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Galilæana. Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Science

Focus

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2026)

Projecting and painting: Codification and circulation of optical knowledge, 1568-1711

DOI
https://doi.org/10.57617/gal-130
Submitted
11 April 2026
Published
2026-11-01

Abstract

The camera obscura is best known to historians of science and historians of philosophy for its role in early theories of human vision and cognition. Art historians have discussed the instrument mostly as a predecessor to the photographic camera. Building on recent literature that combines these strands of scholarship, I argue that the codification and circulation of the main philosophical and artistic problems of the camera were more closely intertwined than previously believed. I show that, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, discussions of the setup of the camera obscura as a painting tool and of the conceptualization of its optical projection often coincided. For both, finding the distances between the lens, object, and image was a persistent problem until mathematicians provided explicit solutions, around 1700. Therefore, I argue, the conceptualization of these distances in projection and the codification of the camera obscura’s material use for painting were inextricably linked.

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