Opening Optics — Euclid in Plato Scroll…
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Euclid · R. C. Taliaferro
The Optics (Ὀπτικά) — the earliest surviving Greek treatise on perspective and the geometry of vision, in which Euclid treats sight as proceeding in straight rays from the eye. Translated by Harry Edwin Burton, 1945 Euclid’s book on Ὀπτικά deals chiefly with the geometry of vision, with little reference to either the physical or psychological aspects of sight. No Western scientist had previously given mathematical attention to vision and Euclid’s Optics would go on to influence the work of later Greek, Islamic and Western European Renaissance scientists and artists. Ptolemy used Euclid’s mathematical treatment of vision and his idea of a visual cone in combination with physical theories in his own Optics. Renaissance artists such as Brunelleschi, Alberti and Dürer were inspired by Euclid’s Optics when producing their own work on linear perspective. Although several writers before Euclid …
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