In all the proportions I lay down it must be understood that the medium between the bodies is always the same. [2] The smaller the luminous body the more distinct will the transmission of the shadows be.
[3] When of two opposite shadows, produced by the same body, one is twice as dark as the other though similar in form, one of the two lights causing them must have twice the diameter that the other has and be at twice the distance from the opaque body. If the object is lowly moved across the luminous body, and the shadow is intercepted at some distance from the object, there will be the same relative proportion between the motion of the derived shadow and the motion of the primary shadow, as between the distance from the object to the light, and that from the object to the spot where the shadow is intercepted; so that though the object is moved slowly the shadow moves fast.
[Footnote: There are diagrams inserted before lines 2 and 3 but they are not reproduced here. The diagram above line 6 is written upon as follows: at A lume (light), at B obbietto (body), at C ombra d’obbietto (shadow of the object).]
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.