Aiken 1980

Leon Battista Alberti's System of Human Proportions
Author(s): Jane Andrews Aiken

Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 43 (1980), pp. 68-96
Published by: Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751189
Accessed: 22-02-2016 16:32 UTC
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LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI'S SYSTEM OF HUMAN
PROPORTIONS
By Jane Andrews Aiken
n his shortessay entitled De statua,Leon Battista Alberti claims that nature

reveals the principles, methods and 'exact means' of the art of sculpture,
and that he will explain what these are.' His emphasis in doing so, however,
has caused bewilderment. Although Alberti focuses attention on the exact
means of the art by lavishly describing a unique system of mensuration, several
newly invented tools used to determine planar and angular measurements,
and the dimensions of various members of the human body, only a short
introductory segment is devoted exclusively to discussing artistic principles.
This difficulty is compounded by an allusive method of exposition which is
frequently oblique, if not downright hazy. Avoidance of any explicit analysis
of broader theoretical concerns, such as those that inform De picturaand De re
coupled with a relatively lengthy explanation of complicated, per-
aedificatoria,
haps unworkable techniques, has caused scholars to treat De statuatentatively
and to divorce it from the context of Alberti's other writings on the visual arts.
Only the TabulaeDimensionum Hominisare generally regarded as significant
because of the assumption that they present the first extant example of a
system of human proportions resulting from measurements of the human
body.2
It will be shown in this paper that, despite widespread agreement to the
contrary, the concluding tables do not primarily represent a system of
proportions arrived at by taking measurements directly from the human
body. Although Erwin Panofsky pointed out years ago that attention to
structural detail in Alberti's tables, which record fifty-nine body measure-
ments, is indicative of a new empirical attitude,3 the actual measurements in
the tables turn out to be controlled by mathematical relationships deriving
from both classical and medieval commentaries on human proportions as
well as from contemporary workshop practice. Thus an analysis of the tables
compels a reassessment of the long-held view that 'Alberti freed himself, as
I thank Ronald Clark, John Coolidge, 2The basic discussion of Alberti's system of
Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., Cecil Grayson and proportions is in Erwin Panofsky, 'The
Elisabeth Hooker for aid and comments. I History of the Theory of Human Proportions
also acknowledge with deepest gratitude the as a Reflection on the History of Styles',
support and advice of James S. Ackerman. Meaning in the Visual Arts, New York 1955,
1 On Painting and On Sculpture:The Latin pp. 55-107: (originally published as 'Die
Textsof De Picturaand De Statua,edited with Entwicklung der Proportionslehre als Abbild
translations, introduction and notes by Cecil der Stilentwicklung', Monatshefte fir Kunst-
Grayson, London-New York I972. Unless wissenschaft, xiv, I921, pp. I88-2 I9). Some
otherwise noted, all quotations from De statua recent defences of Panofsky's approach are:
and De pictura are from this edition. I am Grayson's introduction (n. I above), pp. 23
indebted to Prof. Grayson for permission to and 25; Joan Gadol, Leon Battista Alberti:
reprint excerpts from his edition. The foot- Universal Man of the Early Renaissance,Chicago
notes to Alberti's essays on painting and I969, p. 81; Pomponius Gauricus, De
sculpture refer to the book (for De pictura) Sculptura(1504), ed. and trans. Andre Chastel
and to Grayson's paragraph and page and Robert Klein, Geneva 1969, p. 85.
numbers. 3
Panofsky (loc. cit. n. 2 above), p. 94.
68
ALBERTI'S SYSTEM OF HUMAN PROPORTIONS 69
far as method is concerned, from every tradition'.4 By the time he completed
the writing of De statua,probably in the I440s,5 Alberti had acquired sufficient
knowledge of proportions to attempt a consolidation of traditionally accepted,
indeed sacrosanct, assumptions about the human body both with diverse
practical considerations and with what amounts to a theoretical paradigm he
applies to all the visual arts. Alberti tries to maintain an equilibrium through-
out the essay between the beautiful and the accurate, the speculative and the
practical, the traditional and the contemporary, the rarefied mathematics of
the humanists and the lowbrow constructions of the bottega. Consequently,
De statuafits more clearly into the development of his art theories than has
yet been thought and assumes a more secure position in the history of the
discussion of human proportions and the practice of his own time than has
been hitherto suspected.
Admittedly there are problems. De statuais possibly unfinished; it is not
precisely dated; only five Latin manuscripts from the fifteenth century
survive; and no solid evidence exists to confirm Alberti wrote an Italian
version.6 This latter issue, although seemingly peripheral to an analysis of the
contents of De statua,is pertinent to the question of whether or not the technical
assistance offered sculptors was intended to be used in the workshop or
simply admired for its ingenuity by Alberti's humanist friends and prospective
patrons. As for the problem of whether or not a strictly developed aesthetic is
applied to this apparently slight essay, one need not believe everything
Alberti says, since he frequently undertakes more than he carries out, and the
logical march of his argument often falters. Because Alberti professed,however,
to explain the principles of the art of sculpture and their derivation from
nature, it seems reasonable to investigate the possibility that he had something
more ambitious in mind when he wrote De statua than merely a technical
manual full of gadgetry.
One obvious objective of the essay is to instruct the sculptor in the
techniques of creating an accurate representation of what exists in nature. In
pursuing this objective, however, Alberti also charges the sculptor to strive
for the excellent and the beautiful.' The main interest for the reader is the
way Alberti mediates his concern for accuracy with his concern for beauty.
Since accuracy requires exactness, Alberti commits a large portion of the essay
to a description of the most precise kinds of measuring tools-all of which he
apparently invented. As an inducement to both a prospective patron and his
sculptor friends, he tells how the tools, along with his new system of mensura-
tion, can be used either to produce a colossus or to make an exact copy of an
already existing statue.8 The devotee of the antique and the sculptor in search
[Ibid, pp. 94-95. Other English edns. include John Evelyn's
5 See Appendix C, pp. 95-96. (1664) and Giacomo Leoni's (1726). For
SGrayson, introduction, pp. 5-7 and 20. additional information re edns. of De statua,
Grayson lists ten extant Latin MSS, five see Paul Henri Michel, Un iddal humainau
from the late 15th century (none earlier than XV siecle: la pensdedeL. B. Alberti,Paris 1930,
1466), four from the i6th and one from the pp. 21-22.
