Orthographic Anamnesis on Piero’s Perspectival Treatise

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the orthographic processes (cylindrical projection based) behind the settings of a perspective method (conic projection based) proposed in De Prospectiva Pingendi, about three centuries before the official codification of paraline representations. For this purpose, the paper will focus on what appears to be a vanishing point where perspective depth lines meet on the figures. Demonstrations lead to the conclusion that this graphic construction may be not generated by a conic projection, and geometric analysis suggests it may have an orthographic origin, which seemed like a new result.