Perspective
Perception
Illustration
Manual
The book «la pratica di prospettiva» is an introduction to the perspective drawing. The principles and functionality of these are explained using various examples. The structure of the book builds on itself, so the concepts conveyed, starting from simple basic forms, become more and more complex, until at the end different architectures are exemplarily depicted. They show the possibilities of these techniques and combine the previously rather abstractly explained principles with one another to form one picture.
The book is structured in three parts. A short foreword with a table of contents, followed by a middle section that contains the instructions and an appendix that provides examples. The instructions are divided into individual double pages. Each double page explains a principle of the perspective by means of a page of text and a full-page illustration. The text is always on the left, the illustration on the right.
The texts are all written in Latin and therefore not to be understood literally for me. However, it can be clearly seen that they take up the coordinate systems in the illustrations. I assume that the text serves as a guide on how to build the perspective step by step. This means that text and illustration cannot be separated from one another. The text represents the time component, the illustration the visual.
The illustrations are clean technical drawings. They each show a floor plan, a section and the resulting perspective of various objects. The consistent labeling makes them easy to understand as an explanatory illustration. The consistently identical structure of the illustration makes a comparison easier. One can well imagine that even illiterate viewers can understand the conveyed content on the basis of these representations.
Despite its age, the condition of the book is still surprisingly good. There are only a few slight signs of wear and tear. There is no damage worth mentioning. On various pages there are imprints of images that are not included in the book. In connection with the way in which the representations are inserted into the page, one can assume that some have been revised or even completely replaced.
Even 400 years after the publication of this book, it can still be understood as a guide for the perspective drwawing. The underlying principles are still valid today and can be understood even without proper language skills thanks to the clear, precise drawings used. It is therefore obvious that even in its time it served to spread the understanding of perspective and to enable autodidactic learning of the underlying principles.