Matteo Zaccolini e il suo Trattato di Ottica. Uno sguardo sulle conoscenze dei pittori del primo Seicento

This essay intends to enhance the little known figure of Matteo Zaccolini and his unpublished Treatise on Optics which emerges, due to its range and variety of discussion, as an important opportunity to rediscover the knowledge available to the educated painters in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In this paper some of zaccolini’s propositions concerning different themes are analysed: foreshortening of apparent dimensions, cast shadows tracing, shadows as conical sections and the aerial perspective. Thus far, the Treatise on Optics by Matteo Zaccolini has never been printed, nor it was the subject of a deep and complete critical study regarding its geometric content.