Treatise on Painting: the parts of painting and the primacy of drawing
Book II — dividing painting into eight, then five parts; disegno praised as science and deity
A text-only leaf of Book II of the Trattato della pittura, headed SECVNDA and numbered 50, with a marginal gloss in a later hand beside the last chapter. Three chapters set out the theoretical anatomy of painting: chapter 131 lists its first parts (darkness, light, body, figure, site, remotion and propinquity, plus motion and rest), chapter 132 reduces it to five parts and the 'two perspectives' of increase and diminution of quantity, knowledge and colour, and chapter 133 declares its two principal parts to be lineaments (called disegno) and shadow. Leonardo exalts drawing as searching out nature and more, commanding the sculptor and teaching all manual arts, so that it is not merely a science but a deity.
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The first parts of painting
Chapter 131 lists the first parts into which painting is divided: darkness, light, body, figure, site, remotion and propinquity. To these may be added two others, motion and rest, since one must figure the motions of the things feigned in a painting.
The five parts and the two perspectives
Chapter 132 gives the parts of painting as five: surface, figure, colour, shadow and light, propinquity and remotion, or increase and diminution, which are the two perspectives. These govern the diminution of a thing's quantity and the diminution of the knowledge of things seen at long distances, and that of colours, including which colour fades first at equal distances and which endures most.
Disegno exalted as science and deity
Chapter 133 names the two principal parts of painting as lineaments, which surround the figures of feigned bodies and are called drawing (disegno), and shadow. Drawing is of such excellence that it not only searches out the works of nature but infinitely more; it commands the sculptor to terminate his images with science and teaches all manual arts their perfect end, so that it is to be concluded not only a science but a deity.