Vitruvian Man

A man stands with arms and legs spread into two positions at once, fitted exactly into both a circle and a square - the proportional ideal the Roman architect Vitruvius claimed for the human body, that it alone answers to both perfect figures. Leonardo cracked Vitruvius's geometry by shifting the centers: the navel governs the circle, the groin the square. His mirror-written notes above and below set out the ratios limb by limb. More than a diagram, the small pen drawing became the emblem of an age that placed the human being, measurable and god-touched, at the center of the world.