Kim H. Veltman’s Studies on Leonardo da Vinci was a long-term research project devoted to Leonardo’s methods of visual thought, experiment, perspective, optics, vision and astronomy. Beginning with a seemingly simple question about the experimental basis of Leonardo’s writings on perspective, the research developed into an extensive investigation of the relationship between visualisation, scientific experiment and artistic practice.
Read Studies on Leonardo da Vinci I in the PRC Digital Reader →
Select Leonardo 1 in the Digital Reader.
The project developed over many years and its structure changed as the research expanded. Surviving published works, typescripts, project descriptions, progress reports and archival binders preserve several stages of this development. They show Veltman repeatedly reorganising the material as new relationships emerged between perspective, optics, light and shade, vision, astronomy and Leonardo’s visual methods.
The Perspective Research Centre therefore distinguishes between the intellectual development of the project and the physical organisation of the surviving archive. The latter includes approximately 3,000 pages preserved in eight bound working volumes, whose internal labels do not correspond consistently to a simple sequence of eight finished books.
Origins of the Project — London, 1973
The project began in February 1973 under the auspices of the Wellcome Institute in London. Veltman and the physician and Leonardo scholar Kenneth D. Keele set out to answer a straightforward question: did Leonardo da Vinci’s writings on linear perspective have an experimental basis?
A single experiment was successfully repeated. This prompted further experiments and ultimately a systematic search of Leonardo’s surviving notes. Between 1975 and 1976 Veltman undertook a complete search of the perspectival material. The numerous connections between perspective and optics then led to a corresponding search of Leonardo’s optical notes in 1976–1977.
The investigation was originally conceived as two principal studies: a first volume devoted to linear perspective and a second to optics. A further concordance was subsequently envisaged to connect Leonardo’s scattered passages, diagrams and manuscript locations.
From Perspective to a Much Larger Investigation
The first study could be examined against a relatively concentrated fifteenth-century tradition involving figures such as Alberti, Filarete, Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Piero della Francesca. The optical research proved much more extensive. Leonardo had to be placed within an intellectual tradition stretching back through Euclid, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Alhazen, Witelo, John Pecham and other ancient and mediaeval authors.
This changed the character of the project. Rather than presenting Leonardo simply as an isolated inventor, Veltman examined the relationship between continuity and innovation: what Leonardo inherited, how he transformed inherited ideas, and how his habits of visualisation and experimentation altered the way traditional problems could be investigated.
The phrase Continuity and Discovery became particularly important in this context. Veltman’s concern was not merely with identifying Leonardo’s sources, but with understanding what happened when inherited verbal concepts were translated into diagrams, physical models and experiments.
Visualisation and Experiment
A central theme of Veltman’s interpretation is the transformation of traditional verbal comparisons into visual and experimental problems.
Ancient and mediaeval writers frequently explained natural phenomena through analogies. Light, sound and other effects could be compared with blows, waves or other familiar processes. Veltman argues that Leonardo characteristically went further by attempting to draw, reconstruct, model or experimentally test such comparisons.
A verbal analogy could therefore become a visual diagram; a diagram could generate a sequence of alternatives; and those alternatives could become the basis of an experiment. In Veltman’s account, the rise of visualisation and the development of experimental investigation are closely connected.
Leonardo’s drawings are consequently treated not simply as illustrations added to texts, but as stages in a process of visual reasoning.
Reconstructing the Order of Leonardo’s Notebooks
One of the most distinctive features of Veltman’s method was his attempt to reconstruct order within Leonardo’s apparently scattered notebooks.
After completing an early draft of the optical study, Veltman undertook a major visual reorganisation of Leonardo’s diagrams. Reproductions were compared and rearranged so that related drawings could be studied as sequences rather than as isolated figures on individual manuscript sheets.
The resulting analysis suggested that Leonardo’s visual material passed through recognisable stages. Early folios could function as exploratory working spaces containing unrelated or only loosely related themes. Individual problems could then become increasingly concentrated, rearranged and developed until they formed systematic visual demonstrations or numbered sequences.
Veltman applied related analyses to verbal demonstrations, visual demonstrations and systematic elements. His 1982 progress report presents this as a framework for tracing the development of an idea through Leonardo’s manuscripts rather than assuming that the surviving page order itself reveals the complete intellectual sequence.
This method also encouraged comparison in several directions: between Leonardo and his contemporaries; between Leonardo and ancient and mediaeval sources; and between Leonardo’s work and subsequent developments in science and technology.
Studies on Leonardo da Vinci I
Linear Perspective and the Visual Dimensions of Science and Art
The first major study concentrates on Leonardo’s treatment of linear perspective and its wider implications for geometry, surveying, visual representation, experimentation, scientific practice and painting.
Its scope extends well beyond conventional perspective construction. Veltman considers historical background and sources, Leonardo’s definitions, surveying and perspectival practice, instruments, demonstrations, anamorphosis, regular solids, transformations, models, pyramidal geometry, colour perspective, loss of distinctness, chiaroscuro and the role of perspective in painting.
