.....from which I've extracted some short sections below. But both books are
well worth a read (shame there are no plates in either, though). If you
have sufficient time, that is. :-)
Executive summary: even though the Greeks described the ideas behind
perspective, the first "modern" manual on perspective was by Leon Battista
Alberti (he of crypto fame) in 1434: and the first theoretical treatise on
it was by the highly respected Fra. Luca Pacioli (he of revised
hand-signals fame) in 1494 - for which Leonardo did the perspective
illustrations of geometric solids.
So: the answer to your question is... "it probably depends when you date
the Renaissance from". :-)
Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
* * * * * * * *
The ancient Greek's word for (roughly) the same concept was "symmetria",
which was translated as "proportio", and then into French (in 1578) as
"perspective".
Among the earliest records of Renaissance perspective practice was
Cristoforo Landino?s Apologia of Dante (1481, 1564; cf. Morisani,
1953),
who specifically used the term perspective in his descriptions of
Uccello, Brunelleschi and Donatello. In his Apologia of the
Florentines
(cf. Bonucci, 1847,91) Landino also described Leon Battista Alberti as
being "more famous in perspective than anyone in many centuries".
Massaino (1499) noted Alberti?s accomplishments in perspective
theory (cf. Bonucci, 1843, p.CCXXXV). Volaterannus (1506) in his
discussion of optics and catoptrics referred to the treatises of
Petrus
e Burgo Sancti Sepulchri (i.e. Piero della Francesca) adding that:
"the
use of this discipline is clearly manifest in many things: in
measuring
buildings, in the principles of architecture and painting, in the
positioning of the shadows of objects...and finally in discovering the
truth and variety of heavenly and other bodies both in terms of their
reflections and refractions". Volaterannus? statement is important
because it makes explicit links between perspective, optics and
astronomy which helps explain Leonardo?s and Kepler?s activities in
this context (cf. Veltman 1994). It also provides a further
context for
Edgerton?s (1991) claims concerning links between astronomy and
perspective.
The standard book on perspective for the period 1250-1500 is White (1957):
and for 1200-1400 is Federici Vescovini?s (1965) "Studies on mediaeval
perspective",
The first known examples of a central vanishing point are by Lorenzetti
(though perspective in art pre-1400 is generally labelled
"proto-perspectivist", and the debate about which painting was the first
"full" - rather than partial - use of perspective will probably rage forever):-
Madonna with Child, Angels and Saints, the so called Little Maestà
(Siena, c. 1340)
The Annunciation (Siena, 1344),
I rather liked this passage, Fasola sounds like my kind of historian:- :-)
Nicco Fasola (1942), in a polemical article argued that perspective
was not a discovery but rather an invention of fifteenth century
Florence,
that it had a basis neither in experiment nor in ocular experience,
rather, that it was a product of a cosmological world view in
which art,
mathematics and science were seen as keys to certainty, while nature
was conceived geometrically: hence the identification of the regular
solids with the elements. Nicco Fasola noted that the academies
had perpetuated the rules of perspective while failing to convey
the historical context that had inspired it.
Francastel [1951] claimed that the first generation of perspective artists
had died by 1450; that the second generation spanned from 1450-1480 and
that the third included Ghirlandaio, Signorelli, Perugino, Verrocchio,
Pollaiuolo and Carpaccio.
Gallet's key thesis [1956] and article [1959] was "set apart from others by
his painstaking attempt to understand the intellectual circles, the social
climate one would say today, that made possible the rise of perspective."
This sounds like a pretty good place from which to start the kind of
research I have in mind.
Personally, I love intarsia - intricate & geometric trompe l'oeuil faux-3d
marquetry - so it was fascinating to read that Chastel [1965] argued that
the use of perspectivist ideas in intarsia by artisans *preceded* the use
of the same ideas by painters. They were members of different guilds, after
all. :-) The same source discusses "cassoni" - decorated marriage trunks
of the same period (no, I'd never heard of them either) - because they were
frequently painted in a similar way.
Another thing that astonished me was that there had been a world congress
on Renaissance perspective - Renaissance perspective. Codification and
transgressions (1977, published 1980).
A quick note on the word "perspective":-
"Salvemini (1984) studied the etymological history of vernacular
Italian usage of the term perspective (prospettiva) during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, which was reprinted in her book (1990). She
drew attention (10) to a legal use in the late twelfth century,
(although
this became the late thirteenth century (22) in the next chapter),
where perspectiva meant "view of a prospect".