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‘LUCA PACIOLI & LEONARDO DA VINCI
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/dedivinaproporti0000paci
DE DIVINA
PROPORTIONE
On the Divine Proportion
FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL PRINTING
BY
LUCA PACIOLI & LEONARDO DA VINCI
LEOPOLD PUBLISHING
2014
|
Copyright © Leopold Publishing — August 2014
FOREWORD
i Nhis is a facsimile of De Divina Proportione (On the Divine Proportion), printed June 1* 1509 in
Venice, of which only two copies reached our XXI" century. It had to become one among the most
famous books in the world, but not only because it was partly made by Leonardo da Vinci and
printed during his lifetime. He drew fifty nine of the sketches it includes, which form the earliest work
from the artist’s hand to appear in print. Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (1445-1517), Italian mathematician
and Franciscan friar, wrote the full text of it. He and Leonardo da Vinci set forth a way of describing the
visible world in terms of its common geometrical elements, what he calls the “divine proportion,” equally
known as the “Golden ratio”.
Even the layout of this book, which we may find somehow surprising today, Pacioli and da Vinci
drafted it on a geometrical grid with respect to the divine proportion. De Divina proportione also is one of
the most remarkable illustrated books published in the sixteenth century. Based on the writings of Plato,
Euclid, and Vitruvius, and arguing his thesis by means of exegesis and the generous use of evocative
illustration, Pacioli claims that this proportional element is shared by a variety of solid bodies, from
human anatomy to architectural forms and even to the composition of the letter’s design in the Roman
alphabet. Each of the roman letters of Pacioli had to be drawn within a square, with their curved shapes
following perfect circles. Indeed, this theory was taken as a truth by all typographers since then, as
testifies for the font of this foreword and of the title on the cover of the book it contains (Times New
Roman and Garamond). If typographers all agreed about a unit measure for typography based upon a
square, the quad (or quadrat), this owes entirely to the original geometry Pacioli — and da Vinci of
course — described in De Divina Proportione. Closer to the subjects of arts, the “M” logo used by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is adapted from one in De Divina Proportione.
However, Pacioli was more ambitious than that; he expected the shapes he and da Vinci presented in
their book together had to form the geometrical basis for stone craftsmen and architects in the times to
come. Since then, specialized researchers and scholars noticed that the divine proportion organizes the
growth of numerous vegetables, flowers and shellfishes.
We know that Pacioli formed a close relationship with Leonardo da Vinci when both were at the court
of Lodovico il Moro in Milan. Pacioli’s treatises and Leonardo’s notebooks testify to their association.
Pacioli knew Leonardo’s work during this period in great detail, and he acknowledged that Leonardo was
responsible for the designs of stereometric bodies appended to De Divina proportione. But we also know
that Leonardo studied Euclid and mathematics under the tutelage of Pacioli, in order to acquire “some
deeper knowledge of geometry before undertaking the splendid drawings of solid bodies” for his book.
Actually, the sketches of the roman characters featured in this treatise were established according to
principles previously discovered by famous roman architect Vitruvius (born c. 80-70 BC, died after c. 15
BC). And Vitruvius, again, inspired Leonardo da Vinci when he drew his “Vitruvian Man” — sometimes
called the “Canon of Proportions” or, less often, “Proportions of Man” — that had to enter into popular
culture until today. In the essay De Architectura (On Architecture) Vitruvio wrote, circa 25 BC :
“For the human body is so designed by nature that the face, from the chin to the top of the forehead and
the lowest roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the whole height; the open hand from the wrist to the tip of
the middle finger is just the same; the head from the chin to the crown is an eighth, and with the neck and
3
shoulder from the top of the breast to the lowest roots of the hair is a sixth; from the middle of the breast
to the summit of the crown is a fourth. If we take the height of the face itself, the distance from the bottom
of the chin to the under side of the nostrils is one third of it; the nose from the under side of the nostrils to
a line between the eyebrows is the same; from there to the lowest roots of the hair is also a third,
comprising the forehead. The length of the foot is one sixth of the height of the body; of the forearm, one
fourth; and the breadth of the breast is also one fourth. The other members, too, have their own
symmetrical proportions, and it was by employing them that the famous painters and sculptors of antiquity
attained to great and endless renown.
Similarly, in the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical
relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole. Then again, 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 ofplane surfaces which are perfectly square .”
Leonardo’s drawing combines a careful reading of the ancient text with his own observation of actual
human bodies. In drawing the circle and square he correctly observes that the square cannot have the same
centre as the circle, the navel, but is somewhat lower in the anatomy. This adjustment is the innovative
part of Leonardo’s drawing and what distinguishes it from earlier illustrations. He also departs from
Vitruvius by drawing the arms raised to a position in which the fingertips are level with the top of the
head, rather than Vitruvius’s much lower angle, in which the arms form lines passing through the navel.
sos a st speseupeimapiasetss
Leonardo da Vinci’s study of the divine proportion in human body.
Pen and ink with wash over metal point on paper, c. 1492.
Dimensions: 3.5 in x 10.0 in (34.4 cm x 25.5 cm).
Gallerie dell’ Accademia of Venice, Italy.
I ViTRUvIUS, Ten Books on Architecture. Book III, Chapter I, “On Symmetry: In Temples And In The Human Body”. 25 BC.
4
The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body, and
by extension, of the universe as a whole. Although da Vinci sketched it around 1490, we don’t know why
he didn’t add it in De Divine Proportione since it seemed so obvious.
Pacioli often collaborated with Leonardo da Vinci. Together, they made two other treatises: one on
accounting, and one on chess playing. In De Divina Proportione, Leonardo’s drawings are probably the
first illustrations of skeletonic solids, which allowed an easy distinction between front and back.
In 1499, Pacioli and Leonardo were forced to flee Milan when Louis XII of France seized the city and
drove out their patron Lodovico il Moro. Their paths appear to have finally separated around 1506. Pacioli
died at about the age of 70 in 1517, most likely in Sansepolcro where it is thought that he had spent much
of his final years.
Luca Pacioli teaching geometry. Painting attributed to Jacopo de’ Barbari (1445-1516).
The date is controversial, but as we can easily identify a printed copy of
De Divine Proportion on the table and under Pacioli’s hand,
with its typically large margins, size and thickness,
we can surmise it is contemporary to June 1509.
Today we don’t know how many copies of De Divina Proportione were printed in Venice by printer
Paganinus de Paganinus. Two surviving copies only exist, one at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, and
the second at the Bibliothéque de Genéve in Geneva, Switzerland. For the intersection of art and science
and the active engagement of the pre-eminent genius of the period, Leonardo da Vinci, this is one of the
most iconic works of the Italian Renaissance. The clarity of both the written material and Leonardo’s
diagrams gave the book a popularity beyond mathematical circles. It has since then been reprinted several
times and translated in many languages.
About some characteristics and particular marks of the book.
The original size of its pages is 11.5 in x 7.6 in (29,25 cm par 19,25 cm), which is slightly larger than
the photos of this facsimile. Similar colophons appear on leaf 27, second foliation and leaf 33 verso of
first foliation. Pacioli, in dedication, names Leonardo da Vinci as the artist of drawings on the final 59
leaves. Leaf 25 of the first foliation is misprinted 17; leaves 14, 16-26 of the second foliation are
numbered 15, 17-27. Missing plates are listed in table as LX-LXI. Plate LIX is numbered LXI. A missing
illustration was possibly omitted by publisher with the obfuscating numbering. All these characteristics
are common to the two only existing copies.
Leopold Publishing — August 2014
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