The study treats perspective as a bridge between artistic practice and scientific investigation. Leonardo’s diagrams, geometrical constructions, models and experiments are considered together as parts of a wider visual method.
Open Volume I in the PRC Digital Reader →
The Changing Structure of the Later Leonardo Studies
The later volumes cannot be described accurately by assuming that Veltman maintained one fixed numbering system throughout the project. The archive preserves different stages of organisation.
In the early 1980s, a large second study was described under the provisional title Continuity and Discovery in Optics and Astronomy. In this arrangement the work combined historical optics, the physics of light and shade, the eye and vision, astronomy, optical instruments, mirrors and related material within one extensive Volume II.
Surviving project summaries also show another three-volume arrangement in which this large body of research was divided thematically into two substantive studies after Volume I:
- Studies on Leonardo da Vinci II — Optics and Physics of Light and Shade
- Studies on Leonardo da Vinci III — The Eye, Vision and Astronomy
The surviving typescripts and bound working volumes preserve evidence of these overlapping structures. PRC therefore presents them as stages in the development of the project rather than forcing them into a single artificial sequence.
Studies on Leonardo da Vinci II
Optics and Physics of Light and Shade
In the three-volume project description, the second volume concentrates on the optical tradition and the physics of light and shade.
Veltman traces changes in the meaning of optics from problems of sight and perception towards increasingly quantitative and physical investigation. Leonardo is placed within a long tradition extending through ancient and mediaeval optics, while particular attention is given to the ways in which he transformed inherited verbal comparisons into visual demonstrations and experiments.
A central concept is percussion, one of the powers of Nature discussed by Leonardo. Veltman investigates how Leonardo related percussion, force, impetus, movement and the propagation of light and shade.
The study also attempts to reconstruct for the first time the contents of Leonardo’s projected seven books on light and shade, together with further material concerning the movement of shadows.
The Camera Obscura
The camera obscura becomes one of the most important experimental subjects in the project. Veltman identified more than two hundred diagrams dealing with the device and its associated optical problems.
Leonardo investigates inversion, the non-interference of images, the effects of changing apertures, the intensity of light and shade and the behaviour of projected images. These studies increasingly connect the camera obscura with questions concerning the human eye.
The significance of the material lies not only in Leonardo’s conclusions but also in his procedure: variables are changed, alternatives compared and visual effects repeatedly tested.
Studies on Leonardo da Vinci III
The Eye, Vision and Astronomy
The surviving project description for Volume III presents it as a comprehensive treatment of Leonardo’s writings and diagrams concerning the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the visual process.
Veltman examines parallels with Euclid’s Optics and considers Leonardo’s treatment of the central ray, visual field, distance, size, illumination, monocular vision and binocular vision. Particular attention is given to the pupil and to Leonardo’s attempts to connect variations in pupil size with apparent size and other visual effects.
Vision, Illusion and Experimental Models
Leonardo was deeply concerned with the conditions under which the eye could be deceived. For Veltman, these investigations form part of a larger attempt to turn traditional philosophical questions about vision into physical problems that could be studied through diagrams, models and experiments.
Leonardo’s conclusions were not always correct, but his efforts to model the eye, analyse optical conditions and compare different visual situations are central to Veltman’s reconstruction of his scientific method.
Astronomy as an Ulterior Goal
Veltman argues that Leonardo’s optical studies had an ulterior purpose: they provided a foundation for a larger investigation of astronomy.
This leads to analysis of Manuscripts D and F, astronomical questions concerning light, celestial appearances and the moon, and Leonardo’s projected work On the Earth and its Waters.
Veltman reconstructs Leonardo’s attempts to understand the Earth, moon and solar system through combinations of optical reasoning, observation and analogy. Although many individual conclusions differ from modern astronomy, the surviving studies reveal the structure of Leonardo’s reasoning and the relationships he drew between optics and celestial phenomena.
Optical Instruments and Mirrors
Associated appendices investigate Leonardo’s writings on spectacles, proposed telescopic devices, lens-grinding instruments, plane mirrors, convex mirrors and concave mirrors.
These studies extend the project from the physiology of natural vision to the instruments and optical devices through which vision could be modified, extended or experimentally investigated.
The Eight Bound Archival Volumes
The Perspective Research Centre preserves approximately 3,000 pages of surviving working material associated with the later Leonardo studies in eight bound archival volumes.
These eight physical volumes should not be confused with eight formally numbered intellectual volumes. Their labels combine references to “Volume”, “Book”, “Part”, “Chapter”, “Notes” and “Appendix”. Some subjects appear in more than one physical binder, reflecting continuations, revisions, supplementary material or overlapping working states.
The archive therefore records the development of the research as well as its intended final organisation. This helps explain why one surviving arrangement describes a large Volume II entitled Continuity and Discovery in Optics and Astronomy, while another divides closely related material between Volumes II and III.
