Vitruvian Man

A well formed man, embodying the harmonies of cosmic design.. Inscribed in both a circle and a square.. navel as the center of man. Visions of the microcosm in which a figure, at once human and divine, embraces and embodies the heavens and the earth..

From Giorgio Martini in Treatise, wrote, "Man, called little world, contains in himself all the general perfections of the entire cosmos."

From Marsilio Ficino in Platonic Theology, (calling from human nature) wrote, "..the center of nature, the middle point of all that is, the chain of the world, the face of all, and the knot and bond of the universe."

From Luca Pacioli in On Divine Proportion, wrote, "From human body derive all measures and their denominations, and in it is to be found all and every ratio and proportion by which God reveals the innermost secrets of nature."

Leonardo da Vinci stated in a note he made to himself about the time he drew Vitruvian Man - "By the ancients man was termed a lesser world, and certainly the use of this name is well bestowed, because his body is an analogue for the world."


In the early 1480s, before Leonardo da Vinci left Florence for Milan - "Man," he wrote, (alluding to not only the human body but also the human spirit), "is a model of the world."

There's a possibility that da Vinci drew Vitruvian Man as a self-portrait; Though the origin and first idea, study and thoughts came from Marcus Vitruvius Pollio himself. It is all written in a book he wrote, Ten Books.

Maybe Leonardo da Vinci imagined, thinking of Vitruvian Man as a study of human proportions.. as an overview of the human anatomy.. as an exploration of an architectural idea.. as an illustration of an ancient text, updated for modern times.. as a vision of empire.. as cosmography of the lesser world.. as a celebration of the power of art.. as a metaphysical proposition. His genius, in the end, was to bring all of these things together in a kind of universal self-portrait.. animated by the ancient philosophical injunction "Know thyself," containing worlds both great and small. The individual mind might actually be able to comprehend and depict the nature of.. everything.


Other sources were found on ancient Greece and Rome, on early reception of Vitruvius in Europe, on Christian symbolism and mystical thought, on medieval master builders, on the early history of medicine, and on the artists and architects of the Renaissance.

Writing in the 17th century, Isidore of Seville, the greatest encyclopedist of the so-called Dark Ages, reprised the theme,.. "All things are contained in man," he wrote. "And in him exists the nature of all things."

European theologians and artists wouldn't give abstract schemes a specifically human form for a few centries, but when they did, in the 12th century, what they drew soon insinuated itself directly into the visions of Hildegard von Bingen. - A wheel containing a human figure, whose arms enfolded the whole of the cosmos in an open embrace. Fortunately, an illustration of what Hildegard saw, perhaps based on a drawing of her own survives in a copy of the book she wrote, Book of Divine Works. It dates decades before da Vinci studied the art of Vitruvian Man.

For Hildegard to have admited any influence would have marred her status as a visionary, and consequently, she made not a single reference to the ideas or writings of any other author. But there was much more to her visions than she let on. Although she described them as being of heavenly origin, they had some obvious earthy sources.

To describe Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, brought into being more than half a millenium ago and born of concepts far older still.. 

The picture contains whole lost worlds of information, ideas, stories, and patterns of thought. A true pioneer in the history of both medicine and art. And possibly sending a message out into the world about the nature of.. everything.