17th. GraysonpraisesH. Janitschek's German SDe statua, 3, p. 123.
edn. (1877) and effectively debunks the 8 Ibid,
5, pp. 123 and 125; xi, p. 133. In his
notion that Cosimo Bartoli's Italian version dedicatory letter to Giovanandrea de' Bussi
(1568) was a genuine Alberti redaction. (probably written in 1466 or later-see
70 JANE ANDREWS AIKEN
of commissions would welcome such possibilities. More importantly, these
two capabilities of the tools, the tools themselves, and the system of mensura-
tion indicate how Alberti regards the alliance of accuracy, excellence and
beauty because they function according to the fundamental premise of scale
relationship and proportionality. Unfortunately, 'the excellent' remains a
vague critical term loosely associated with 'perfection', and precisely how
beauty is to be discovered is not explained. One is perhaps forced to conclude
that Alberti did not expand on these matters because he did not consider the
art of sculpture worthy of his rigorous attention. Cecil Grayson has recently
suggested, however, a more plausible and positive approach to understanding
the essay in the introduction to his fine edition of De statua: namely, that
Alberti expected the reader to be familiar with the theoretical assumptions
governing his general line of argument because those assumptions had been
more carefully presented elsewhere.9 In other words, De statua depends on
and presupposes prior knowledge of De pictura.
Among the artistic principles common to De picturaand De statuais the
following: all true arts are controlled by rectaratio(or correct method) derived
from principles inherent in the processes of nature and expressible mathe-
matically.10 When Alberti speaks of mathematics, he means either something
eminently practical, like precise measurement-a requirement for accurate
representation and structural stability-or something generally valid, such as
scale, proportion and analogy, which he associates with order, beauty and
perfection in both nature and art. This intermingling of the quantitative and
the qualitative (most likely resulting from the general influence of Platonic/
Pythagorean number theories and a direct exposure to Vitruvian ideas about
proportions) is found in varying degrees in all of Alberti's writings on the
visual arts and is inherent in the frequently expressed idea that beauty is
susceptible to either mathematics or measurement." Thus, Alberti's statement
in De statuaabout using the statistical or arithmetical mean to compute the
measurements in his tables should be understood in a context whereby the
Grayson's edn. pp. Ii18 and i Alberti edn., p. 33.)
I9), 11For a general discussion of the quantita-
specifically mentions that De statua explains
how to make a colossus. He may have stressed tive and qualitative function of numbers see
the problem of creating a colossus as a sop to Rudolf Wittkower, 'The Changing Concept
popular taste, in order to elicit an offer of of Proportions', Daedalus, lxxxix, 1960, pp.
patronage, in much the same way as 199-215; and Paul Henri Michel, 'L'esth&-
Leonardo's more famous letter to Ludovico tique arithm6tique du Quattrocento: une
Sforza emphasized technical expertise rather application des medietes Pythagoriciennes A
than artistic achievement. The colossus, l'esthetique architecturale', Milanges offerts
however, may have been on Alberti's mind a Henri Hauvette, Paris 1934, pp. 181-9. The
when he wrote to Giovanandrea because of most recent book on the influence of Platonic/
the recently failed project, begun by Agostino Pythagorean theories on 15th-century theory
di Duccio under the supervision of Donatello, and practice is G. L. Hersey, Pythagorean
that was to become Michelangelo's David. Palaces: Magic and Architecture in the Italian
9 Grayson, introduction, p. 20. Renaissance,Ithaca-London I976. A more
10 It is clear from Alberti's letter to thorough study of the gradual recovery of
Brunelleschi that he expected the entire first Pythagorean doctrines in the Renaissance is
book of De picturato express this idea: 'The S. K. Heninger, Jr., Touchesof SweetHarmony:
first [book] which is entirely mathematical, PythagoreanCosmologyand RenaissancePoetics,
shows how this noble and beautiful art arises San Marino, Calif. 1974.
from roots within Nature herself.' (Grayson's
mean, the average, or the norm typifies not only what commonly occurs, but
what is essentially true; in this latter sense the concept of the mean has a
moral as well as an aesthetic function.'2 Alberti was explicit and candid in
De statua about his expectation that the mathematical operations used in
devising the tables should be understood as expressing both the accurate and
the beautiful, for he says: 'I proceeded accordingly to measure and record in
writing, not simply the beauty found in this or that body, but, as far as
possible, the perfect beauty distributed by Nature, as it were in fixed propor-
tions, among many bodies; . . .13
Although Alberti does not disclose to the reader this very important idea
concerning the distribution of beauty in the products of nature until the end
of the essay, it is a conviction which informs the entire text and affects the
meaning of even so unassuming a statement as that which begins De statua
where he simply says the sculptor produces an image or a likeness. Only
somewhat later in the essay does Alberti begin to clarify the broader implica-
tions of his opening statement by explaining the procedure necessary for
creating a likeness. This procedure depends upon pursuing simultaneously the
two characteristics operating in what he calls 'similitude', the principle which
he identifies as basic to the art of sculpture.14 Speaking of the image of man,
Alberti says that the sculptor will achieve 'similitude' if he is able to define the
specific or accidental qualities of a particular man while also shaping the
image according to the generally true, unvarying, and fixed qualities in all
men. By implication the specific is associated with the accurate and the general
with universal form or the beautiful. In any event, Alberti goes on to observe a
similar two-fold process in nature itself, and as far as he is concerned, if nature
maintains simultaneously the specific variables and the generic order in its
products, so too can the sculptor. The point to be emphasized is that Alberti,
while applying a time-honoured system of Aristotelian classification to the
discipline of art, insists upon the inter-connexion of the general and the
specific.15 To do so he employs one term, 'similitude', to encompass both
12 For the mean
functioning as an expres- absolutely precise realism, such as that
sion of an ideal in ancient art theory (particu- achieved by taking a wax cast of a face, it is
larly with referenceto the Canon of Polyclitus) also a general term for likeness and is so used
see J. J. Pollitt, The AncientViewof GreekArt: in De statua.For a discussion of how the term
Criticism,History,and Terminology, New Haven similitudois used in ancient art criticism see
1974, p. 88 and n. 5. For a discussion of how Pollitt (n. 12 above) pp. 430-4.
