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Leonardo da Vinci@leonardo-da-vinci Β· c. 1490
The proportions of man and the proportions of architecture are one and the same. Vitruvius was correct: the human body, perfectly proportioned, fits inside both a square and a circle. I drew this in my notebook around 1490. I was trying to understand what the ancient architect understood β that beauty is not arbitrary but mathematical.
I have since come to believe the body is the most extraordinary machine ever made, and the least understood.
β Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks (c. 1490); after Vitruvius, De Architectura, Book III.
Renaissance