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Abstract:  THE “MARVELLOUS FABRIC OF THE EYE”: ANATOMIC ILLUSTRATIO AND PERSPECTIVE THEORY BY THE END OF THE 16TH CENTURY The debates surrounding the respective definitions of natural and artificial perspectives have been at the heart of each and every commentary on practical perspective from the Middle Ages onwards. Yet, an anatomical description of the eye, the very first instrument of sight, is rarely included in these treatises. In his large commentary to the princeps edition of the Due regole della prospettiva pratica del Vignola (Roma, 1583), the Dominican friar and mathematician Egnatio Danti carefully follows this argument with illustrations and comments. He tries to demonstrate the coherence of his anatomical observations with the geometrical perspective, ground of the work of someone used to theorizing the practice of arts at a time when his lifelong collaboration with artists in Rome reaches a remarkable level of institutional recognition while directing the decoration of the geographical maps gallery. His position is here in compared to the one of the contemporaries of the period, among which are Juan Valverde and Ambroise Paré.