the ontological principles of the good, the 15See Gadol (n. 2 above), pp. 84-85.
true and the beautiful regulate Alberti's Parronchi (op. cit. Appendix C, p. 95), P- 15,
theories of art, see Heiner Miihlmann, says this distinction between the essential
'iber den humanistischen Sinn einiger character of an object (genus) and its acci-
Kerngedanken der Kunsttheorie seit Alberti', dental or specific variation (species) comes
Zeitschriftfiar Kunstgeschichte,xxxiii, 1970, from Aristotle's Physics, but it was also a
pp.13127-42. commonplace of rhetorical invention: Aris-
De statua, 12, p. 134: 'Ergo non unius totle, Topica, i.2-5 and Rhetoric, i.2; Cicero,
istius aut illius corporis tantum, sed quoad Topica,xviii.71. Most handbooks of ancient
licuit, eximiam a natura pluribus corporibus, rhetoric would have made Alberti familiar
quasi ratis portionibus dono distributam, with the 'topics of invention', which include
pulchritudinem adnotare et mandare litteris definition, division, genus, species, contraries,
prosecuti sumus...' etc. and which provide the means for a
14 De statua, 4, 5, p. 123. While the Latin structured analysis of any subject. Among the
word similitudomay refer to a quality of several studies of the influence of rhetoric on
classes of existence; he further stressesthis unification by stating he used the
statistical mean, a mathematical operation whose function is to mediate
extremes, to control the measurements in his tables. In addition, Alberti's
assertion of observing what amounts to a phylogenetic order in nature is more
than an example of his well-known eclecticism, for it implies his very purpose
in writing De statua:namely, to demonstrate that the principles, methods and
means of the art are taken directly from studying nature.
Alberti introduces the above premise somewhat elliptically by relating
the legend of the 'image made by chance' and telling of the time man was
first inspired to create sculpture by the 'half-formed' or incomplete images
produced by nature (such as a clod of earth suggesting a human face).16 His
objective in citing this legend at the beginning of De statua is to confirm
nature's continuing influence on the art of sculpture from its earliest phase
to its most rational state. Although Alberti does not bother with a chronology,
he uses the legend to set up a pseudo-historical context in which the develop-
ment of sculpture parallels a kind of pilgrim's progress for the sculptor; the
direct study of nature becomes increasingly controlled and objective because
the more the sculptor knows about the products of nature, the more he under-
stands the principles which regulate both nature and sculpture. According to
Alberti's ideas and writing style are: John R. I961, pp. 254-66. Strictly speaking, the
Spencer, 'Ut Rhetorica Pictura', this Journal, phrase 'image made by chance' should not
XX, 1957, pp. 26-43; Michael Baxandall, be used when referring to this passage from
Giotto and the Orators . . ., Oxford 1971, De statua, since the idea of chance affecting
chap. 3; David Summers, 'Contrapposto: the image is not explicitly stated. Only in
Style and Meaning in Renaissance Art', Art De re aedificatoriadoes Alberti flatly say: 'All
Bulletin, lixx, 1977, pp. 339-61. Furthermore, arts were begot by Chance, and Observation,
it is perhaps significant that the distinction and nursed by Reason and Study' [quoted
between genus and species was applied from Ten Books on Architecture, transl. into
specifically in ancient art criticism to differen- Italian by Cosimo Bartoli and into English
tiate the personal style of a particular by James Leoni; Joseph Rykwert ed., London
sculpture and the art of sculpture as a whole 1955, vi.2.] According to Carroll W. Westfall
by both Cicero and Quintilian; see Pollitt ('Society, Beauty, and the Humanist Archi-
(n. 12 above), pp. 81-83. tect in Alberti's de re aedificatoria',Studies in the
16 De statua, I, p. 121. 'They probably Renaissance,xvi, 1969, p. 62), these statements
occasionally observed in a tree-trunk or clod about the origin of the arts indicate Alberti's
of earth and other similar inanimate objects disagreement with Vitruvius and the Stoics
certain outlines in which, with slight altera- who thought material came to the artist
tions, something very similar to the real faces unformed. This does not mean, however, that
of Nature was represented. They began, there- Alberti espoused a mystical condition in
fore, by diligently observing and studying such which all matter was shaped by an inner
things, to try to see whether they could not spiritual force. Although the notion of the
add, take away or otherwise supply whatever image hidden in the material is mentioned
seemed lacking to effect and complete the among a list of different techniques in para. 2
true likeness.' Grayson correctly asserts of De statua, the 'half-formed image' is
(introduction, p. 18) that the statements in presented as a distinctly different phenome-
De statuaabout the origin of sculpture and the non, and in general the emphasis in De
reference to the Narcissus myth in De pictura statuais on material reality and visible nature.
(ii.26, pp. 6I and 63) are 'not mutually The mystical, when it exists, is controlled by
exclusive'. For a discussion of incomplete or what purports to be rational, mathematical
so-called 'half-formed' images as isolated order, but, as will be seen from the discussion
phenomena see H. W. Janson, 'The Image below, Alberti believed in covering all the
Made by Chance in Renaissance Thought', bases.
Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, New York
the legend and subsequent comments in De statua,the sculptor proceeds from
naive observation of phenomena, to a study of various media, to the induction
of principles from what has been learned, and finally to the achievement of
excellence and beauty.17 Somewhere along this narrow path, the sculptor
learns enough about correct principles to invent the proper tools, to master
various techniques, and eventually to produce good art. Competence in these
matters comes from being diligent and persistent in the re-examination of
nature's products and processes. The foregoing expresses with greater detail
an often repeated concept in De picturawhere, for instance, Alberti had said:
'The fundamental principle will be that all the steps of learning should be
sought from Nature: . . .'18
After reading De pictura,one should be prepared for Alberti's insistence on
the relationship between natural and artistic principles, but the emphatic
presentation in De statua of the notion that correct tools are a symptom of
correct principles and method is unexpected. Perhaps the source of this
contention about correct tools is the unlikely one of Dante's definition of the
three levels of art as existing in the mind of the artist, the tool, and the
material.19 Whatever the source, the idea that tool and principle relate to each
other in a fundamentally significant way is not only important in any con-
sideration of De statua,but is an idea which gained some popularity during the
fifteenth century.20 One commentary which presents with meticulous clarity
the connexion between tools of measure and the development of an art to a
state of perfection is Antonio di Tucci Manetti's biography of Brunelleschi.
Manetti cites the invention of the 'plumb line, mason's level, T square, and
various tools' as proof that architecture had developed from a less pleasing to
a more pleasing state and from a condition of disorder to one of order where
'ratio-that is to say the proportion-appropriate to those things began to be
discovered . ,'21
It turns out that, while Alberti had not been as plain-spoken as Manetti, he
17 De statua, I-3, p. 121. Taccola. This drawing shows compasses, a
is De pictura,iii.55, p. 97. See also ii.3o,
carpenter's square, and a plumb line (tools
p. 67; ii.35, P. 73; ii.42, p. 81; ii.43, p. 83;
specifically mentioned by Alberti in De
ii.47,p. 89. statua, para. 3) used to generate the propor-
19Erwin Panofsky,Idea: A Conceptin Art tions of Man as Microcosm. (See Frank D.
Theory,J. Peaketransl.,Columbia1968,p. 43. Prager and Gustina Scaglia, Mariano Taccola
20 The notion that correct tools were a and his Book De Ingeneis, Cambridge, Mass.
symptomof correctprinciplesand methodis 1972, p. 42, fig. 9 and pp. 167-9.) As the
repeatedexplicitlyin De re aedificatoria,ix.5. subsequent discussion will show, there can be
See also SamuelY. Edgerton,Jr., TheRenais- little doubt that Alberti was influenced by this
sanceRediscovery
of LinearPerspective,
New York tradition in his system of human proportions.
1976,pp. 36-37. It shouldalsobe notedthat, 21 Antonio di Tucci Manetti, The Life of
in the context of a discussionof human Brunelleschi, H. Saalman ed., Catherine
proportions, the association of tools of Engass transl., University Park 1970, pp. 58
measureand perfectproportionshas a long and 59. In De statua (3, p. I20), Alberti
history. Vitruvius'sman in the circleand the mentions the same tools as Manetti: set-
squareis one of the best knownexamplesof square, plumb-line, line, level and circle. As
this relationship(De architectura,
iii.1,3). In John Onians points out in his review of
addition the continuing strength of the Grayson's edn. (Art Quarterly, i.3, 1978, p.
Vitruvian traditionduring Alberti'stime is 267), Alberti clearly intended (according
demonstrated in a drawing from the early to the Latin text) to match the form of the
143os 6 by the Sienese engineer Mariano tool with its function.
had done all the hard work in De statua,both discovering the essential principle
of 'similitude' which governs nature and art, and determining the 'exact
means' or proper tools which were supposedly derived from, and in turn
expressed, that principle. Predictably, Alberti does not bother with much
proof of the matter; he simply states his position as follows:
For my part I believe that every art and discipline contains by nature
certain principles and procedures, and whoever applies himself to recog-
nizing and learning them may perfectly accomplish whatever he sets out
to do. For just as in a tree-trunkor clod of earth Nature's suggestions made
men feel it possible to create something similar to her products, so in
Nature herself there lies to hand something which provides you with a
method and certain, exact means whereby you may with application
achieve the highest excellence in this art. I will now explain what the
convenient and necessary means are that Nature offers to sculptors to
execute their works perfectly.22
These means Alberti calls dimensioand finitio.
Dimensiois the process whereby the sculptor takes precise planar measure-
ments of height and width with an exempeda ruler and records the diameter of
three-dimensional forms with a tool constructed of two movable right-angles
called normae.23 Not only does accurate knowledge of the many variables in
the dimensions of the human body (or any other object) result from this
of
operation, but in accordance with the dictates of 'similitude', the dimensio
reveals an unchangeable characteristic of three-dimensional form: namely,
the tectonic relationship of height, width and depth. One way in which this
tectonic relationship is expressed mathematically is through the built-in ratio
of Alberti's exempedasystem which Charles Seymour, Jr. identified as a
'six-part modular canon'.24 The exempedasystem of mensuration is relative
rather than absolute, a system in which the height of the object to be measured
determines the total height of the ruler, but the ruler itself is always divided
into six pedes(feet), sixty unceolae(inches), and six hundred minuta(minutes).25
In other words, while the exact length of each foot, inch and minute changes,
the relationship among these varying lengths remains the same. With the
dimensio'the correspondence of the parts is observed and numerically rep-
resented, one in relation to another and each to the whole length of the body',26
not only because Alberti had considered 'how the parts of any construction
22 De statua, Construction: Relationships with Alberti's
3, pp. I21I and I23.
23 De statua, 6-7, pp. I125, I127, I29. The De statua and Della Pittura',Donatelloe il suo
etymology of the term exempeda is obscure; tempo. Atti dell' VIII Convegno internazionaledi
but, as Professor Grayson has suggested to me, studisul Rinascimento,Florence 1966, p. 196.
it is probably precisely what it looks like-a 1 A certain amount of confusion arises
neologism combining a Greek and a Latin from Alberti's terms of measurement in De

word so as to mean six feet: see Panofsky statua because he substitutes the term gradus
(n. 2 above), p. 95, n. 80. The term normae (degree) in his tables for the term unceola
literally means (carpenter's) squares or (inch) in his exempeda ruler; and he also uses
figuratively means rules or standards. For a gradusto refer to the divisions of hisfinitorium
schematic rendering of what the normae disk. In the former context the gradusis the
looked like see De statua, p. 127, fig. I. equivalent of the unceola;in the latter it is
24Charles Seymour, Jr., 'Some Aspects of not.