For scholarly purposes PRC distinguishes between:
- intellectual volumes and parts proposed by Veltman at different stages of the project;
- physical archival binders in which the surviving manuscripts, typescripts, notes and appendices are preserved.
A detailed archival concordance can be developed separately as the individual binders are progressively catalogued.
Chronology of the Research Project
| February 1973 | The Leonardo project begins at the Wellcome Institute in London with experimental investigation of Leonardo’s writings on linear perspective. |
| 1975–1976 | Systematic search of Leonardo’s perspectival writings. |
| 1976–1977 | Systematic search of Leonardo’s optical writings. |
| 1977–1978 | Drafting of the first volume on linear perspective. |
| 1978–1980 | Development of the major optical study. |
| 1980 | Large-scale reorganisation and comparison of Leonardo’s diagrams reveals systematic visual sequences. |
| 1980–1981 | Volume I substantially rewritten in light of the visual analysis. |
| 1981–1983 | The optical and related studies are extensively rewritten and reorganised. |
| 1982 | Veltman documents the state of the project, its developmental method and long-term plans in Leonardo Studies: Progress Report and Long Term Plans. |
| 1986 | Veltman proposes a much larger computer-assisted project for The Collected Works of Leonardo da Vinci. |
Research Institutions and Support
The Leonardo studies developed through an extensive international research programme. Veltman records support from organisations including the Canada Council, Wellcome Trust, Volkswagen Foundation, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Fritz Thyssen Foundation and Gerda Henkel Foundation.
Important phases of the research were associated with institutions including the Warburg Institute, the Wellcome Institute and the Herzog August Bibliothek at Wolfenbüttel. Kenneth D. Keele remained an important advisor and collaborator in the development of the project.
From the Leonardo Studies to a Digital Collected Works
By 1986, Veltman had begun to extend the methods developed in the Leonardo studies towards a much larger proposal: The Collected Works of Leonardo da Vinci.
The proposed edition was conceived not simply as another printed transcription of Leonardo’s manuscripts. Veltman envisaged a computer-assisted research system in which passages and diagrams could be individually numbered, indexed and retrieved.
Topics and search terms would be assigned to individual folios. Researchers could retrieve passages dealing with particular subjects, compare manuscripts, follow sequences of drawings and investigate the chronological development of an idea.
The system was also intended to reconnect secondary scholarship with the original manuscript context. Instead of seeing a Leonardo diagram isolated in a modern book, a reader could retrieve the surrounding folio and examine the original sequence from which it came.
Veltman initially imagined these capabilities through technologies then available or emerging — including computer databases, videodiscs and microfiche. The underlying principle, however, was broader: Leonardo’s manuscripts should become a searchable, interconnected body of visual and textual knowledge.
The proposal also extended beyond Leonardo. Veltman envisaged linking the Leonardo corpus with broader histories of perspective, science, technology and the artist-engineer tradition so that an individual drawing or idea could be studied both within Leonardo’s own work and across its longer historical development.
A Method for Studying Leonardo
The lasting significance of the project lies partly in its subject matter and partly in its method. Veltman attempts to reconstruct Leonardo’s thought by combining texts, diagrams, manuscript sequences, historical sources, experimental reconstruction, physical models and chronological development.
This approach avoids both the image of Leonardo as an isolated genius without historical precedents and the opposite picture of Leonardo as merely reproducing earlier knowledge. Instead, the studies ask how inherited ideas could be transformed through new practices of visualisation, comparison, experimentation and model-making.
The project consequently becomes a study of both continuity and change: continuity in the questions and sources inherited from earlier traditions, and change in the methods through which those questions were represented and investigated.
The Project in the Kim H. Veltman Archive
The surviving Studies on Leonardo da Vinci materials form an important part of the Kim H. Veltman Archive at the Perspective Research Centre.
They preserve more than finished scholarly arguments. Drafts, notes, working divisions, project descriptions and changing volume structures reveal the research process itself: how questions expanded, how diagrams were reorganised, how separate fields became connected and how the project gradually developed into a vision of searchable digital scholarship.
Further cataloguing of the eight bound working volumes will allow PRC to reconstruct this development in still greater detail.
Principal Works and Project Documents
Kim H. Veltman, Studies on Leonardo da Vinci I: Linear Perspective and the Visual Dimensions of Science and Art.
Kim H. Veltman, Studies on Leonardo da Vinci II: Optics and Physics of Light and Shade.
Kim H. Veltman, Studies on Leonardo da Vinci III: The Eye, Vision and Astronomy.
Kim H. Veltman, Continuity and Discovery in Optics and Astronomy. Surviving large-scale working arrangement combining material subsequently represented in different volume structures.
Kim H. Veltman, Leonardo Studies: Progress Report and Long Term Plans, 1982.
Kim H. Veltman, The Collected Works of Leonardo da Vinci, project proposal, 1986.
Archival note: the surviving Leonardo research material includes extensive manuscripts and typescripts distributed across eight physical bound volumes. Their physical numbering preserves stages in the development of the research and does not map directly onto a single finished series numbering system.