This paper deals with the transfer of Arab visual theory in the Middle Ages, as
it is believed that the cultural significance of this transfer needs a new
emphasis. Mathematical perspective was invented in Florentine Renaissance Art.
However, except in the history of science, it is a little known fact that this
visual theory was based on the Book of
Optics, written by Ibn al Haithan, also known as Alhazen, and was
translated, probably in Spain, with the Latin title Perspectiva. We therefore can speak of a double history of
perspective, as visual theory and as pictorial theory. The main argument is to
identify the importance of images, which separate Arab thought from Western
thinking. It was the transformation of mathematics into art, in the Western
sense, that allows us to distinguish two different cultures. In this process,
the invention of mathematical space by Biagio Pelacani was an important step.
Thereafter, the gaze and its looking space became a new concern of the
Renaissance.