Donatello's Methods of Figure and Space 26 De statua,6, p.
125.
fit together'27 but also because he had devised a system of mensuration
which functions according to scaled relationships under any circumstances.
Once the sculptor is aware of the variables and the planar relationships,
he is ready to go on to the next, more complicated, process and use the finitio.
The purpose of thefinitio is ostensibly to locate the position of any anatomi-
cal or sculpted parts relative to the central or internal axis of the figure being
measured.28 This axis Alberti identifies as the 'median perpendicular'.29 The
finitio requires an elaborate machine called afinitorium,similar in appearance to
a mariner's astrolabe and like one of the devices Alberti used to map the
city of Rome.30 It consists of a flat disk inscribed with gradus (degrees), a
movable radius inscribed with inches which change their length according to
the unit length on the adjustable exempeda stick, and a weighted string (plumb
line) attached to the end of the radius. The entire contraption rests on or is
suspended above the head or top of the form to be measured with the centre
of the disk directly above the median perpendicular (P1. i15a). Three inter-
secting measurements result from using the finitoriumin conjunction with
the exempedaruler so that every shade of position variation from the central
axis can be observed, written down, and later reproduced on a smaller or
larger scale. These measurements are height from the ground, distance from
the internal axis, and position of the radius on the disk as the radius responds
to the position of any part of the figure.
Like dimensio,the purpose of the finitio is two-fold, identifying both the
specific and the generic characteristics of a figure as it is mapped for future
reproduction. While the finitio provides the means to measure the extent of
variation in any body as the position changes, it also illustrates the fact that
all bodies composed of moving parts change position in a measurable corres-
pondence with the internal axis or median perpendicular; that is, the body has
a structurally limited capacity for change. Alberti's definition of the 'median
perpendicular', which does not have a material existence, is one of the most
important postulates of De statua. Like the visual pyramid's vertex in De
pictura,it establishes the fact of relative position and scale. It also determines
an organic relationship of the parts, and, not insignificantly, it rationalizes
the contrapposto stance first used by Donatello approximately thirty years
before the writing of De statua.31
27Ibid, 8, p. a mariner's astrolabe (see J. D. North, 'The
I29.
28Ibid, 8-9, pp. 129, 131, and 133. Astrolabe', Scientific American, ccxxx, 1974,
29 In para. Io Alberti defines the 'median pp. 96- 106). For a discussionof how Alberti's
perpendicular' as the inner axis, a line surveying experiments were applied to paint-
straight down the centre of the finitorium. ing and sculpture, see Gadol (n. 2 above), pp.
The 'median perpendicular' is clearly dis- 75-76; Grayson, introduction (n. 2 above),
tinguished from the 'perpendicular' (plumb pp. I8, 13 and 141, n. 8; and below, p. 78.
line) which hangs down from the end of the 31 I cannot agree with Parronchi's inter-
movable radius. pretation, pp. 19 and 22-23 (op. cit. Appendix
30In para. 8 Alberti says the circular disk C, p. 95), of De statuaas reflecting an essen-
of the finitorium(which he calls the horizon) tially medieval attitude inspired by Alhazen,
is divided into equal parts 'like those which Vitelo and Aristotle and as exhibiting the
astronomers inscribed on astrolabes'. The last remnants of a medieval perspective
finitorium,however, was a cruder device than theory. While Alberti's dependence on
the elaborate astronomer's astrolobe, and Aristotle is certain, it does not necessarily
looks more like the simpler instrument called signify any latent medieval tendencies on
With the dimensioand the finitioAlberti has shown the sculptor how artistic
and natural form are subject to physical laws and mathematical logic with
the result that three dimensional form becomes something precisely located
and specifically structured. In De statuaAlberti attempted to apply to three
dimensional form what he had already accomplished in De picturawhere he
ordered the multiplicity of visual experience with geometrical principles and
replaced vague medieval distinctions like 'above' and 'below' or 'near' and
'far' with scaled and measurable relationships. Both dimensioand finitio serve
to regularize sculpting practices according to principles derived from or at
least confirmed by nature as Alberti promised. What remains in the progress
of the art, which Alberti characterized at the beginning of the essay as initially
developing from an intuitive or naive response to nature, is to prove that the
parts of the human body relate harmoniously and rationally to each other.32
This proof he provides in the tables of human measurements.
Alberti delayed the presentation of the tables to the end of the essay, not
because he was tentative about their relationship to the other tools and
processes described earlier in the text, but because the tables represent the
climax of his argument, the final proof of the relationship between natural
Alberti's part (at least, none that is not also discussing shipbuilding (para. 8) he ad-
found in De pictura). Alberti undoubtedly monishes the sculptor to know the parts of
thought that he was dealing with the re- the body, how they fit together and how they
juvenated Aristotle, who was acceptable to relate to each other. Alberti has more to say
many humanists. See Jerrold E. Seigel, about human anatomy in De pictura. In book
Rhetoricand Philosophyin RenaissanceHuman- ii, para. 36, he says that bones 'bend very
ism.. ., Princeton 1968, particularly chap. iv, little, indeed they always occupy a certain
'Leonardo Bruni and the New Aristotle'. For position . . .' And in the same passage,
a commentary on the role of ancient and correct arrangement of the bones is linked to
medieval science in the development of the proportionate relationship of the parts.
