The Vitruvian Man of Leonardo Symbol of Western Civilization

ABSTRACT: THE VITRUVIAN MAN by Rocco Sinisgalli, Federighi Editori, Certaldo, Florence, 2006. ISBN 978-88-89159-22-4 9 788889 159224 The famous drawing of Leonardo (Vinci 1452, Amboise 1519) has become the symbol of western civilization. The author wrote The man is named Minor World by the ancients. As Plato had bound fire and earth, the components with which God created the universe (the macrocosm), through the proportional mean, which was named Divine, thus Leonardo bound man (the microcosm) which Vitruvius dissected in a circle and a square using the Golden Section. The Vitruvian man of Leonardo dates 1490 circa and measures 344x245 mm; the author was inspired by Vitruvius in the relationship between proportions, as he himself reports. We restrain ourselves to delineate how the square becomes the circle, or how from the circle one passes to the square, applying what we will discuss in Applied problems and in How to graphically obtain the Golden Section. Paragraphs: Leonardo's man, The man of Vitruvius, The Golden Section, Applied problems, How to graphically obtain the Golden Section, From the square to the circle, From the circle to the square, The bidimensionality within space, What Leonardo says about his drawing, Chronological summary of Leonardo's life.