures 5.4 and 6.3 - - see also the note in Ms. C.10v given in MACCURDY, 1955 (as in
note 5), "Light and Shade," pp. 960-61).
LINDBERG sums up LEONARDO'S accomplishments as follows: He ',knew that in
radiation through large apertures, the radiating beam has the shape of the aperture just
behind the aperture, the shape of the luminous source far beyond the aperture. But
Leonardo presented no theory to explain the phenomena of large apertures" (1976, as in
note 1 above, p. 267, note 38). I think, however, that the diagrams of the Codex
Atlanticus just discussed alone raise questions about this contention, showing as they do
a full sequence of camera image changes and emphasizing in particular the transitional
zone of images partly superimposed. (For LINDBERG'Sremark about LEONARDOand the
image formed just behind the aperture, see my footnote 23 above.)
 Leonardo da Vinci and the Problem of the Pinhole Camera 367

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.

4. Conclusion: Maurolico's Pseudoproblem of Image Coalescence

and Leonardo's Clarification

As I have been characterizing the problem of pinhole camera images, there

are changes in the geometrical proportions of the screen image that a given
luminous body projects as the screen withdraws from the aperture, and the
problem is to explain these changes.
This presentation may be compared with the treatment by Lord RAYLEIGH
(JOHN WlLL~AM STRUrr), who formulated the classical theory of pinhole images,

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

In my view, however, neither LINDBERG nor MAUROLICO satisfactorily expli-

cates the notion of "merging," that of certain screen elements being "insensible"
in comparison to other elements.
The problem is that they nowhere mention the position of the viewer. We
must not forget that, for light sources near to the aperture, all the elements of
a pinhole camera image enlarge as the screen distance increases, including the
area of offset between increasingly concurrent circles, a3 Given this enlargement,
and assuming a viewer free to move close to the screen and to make measure-
ments upon it, the offset area does not itself become in any sense visually or
measurably "insensible"; rather, it becomes increasingly noticeable.
It seems to me, therefore, that the only explanation of a "merging" of
distinct images that might finally be consistent with the physical facts, and with
the phenomenal facts described by LEONARDO, MAUROLICO and others, is
one in which the viewer's distance from an increasingly remote screen ulti-
mately makes it impossible to visually resolve a distinction between images.
Thus, from a viewing position as far away as the aperture, the visual angle
subtended by, say, the spatial separation of the peripheries of two partly
overlapping circles formed on the screen might be so small that the difference
in locations of these images in the eye may be too small to be appreciated by
the viewer.
LEONARDO was well aware of and often referred to just such an explanation
of the coalescence of discrete images. For instance, he raises this idea in
a passage where he introduces the notion of a "limiting distance" for image size
changes. Celestial bodies are so distant, he says, that a further distance of 3600
miles will involve a change in visual angles so slight that the altered image size
theoretically calculated for the eye will not be noticeable in reality (Ms. F.60b,
c. 1508).
But L~ONARDO develops this point more vividly in a case parallel to the
pinhole camera case: the many separate images of the sun that are formed in
the many small waves of a ruffled water surface. LEOr~ARDO notes that these
images, while they appear separate to an eye brought close to them, will
coalesce to form a single round image when the eye is moved away from the
surface of the water (Br.M. 25a and Br.M. 28a, both c. 1508). 34

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

changes LEONARDOidentified supply a ready-made monocular surveying system for the

perspective viewer (E. BROYDRICKTHRO,"LEONARDO'SSpace: From Relative to Absolu-
te," Achademia Leonardi Vinci: Journal of Leonardo Studies & Bibliography of Vinciana,
vol. 3, 1990, pp. 39-50, and "Realism and Perspectivism: A Reevaluation of Rival
Theories of Spatial Vision," Ph.D. dissertation, unpublished, Department of Philosophy,
University of California at Los Angeles, 1990).

Center for Human Information Processing

Department of Psychology
University of California
San Diego

(Received February 13, 1994)