Abstract
Abstract: This article traces the development of the gaze by closely analyzing the Medusa myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses and in Petrarch's appropriation of Medusa in his representations of Laura in Canzoniere 179 and 197. By reading Petrarch through medieval elaborations of classical optical theory, the article proposes that relevant connections exist between Plato's extramission theory and current theories of visual culture, suggesting that Plato's theory of extramission has influenced how contemporary media scholars theorize visual regimes and ways of seeing. As once said by Paul Virilio, "once we have seen something, we have already started to destroy it".