Alberti's theories, see James S. Ackerman, Later in book ii (para. 43), he discusses the
'Alberti's Light', Studiesin Late Medievaland relationship of body weight, body structure
Renaissance Paintingin Honorof Millard Meiss, and change of position in terms of an archi-
New York 1978, pp. 1-27, esp. pp. 3-7. tectural metaphor: 'I have observed how in
Apart from the 'median perpendicular' every attitude a man positions his whole
establishing the fact of relative position and body beneath his head, which is the heaviest
scale, which is a Renaissance not a medieval member of all. And if he rests his entire
characteristic of form and space, Alberti weight on one foot, this foot is always per-
characterizes the contour (De statua, I3, pendicularly beneath his head like the base
p. 139) as a perceived edge of a three- of a column. . .' Alberti then indicates the
dimensional form, not a silhouette or the complex inter-dependence of body parts by
perceived edge of a plane. Accordingly, the applying the principle of the lever to the
contour in De statua must be understood as movements of the body; he comments on the
the generator of what Alberti called 'extrinsic compensatory and corresponding extension
rays' in De pictura. of the limbs caused by the shifting of body
32 An
interesting issue raised by De statua weight. The metaphorical use of the column
is what Alberti knew about human anatomy. in this context alludes to the anthropometric/
Except for the proliferation of technical architectural Vitruvian tradition, which is
terms in his tables and the fundamental also relied on in De statuafor devising human
assumption that the human body is an proportions. In addition, the discussion of
organically structured whole, Alberti dis- compensatory movements in De picturapro-
closes little information concerning human vides the theoretical foundation for Alberti's
anatomy. He does instruct the sculptor (para. definition in De statua of the 'median
13) to 'know the number of bones and the perpendicular'.
projections of muscles and sinews'. When
and artistic order. In effect Alberti aligned the content of De statuawith the
evolutionary scheme set into motion by the little story he had told about the
'image made by chance' developing finally to a state of perfection; so in his
essay, the most refined tool must logically and inevitably come at the end.33
The format of the tables recognizes the dimensional and structural
character of the human body as defined by dimensioandfinitio with its divisions
into four general measurement categories of height from the ground, width
from right to left, width and thickness of the arm, and thickness from front
to back.34 In addition the tables record discrete physical measurements in a
way expressive of interlocking anatomical relationships and suggestive of the
structural control of the skeleton. Because the actual measurements in the
tables are tabulated by using the exempeda,they can be scaled to a man or a
statue of any height, a definite advantage for the peripatetic sculptor at a
time when systems of measurement varied from city to city. The application
of detailed numerical tables to a system of human proportions, however,
appears so revolutionary and complicated that any advantage gained by
using the exempedaseems to have been negated, and many scholars have, in
fact, concluded that the tables, like the finitorium,were impractical, unwieldy
and restrictive devices.35
One might reasonably question how many fifteenth-century sculptors
would have the necessary patience to re-calculate the tables for each new
commission or whether Alberti really expected the sculptor to attach the
finitoriumto the head of a live model with a bronze pin. Problems no doubt
exist in these matters, but it is scarcely more complicated to re-scale the
33Not only does Alberti apply this Cicero- Grayson's edn., pp. 135-9.
nian sentiment to the development of art in 35Among those who identify Alberti's
De re aedificatoria(vi.2), but he uses it to methods as probably too complicated for
extenuate any fault in De pictura (iii.63): 'If practical use are: Grayson, introduction,
I have not succeeded in accomplishing this p. 26; Panofsky (n. 2 above), p. 95, n. 8o;
undoubtedly difficult task to the satisfaction Parronchi, p. Ii(op. cit. Appendix C, p. 95).
of the reader, Nature is more to blame than It is easy to sympathize with this position
me, as she imposed the law that no art exists since, for instance, the finitoriumdisk used in
that did not begin from faulty origins. reproducing a 20-foot statue would be Io
Nothing, they say, was born perfect.' feet in diameter, and one cannot imagine
34According to Grayson, the extant MSS when 6oo units of measure would be required.
do not individually give all the measurements Nevertheless, one should keep in mind that
found in his edition of the tables. Grayson's what a 20th-century historian considers
collation coincides with Janitschek's except practical, and what a I5th-century artist
for one minor correction and two additional considered appropriate, may not coincide.
measurements. There are more significant Piero della Francesca's instructions for
differences between Grayson's compilation constructing various foreshortened geometric
and that published by Bonucci in 1897; for forms are not devoid of complication. In
instance, the hip is located at 31.1. and the addition Mathes Roriczer's Fialenbiichleinof
waist at 3.7.9 in the Bonucci edition, while 1486 described a 234-step process for deter-
the hip is at 3.1-5 and the waist at 3.7.5 in mining the 'plan' and elevation of a pinnacle,
Grayson's more accurate edition. Prof. and each step had to be memorized in
Grayson has kindly informed me of the few sequence. See GothicDesign Techniques:The
variants among the different MS versions of Fifteenth-CenturyDesign Booklets of Mathes
the tables; none of these variants affects my Roriczerand Hans Schmuttermayer, ed., transl.
conclusions about the numerical relationships and introd. Lon R. Shelby, Carbondale and
in the tables. All the measurements from the Edwardsville 1977, pp. 66-67.
tables cited in this paper are taken from
exempedaruler or record the measurements taken by the finitoriumthan to
complete all the steps of the perspective construction described in De pictura.
Alberti was more interested in the theoretical underpinningsof artistic practice
than in the discovery of workshop expedients, none the less, not only did he
say 'I wish this work to be familiar to my painter and sculptor friends, . . .'36
but he also provided the tables with several practical and commonly known
characteristics which suggest he expected them to be used. For instance, he
chose a format and a type of mathematical notation known to his contem-
poraries from popular handbooks containing similar tables for calculating the
angle hours of sidereal time. Alberti suggests this association between the
tables of human measurements and the astronomical tables by using the term
'degree' rather than the term 'inch' when recording the exempedameasure-
ments. Significantly, these astronomical time tables employ base-sixty
numbers, or sexagesimals, which are the mathematical equivalents of decimals
in a base-ten system.37 Without stating the connexion between these two
systems, Erwin Panofsky pointed out that the measurements in Alberti's
tables should be read as decimals: that is, one foot, four degrees or inches,
and three minutes is written in modern notation.38 Although the decimal
system was not widely I.4.3
known until the sixteenth century, Alberti, by recog-
nizing the functions of zero and of place value in the Hindu-Arabic numeral
system and by using a convenient multiple of ten, created an operationally
simplified version of the familiar sexagesimal notation of the astronomical
tables.39 Most importantly for the practising Florentine sculptor, the exempeda
system is mathematically compatible with the bracciosystem since the unit
divisions of each system (6 and Io in the former and 12 and 20 in the latter)
respond to the same divisors.40
36 De
statua, I2, p. I33. analogy had been written about before I429
37 O. Neugebauer, Exact Sciencesin Antiquity, by al-Kdshi, the royal astronomer at Samar-
2nd edn., 1957 (repr. New York I969), pp. kand (Neugebauer, n. 37 above, p. 23).
