Perspective machines

An involvement with the basic techniques and instruments of mensuration is perhaps the most widespread of the common factors amongst the most prominent of the early perspectivist.


Component of the automatic perspective machine, from Cilgoli's "prospettive pratica".Draughtsman operating the perspective machine, from Cilgoli's "prospettive pratica".

A woodcut illustration, used both on the title page of the treatise and in the text, shows the draughtsman operating the machine. He uses his left hand to pull the chords which move the vertical member back and forth across the intersecting plane,while he moves the drawing instrument in his right hand in such a way as to move the bead up and down the shaft. The position of the bead as sighted through the eyehole can thus be moved continuously over the object while the draughtsman's hand traces the resulting configuration on a drawing surface which is pinned to the base board.

This machine is the first which has a genuine claim to provide an automated drawing system.It used only one operation to make a direct transcription on the drawing surface of the object as it appears at the intersection.
Perspective machine uesd tp project froms on to a wall and curved vault, from Cilgoli's "prospettive pratica".

Cilgoli's perspective machine s illustrated in J.F.Niceron's Thaumaturgus opticus,Paris,1646

Referance from:The science of art optical themes in western art from Brunelleschi to Seurat