The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark.
 Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1478 – 1519). copy citation

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Author Leonardo da Vinci
Source The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
Topic darkness sun seeing light eye
Date 1478 – 1519
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Jean Paul Richter in 1888
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5000/pg5000-images.html

Context

“This occurs because the greater the darkness into which the pupil goes the more its size increases, and this increase makes the darkness seem less.
[Footnote 14: La luce entrerŕ. Luce occurs here in the sense of pupil of the eye as in no 51: C. A. 84b; 245a; I—5; and in many other places.]
36. ON PERSPECTIVE.
The eye which turns from a white object in the light of the sun and goes into a less fully lighted place will see everything as dark. And this happens either because the pupils of the eyes which have rested on this brilliantly lighted white object have contracted so much that, given at first a certain extent of surface, they will have lost more than 3/4 of their size; and, lacking in size, they are also deficient in [seeing] power.” source

Meaning and analysis

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