Summary:

Renaissance painters invented geometric algorithms that allowed them to create the illusion of three-dimensionality in their paintings. The refinement, development and rationalization of these graphic procedures produced an impeccable mathematical theory, projective geometry, axiomatically well founded, and with undoubted practical applications to drawing, which was many decades ahead of the triumphs of mathematics applied to physics. However, as analyzed here, this mathematical modeling of the painting’s space ended up provoking a violent reaction of rejection in the artistic world.

Key words: mannerism | perspective | projective geometry | quattrocento