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Leslie:
Sounds like a very interesting documentary! It does not surprise me that Leo may have had a camera obscura as I am pretty sure that he had a drawing of one somewhere in his papers.
BTW: I don't hold too much with the Mona Lisa as a Leonardo self portrait. This is because we have an original source that speaks to the actual commission - Georgio Vassari in his 1557 book "The Lives of the Painters" says of Mona Lisa:
"Lionardo undertook to paint for Francesco del Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa his wife, but having spent four years upon it, left it unfinished. This work now belongs to King Francis of France, and whoever wishes to see how art can imitate nature may learn from this head. Mona Lisa being most beautiful, he used, while he was painting her, to have men to sing and play to her and buffoons to amuse her, to take away that look of melancholy which is so often seen in portraits; and in this of Lionardo's there is a peaceful smile more divine than human."
There is always some controversy over Vassari as to whether or not he "embellished" here and there, but the general facts and dates of other things have shown to be accurate.
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