Drawing Nudes and the Glass for a Correct View
Draw the figure whole, keep the eye level with the sitter, and trace a scene on an upright pane of glass.
A text page under the running head SECVNDA (folio 41), collecting precepts on figure drawing and drawing devices. Chapter 88 teaches to draw nudes whole before finishing any single limb, and gives rules of contrapposto for head, chest, arm and leg; chapter 89 says the draughtsman's eye should be level with the eye of the figure drawn, as passers-by are met eye to eye. Chapter 90 describes drawing a correct view through a large glass pane fixed before the eyes, the head steadied at two-thirds of a braccio so it cannot move.
On this page
Of drawing nudes: draw them whole, and the rule of contrapposto
Always draw nudes whole, then finish the best-seeming limb and set it in practice with the others, lest you never join the limbs well together. Never turn the head where the chest is, nor make the arm go like the leg; balance the sides so that as the head turns one way the far side rises.
Drawing from relief: the eye level with the sitter's eye
He who draws from relief should place himself so the eye of the figure drawn is level with his own eye, as when drawing a head from nature. People met in the streets all have their eyes at the height of yours, so setting them higher or lower would make the portrait unlike.
The glass pane for drawing a correct site
Take a glass as large as half a royal sheet and fix it between your eye and the thing to be drawn; place the eye two-thirds of a braccio from the glass and steady the head with an instrument so it cannot move at all. The passage breaks off as the tracing method begins.