ABSTRACT
In the indexes of printed texts produced in seventeenth-century London, listed right alongside the multiple translations and editions of Homer and Virgil, and intermixed with political tracts on the Commonwealth and the political failures of the sovereign, are dozens of manuals that fall loosely under the categories of “perspective treatise” and “mathematical recreations.” Taken together, these texts comprise the highly popular perspective manual genre, a collection of interactive and printed works that offered demonstrations on anamorphosis, perspective craft in art and design, theories of perception, and speculations on the mysteries and powers of mathematical objects and games. As I will explore here, to dismiss these texts as popular diversions from more serious literary pursuits and philosophical problems of the moment is to pass over one of the most affecting and pervasive forums for the shift toward intermedial political, aesthetic and performative expression in the early modern period.
