The Da Vinci Notebooks at sacred-texts.com
Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light.
A shadow may be infinitely dark, and also of infinite degrees of absence of darkness.
The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form.
The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.