I6-23. Alberti used similar tables in his Alberti, at least, was an astute enough
surveying projects and was certainly familiar mathematician to realize one of the funda-
with them from such works as Ptolemy's mental characteristics of the Hindu-Arabic
Almagest and less erudite sources. numeral system, and perhaps he was aware
38 Panofsky (n. 2 above), p. 95. of the current state of Arabic mathematics.
39 Leonardo (Fibonacci) of Pisa was the 40Panofsky (n. 2 above, p. 95) explicitly
first Italian mathematician to recognize in denies a connexion between the exempeda
his writings the Hindu-Arabic numeral components and any commercial system of
system; see Joseph and Frances Gies, Leonardo measurement. Charles Seymour, Jr. (n. 24
of Pisa and the New Mathematics of the Middle above, pp. 197-8) notes: 'The six-part divi-
Ages, New York 1969. For Alberti's know- sion of the canon in Alberti's De statuais just
ledge of Fibonacci's work, see Edgerton (n. 20o twice the three-part division by bracciaof the
above), p. 8o. For a more general discussion of figure in Alberti's slightly later Della pittura.
Alberti's role in the humanist recovery of The reduction of the value of the modular
ancient mathematics and the importance of unit by one-half, that is from six to three,
Fibonacci in the I5th century see Paul L. would have quite logically come about with
Rose, pp. 6 and 28-3I (op. cit. Appendix C, the reduction of scale between a life-size
p. 95). Even though the decimal system was figure in sculpture and a painted figure on
not used officially in Europe until the i6th panel, particularlyof the relatively small-scale
century, and it is uncertain that Alberti panel that is generally assumed Alberti used
invented a decimal analogy of the sexagesimal for his experiments in perspective composi-
system which was intended to have a wider tion.' Even though Seymour observed that
application than his exempedatables, such an the 6-part canon was applied to the propor-
It becomes apparent Alberti meant his exempeda to be used in conjunction
with the braccioif one considers his observation in De picturathat an average
man whose limbs are symmetrically related is three bracciatall in conjunction
with the rule in De statuathat a figure is divided into six feet.41 Under these
circumstances each bracciois the equivalent of two Albertian feet and each
inch or degree is the equivalent of one Florentine soldo.If the sculptor creates a
three bracciahigh statue of a man, he can determine its proportions according
to Alberti's tables by replacing the degree with the soldo. The exempeda
components seem to be a codified version of what Antonio Manetti termed
bracciapiccholine,scaled braccioequivalents thought by Manetti to have been
developed by Brunelleschi during his perspective experiments.42 Alberti must
have known of these experiments. In any event, his exempedasystem can be
applied to statues of various heights in correspondence with the braccioand
its component parts, the soldo,the quattrino,the denaro,and the punto.43
The correspondence between the absolute bracciosystem and the relative
exempeda system takes on added significance when considered in light of recent
research by Diane Finiello Zervas and Piero Morselli. Through an analysis
41 De pictura,
tioning of the small (less than life-size) i.19, P. 55; De statua, 6, p.
Samson from the frame of Ghiberti's second I25.
doors, he did not indicate the correspondence 42 Manetti (n. 21 above), pp. 44 and 45.
between the 3-bracciamodule of De pictura Edgerton (n. 2o above), p. 140, believes the
and the 6-part exempeda system of De statuawas term bracciapiccholineis an old Italian idiom
a general one which could be applied under meaning scaled measurements.
43 A conversion table
any circumstances. showing the exempeda
The relationship between the braccioand values of bracciameasurements would be as
the exempedasystem in De statua is a direct follows: (s=soldo, d-=denaro and
one; i.e., the more braccia,the greater the p =punto): q-=quattrino,
length of the exempedaruler. The mathemati-
cal compatibility of the two systems is based i foot 6 7
on the division of a bracciointo 20 soldi and Braccia (1ioinches) i inch inches inches
the subsequent division of the soldo into 12 3 ios Is 6s 7s
denari(2o0:12 =Io:6=5:3); the exempeda 31/4 Ios 2q 2d Is Id 6s 6d 7s 7d
ruler
is divided into 6 feet, and each foot is divided 31/3 I Is Id 4p Is Id 4p 2s 2q 7s 9d 4P
into io inches (6: I0o=3:5). The simplicity of 31/2 IIs 2q Is 2d 7s 8s 2d
the relationship between the bracciosystem 33/4 I2s
6d Is 3d 7s 6d 8s 9d
and the exempedacomponents is demonstrated 4 i3s iq Is iq 8s 9s iq
most clearly by the quattrino(4 denarior 1/3 41/ I5s Is 6d 9s ios 6d
5 i6s 2q Is 2q IIs 2q
soldo) which, according to John White ios
('Donatello's High Altar in the Santo at This table demonstrates that any braccio
Padua: II, The Reconstruction', Art Bulletin, measurements made up of an even number of
li, 1969, p. 135), was the smallest commonly bracciaor a simple fractional division of the
used division of the Florentine system and braccioare compatible with the exempedacom-
was important because many I5th-century ponents. On the assumption, however, that
commissions called for statue heights in- the smallest practical measurement for a
volving 1/3 or 2/3 braccio. The relationship Florentine sculptor is one quattrino,some of
between a quattrinoand the bracciois 6o:1, the resulting equivalents are not easily used;
that between the Albertian inch and the total the italicised figures above show those
exempedaruler is also 6o:i; the relationship equivalents which are practical from the
between the quattrinoand 1/3 bracciois 20:1, point of view of the working sculptor. The
the same as the inch to 1/. the exempedaruler other measurementswould have to be worked
or 2 Albertian feet; and that between the out on paper and with the aid of a precision
quattrinoand x/6 bracciois Io0:1I,the same as the instrument, but once inscribed on the
inch to one Albertian foot. exempedaruler they too would be usable.
