The geometric origin of perspectivist science in G.W. Leibniz. Analysis based on unpublished manuscripts

Abstract

The perspectivist research carried out by G.W. Leibniz between 1679 and 1686 in the field of geometry is analysed. This work is reflected in six, as yet unpublished, texts, of which the main three are analysed: Constructio et usus scalae perspectivae, Origo regularum artis perspectivae and Scientia perspectiva. The philosophical perspectivism advocated by the German thinker is widely known, but his geometric research on perspective is much less so. This article seeks to remedy this situation. The first of these writings (Constructio et usus scalae perspectivae) includes Leibniz's experimentation with the perspectivist methodology of scales. Then, in Origo regularum artis perspectivae quales, Leibniz constructs his perspectivist regula generalis. Finally, Leibniz wrote Scientia perspectiva and readdresses the main rule of perspective and experiments with the theoretical limits of the analysis carried out in this discipline. Primarily, he supposed a ‘minimum distance’ between the elements that constitute it, and then theorised an ‘infinite interval’ between these same elements.