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Proposition 20 of the book was entitled “An object’s shadow can be converted and projected.” The author pointed out that if an object between a light and an opening is moved one way its shadow appears to move the other. He then went on to explain the reasons for Aristotle’s square hole and round sun. He also showed accurately the relation of images and objects which was fundamental for understanding how to focus lenses and mirrors.

Self portrait. Royal Palace, Turin

LEONARDO DA VINCI, famed Renaissance painter and sculptor, explained how to use the camera and described its relationship to the human eye.

Later astronomers credit Maurolico with having described the application of the camera obscura method to an observation of eclipses (but this was done for the first recorded time by Bacon or his contemporaries). Maurolico knew the works of Bacon and John Peckham, another English Franciscan monk of the 13th century, and studied both carefully. In 1535 he wrote Cosmographia and in later life studied the rays of light that make the phenomenon of the images appearing in a camera obscura, or any camera, possible without mentioning the apparatus or device or describing it. Being a mathematician primarily he was interested in that side of the problem and was not a practical demonstrator or showman.