Optical knowledge in the history of painting

What are the connections between the history of optics and the history of painting? A research project at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome (Max Planck Institute for Art History) explores this question, with an orientation based on the classification system of classical optics, which as a theory of vision and of light in late Antiquity was divided into three principal areas: direct vision based on the rectilinear diffusion of light, reflection on reflective surfaces, and the refraction of light rays on the interface between media of different densities.