The Geometric Language of the Brouillon Project: An Original Interpretative Proposal

This research refers to the study of the unusual vocabulary adopted by Girard Desargues (1591 - 1661) in his famous Brouillon. The short treatise on conic sections presents an extremely curious language that derogates from the classical geometry’s lexicon norm. In the first part of the work Desargues defines these terms and, according to some scholars, they seem to derive from botanical terminology. However, does not seem to be confirmed the hypothesis of a relationship between plant anatomy and the potentially images that Desargues proposes in the Brouillon. The terms used by Desargues could belong to the jargon of naval architecture. In fact, a graphic reconstruction of one of the constructions discussed by Desargues compared to a leaving tree reveals a nonexistent link between the language dictated by the phyllotaxis and the one of the geometries described by Desargues. The same comparison made with the masts of a sailing ship brings out instead a plausible connection with a purely functional language closer to the Desarguesian one proposed in the Brouillon.