THE VITRUVIAN MAN

Leonardo da Vinci's image of the Vitruvian Man is an iconic symbol of human proportions.  The Vitruvian Man (Italian: Le proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio, which is translated to "The proportions of the human body according to Vitruvius"), is a drawing made by the Italian polymath around 1490.

Nearly everyone has seen it, even if they haven't had a name for it: a naked male contained within a circle and square. It is a study of the ideal proportions of the human form. It is part of a book written by Luca Pacioli known as the 'Divine Proportion'. While da Vinci was more of an artist, he was also a dedicated scientist, illustrating the things he observed and designing feats of engineering. Vitruvian Man is a study of the human form visually perfected through the application of mathematics. A big part of this attempt at idealism and naturalism was to figure out the proper proportions of the human body, how the various parts compared to each other and to the larger whole. People, such as da Vinci, saw mathematics as a universal constant, with proper proportions repeating themselves across the universe.

It is known as the Vitruvian Man because it is actually an illustration of concepts described by the Roman Vitruvius in the 1st century BC. Vitruvius, in turn, was actually describing a work known as the 'Canon' by Polykleitos, a Greek from the 5th century BC.

The drawing, Vitruvian Man, is based on the correlations of ideal human body proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the classical orders of architecture. Vitruvius determined that the ideal body should be eight heads high. Leonardo's drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect.

The drawing is accompanied by notes based on the work of the architect Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in ink on paper, depicts a man in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and inscribed in a circle and square. It is kept in the Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe of the Gallerie dell'Accademia, in Venice, Italy, under reference 228. Like most works on paper, it is displayed to the public only occasionally, so it is not part of the normal exhibition of the museum.

This image demonstrates the blend of mathematics and art during the Renaissance and shows Leonardo's deep understanding of proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopædia Britannica online states, "Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe.

According to Leonardo's preview in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described in Vitruvius. The text is in two parts, above and below the image.

The first paragraph of the upper part reports Vitruvius: "Vetruvio, architect, puts in his work on architecture that the measurements of man are in nature distributed in this manner, that is:

• ·         a palm is four fingers
• ·         a foot is four palms
• ·         a cubit is six palms
• ·         four cubits make a man
• ·         a pace is four cubits
• ·         a man is 24 palms

and these measurements are in his buildings". The second paragraph reads: "if you open your legs enough that your head is lowered by one-fourteenth of your height and raise your hands enough that your extended fingers touch the line of the top of your head, know that the centre of the extended limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle".

The lower section of text gives these proportions:

• ·         the length of the outspread arms is equal to the height of a man
• ·         from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of the height of a man
• ·         from below the chin to the top of the head is one-eighth of the height of a man
• ·         from above the chest to the top of the head is one-sixth of the height of a man
• ·         from above the chest to the hairline is one-seventh of the height of a man.
• ·         the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of the height of a man.
• ·         from the breasts to the top of the head is a quarter of the height of a man.
• ·         the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of the height of a man.
• ·         the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of the height of a man.
• ·         the length of the hand is one-tenth of the height of a man.
• ·         the root of the penis is at half the height of a man.
• ·         the foot is one-seventh of the height of a man.
• ·         from below the foot to below the knee is a quarter of the height of a man.
• ·         from below the knee to the root of the penis is a quarter of the height of a man.
• ·         the distances from below the chin to the nose and the eyebrows and the hairline are equal to the ears and to one-third of the face.

The points determining these proportions are marked with lines on the drawing. Below the drawing itself is a single line equal to a side of the square and divided into four cubits, of which the outer two are divided into six palms each, two of which have the mirror-text annotation "palmi"; the outermost two palms are divided into four fingers each, and are each annotated "diti".

In the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centred at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are perfectly square.

It may be noticed by examining the drawing that the combination of arm and leg positions actually creates sixteen different poses. The pose with the arms straight out and the feet together is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed square. On the other hand, the "spread-eagle" pose is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed circle.

The classic drawing has changed many hands. It was purchased from Gaudenzio de' Pagave by Giuseppe Bossi, who described, discussed and illustrated it in his monograph on Leonardo's The Last Supper, Del Cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci libri quattro (1810). The following year he excerpted the section of his monograph concerned with the Vitruvian Man and published it as Delle opinioni di Leonardo da Vinci intorno alla simmetria de'Corpi Umani (1811). After Bossi's death in 1815 the Vitruvian Man was acquired in 1822, along with a number of his drawings, by the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, Italy, and has remained there since.