Vitruvian Man

Over the many hours of debate and under the influence of several noteworthy Italian scholars, it has dawned on me that the concept of immaculacy, (Immaculate Conception?), is better left to its abstract and incalculable perimeters. I have come full circle on this. This literally dawned on me. It was in the breakfast hours of the Ides of April, 2008, when the newly crowned (mitred?) Pope Benedict XVI came to our nations capitol. Eureka! It was the perfect place for an epiphany, and just in time. I parked my bicycle among the thousands curbside when Pope Benedict XVI was due to come motoring down Pennsylvania Avenue for his brunch date with President George W. Bush at the White House. I was familiar with seeing teeming crowds gather in front of the White House with police barricades and our nations finest armed and ready; but this assembly of citizens was unusually cheerful and on their best behavior. I decided to get back on my bicycle and continue on my commute to work; the streets were remarkably car-free and this let me share the road even more. Amongst the throngs singing, chanting and sign waving, I heard my name being screamed with almost the same excitability and zest as the rest of the people in this mass of Catholics, (pun intended) screaming for the approach of the pope-mobile and his papacy posse motorcade. It was my friend Marta; she was waving me over to chat with her. I circled back and pulled up to the police barricade that separated myself from her and the crowd surrounding. I had a few minutes before the Pope came through or at least until a police officer shooed me away to and about my business. These few minutes were all I needed to spark that initial eureka that would soon pop my bubble and set me seeking the answer to a debate that still burns, and more importantly win a bet. I was trying to wrap up pleasantries with Marta and be off on my way, citing that his Excellency was coming soon; unless he was running a little late, jetlag, etc. Marta quickly explained, in a blissful way that is becoming of her character, that the Pope was incapable of being late. I didnt understand this statement and was ignorant of what Marta was trying to say. She was knee deep in the passion of the Pope and it was exponentially getting harder to hear with the mounting tension of the possible sighting of the Pope-mobile on the Pennsylvania Avenue horizon. The Pope is infallible, I later learned when I bought up this story to my roommate Massimo. This was a new concept to me. Therefore, it is impossible for him to be late. The Pope should make a stop off in Vegas before he ends his U.S.A. tour. Massimo chuckled and sipped his espresso loudly. It was obvious he had his doubts about the national faith of his home country. Massimo briefly paraphrased a legendary tale about the Pope; Pope Benedict IX, he unsurely noted, and an Italian painter who impressed his Divineness with an act of perfectionism. Giotto di Bondone, as the story goes, was propositioned for his services, for some paintings for Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. A courier was sent to Florence to obtain a drawing from the acclaimed Giotto to bring back to the Pope. At this, Giotto took a piece of paper and a simple brush dipped in red paint and drew a circle on the sheet. The courier returned with the single circle sketch, assuming it was a point of ridicule, but with the advice that his holiness would understand. The courtier explained how Giotto had drawn the perfect circle unaided, and the Pope and his advisers realized just how much Giotto surpassed all the other painters of the era. Giotto got the job. Massimo was keen on exaggerating the greatness of his Italian heritage, but he concluded that this story is ridiculous. Giottos myth is often confused with Da Vinci or Michelangelo, and more importantly it is impossible to make a perfect circle with out a measuring instrument; it is debatable if there even is such a thing as a perfect circle or perfection itself.

I ran with Massimos joke of taking the Pope to Las Vegas, and made Massimo a little wager. I argued that it was possible, and I would prove it to him before never. This swelled into the challenge that had smitten me with much toil for the remaining week. I had to make a perfect circle with no measuring instruments; only a simple tool, like Giottos brush. I researched other like-minded Italian visionaries like Da Vinci and his infamous Vitruvian Man. Leonardo used the Roman architect Vitruvius archetypal proportions of the human body and the Golden Ratio to solve his days great squaring of the circle problem. Vitruvius led me to the tale of Archimedes. Vitruvius included the tale in his introduction to his ninth book of architecture. Archimedes, as the story goes, was contracted by the local tyrant Hiero to detect fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown. Hiero suspected his goldsmith of leaving out some measure of gold and replacing it with silver in a wreath dedicated to the gods. Archimedes accepted the challenge and, during a subsequent trip to the public baths, realizes that the more his body sinks into the water, the more water is displaced, making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume. Because gold weighs more than silver, he reasons that a crown mixed with silver would have to be bulkier to reach the same weight as one composed only of gold; therefore it would displace more water than its pure gold counterpart. Realizing he has hit upon a solution, the young polymath leaps out of the bath and rushes home naked crying "Eureka! Eureka!" Hoping to find a like-wise breakthrough, I filled the bathtub one Sunday night, and pondered still over the challenge, and like Archimedes. I found an answer to the conflict in the soapy water. Before the steam had gotten a chance to fog up the bathroom mirror, I got my Eureka. I darted out of the bathroom without slowing for clothing and burst into the kitchen where Massimo was doing the dishes. Eureka, I cried to him! I bolted into my room and dug around in my desk drawers for the necessary simple tool. It did not take long to find it. I hastily returned to the kitchen, and ignored his gasps at my fervent behavior. I grabbed a coffee cup still filled with water and dish soap and dipped the small childs pink plastic bubble wand that I had retrieved from my room and blew a single soapy sphere; a shape with the smallest possible surface area for the volume it contained. It hovered, motionless, it seemed, for a moment over his astonishment, until it caught a wave of the window draft and popped right on his nose. He grimaced, and I danced, practically floating on air, like that perfect bubble. Did I win? The answer, like perfection itself is debatable, as Massimo interjected. The subject has intrigued masters from the Renaissance to objective computer systems. In the end, Massimo agreed to admit defeat as long as I went and put some clothes on. Eureka!