Question

If you look at the stars, cutting off the rays (as may be done by looking through a very small hole made with the extreme point of a very fine needle, placed so as almost to touch the eye), you will see those stars so minute that it would seem as though nothing could be smaller; it is in fact their great distance which is the reason of their diminution, for many of them are very many times larger than the star which is the earth with water.

–“In Praise of the Sun,”
Leonardo da Vinci

Which best identifies the author’s purpose?

to argue a theory about the size of stars
to inform readers about an experiment he conducted about stars
to entertain readers with a description of stars in the night sky
to argue a theory about the size of the Earth

Answer 1

to argue a theory about the size of stars

Step-by-step explanation:

This excerpt shows that Leonardo da Vinci was presenting an argument about the size of the stars. It seems that in his day some others believed that the star was exactly the size it appeared when we view it from the earth.

However, Leonardo da Vinci here shows that the distance between the earth and the stars was responsible for their miniature appearance. He believed that in actuality many of these stars were even larger than the earth. Reading further in that text, we see that he disproved the claim of Epicurus who believed that the earth was no larger than it appeared.