How an architect, two great masters of painting, and the author of an early textbook on painting applied geometric optics to change painting.
Alberti
The significance of Alberti’s textbook on painting and simplified perspective, followed by Piero’s account of perspective, and Vasari’s new history of painting.
His final frescoes were an inspiration to Michelangelo and others in the Renaissance, and include one of the greatest paintings in Europe.
The importance of perspective in Western painting is hotly debated, but there is no doubt that is has brought about very visible change.
How many books about computing can compare with Aristotle’s Poetics, or the writing of Steven Pinker or Stephen Hawking?