80 JANEANDREWSAIKEN
of her detailed measurements, Zervas has demonstrated how Ghiberti, using
a one-sixth bracciomodule [comprised of three soldi and one quattrino],pro-
portioned his St. Matthew according to the twenty-seven unit or nine-face
Italo-Byzantine system described by Cennino Cennini in his Librodell'Arte."
According to Zervas, the proportions of the surrounding tabernacle were
based on another module and a Pythagorean series. Although the proportions
of the tabernacle may be derived from a simple fractional division of the whole
rather than from Pythagoras, Zervas's analysis, nevertheless, provides impor-
tant evidence of one leading Florentine sculptor in the early 142os employing
two traditional methods and specific bracciomeasurements to proportion a
statue and its architectural environment.45 While Morselli does not publish
the measurements which led him to conclude that Ghiberti experimented
with another system of proportions in the late 1420s, he demonstrates that a
ten-face/eight-head/six-part system, similar to the one proposed by Vitruvius,
controls the proportions of the St. Stephen.46In theory at least, the great advan-
*4Diane Finiello Zervas, 'Ghiberti's St. tions in the presentationdrawingfor Ghiberti's
Matthew Ensemble at Orsanmichele: Sym- St. Stephenand a io-face/8-head/6-part system
bolism in Proportion', Art Bulletin,lviii, 1976, in the subsequently executed statue, another
pp.4 36-44. important example of the continuing experi-
According to Zervas, Ghiberti used mentation with proportions during the I420s
Cennino Cennini's 9-face or 27-unit system to in Florence. Where Morselli fails to be
proportion the St. Matthewwith a x/6 braccio convincing is in his contention that it was
module, and he used a module comprised of Alberti's presence in Florence before Decem-
braccio plus 1/162 braccio (3.6mm) to ber 1427 that influenced Ghiberti to shift from
1/6 a 'medieval' system of proportions to one
proportion the surrounding tabernacle, with
the result that the total height of the taber- that is both Vitruvian and Albertian. Instead,
nacle included 54 modules; the architectural the evidence supplied by Morselli indicates
divisions within the tabernacle were thus that Ghiberti changed to a consciously
established according to a Pythagorean classicizing system of proportions that was
series based on the number of modules at 54, probably based on a mis-translation of
48, 36, 27, and 24 (see p. 38, n. 19, fig. 6). It Vitruvius or on a reworking of the Vitruvian
seems unlikely that Ghiberti would have tools system necessitated by some commitment to
so finely calibrated that he (or the masons a medieval mode ofproportioning. Obviously,
working on the tabernacle) could actually as Morselli points out, the 8-head division of
measure 1/162 of a braccio(slightly less than the statue could derive directly from Vitru-
I1/2 denari). Furthermore, according to the vius, but the Io-face division is not properly
centimetre measurements given by Zervas in Vitruvian because it is calculated from the
her Appendix, p. 44, the proportionate ground to the roots of the hair, not from the
divisions of the tabernacle work out just as ground to the top of the head. In other words
well (i.e., with an equal amount of rounding Ghiberti, like Cennini, is still thinking of the
off) in terms of simple fractional divisions in face length as a module which does not
conjunction with the 1/6 bracciomodule used necessarily take into account the top of the
in the statue as with the 1/6 plus 1/e162braccio head. Although Ghiberti was not a purist
module; the former has the additional value when it came to using Vitruvius, there is no
of being usable. The resulting sequence, reason to believe that the 6-part division of
however, is not Pythagorean: 56, 50 (8/9 of the statue reflects the use of Alberti's exempeda
the whole), 371/3 (2/3 of the whole), 332/3 ruler any more than it responds to Vitruvius's
(3 /5 of the whole), 28 (1/2 of the whole), and explicit directive to divide the human figure
25 (1'/, the tabernacle less its base). into six parts equal to the length of the foot.
46 Piero Morselli, 'The Proportions of Finally, Morselli tackles the knotty problem
Ghiberti's Saint Stephen:Vitruvius's De Archi- of the placement of the navel and concludes
tecturaand Alberti's De statua',Art Bulletin,lx, that the shift in the mid-point of the figure
1978, pp. 235-41. Morselli's article identifies, from the navel to the base of the pelvis
through analysis of a 9-face system of propor- recommended by both Ghiberti and Alberti
ALBERTI'S SYSTEM OF HUMAN PROPORTIONS 8i
tage of Alberti's exempedaruler in a situation where different modular and
fractional systems are used to proportion statues of various heights is that the
unit divisions of the ruler are scaled to the whole, and most of the calculation
necessary for establishing proportionate divisions is accomplished when the
ruler is calibrated; it is, for instance, easier to determine one sixth the exempeda
ruler (one foot) than to measure one sixth of three and one-third braccia
(eleven soldi, one denaro,four punti).
Because Alberti undoubtedly knew Ghiberti and other Florentine sculptors,
it is surprising that so few scholars have investigated the possibility of a
connexion between the system of proportions found in his tables and those
used by contemporary sculptors.47 A short table of human proportions appen-
ded to three manuscript copies of De statua, however, indicates that Alberti
began his study of human proportions and systems of mensuration by in-
quiring into the practice of his day, not by measuring a random sample of
fifteenth-century Florentines.48 The table, published by Maria P. Simonelli,
lists only twelve measurements and is limited to disclosing the major vertical
divisions of the body; one width is given, but no thicknesses are noted.49 It
represents an exclusively humanist criticism ments that Donatello divulged to Alberti the
of the Vitruvian canon; but Cennini's canon legendary 'simple abacus' he was supposed
places the navel above the mid-point of the to have worked with when proportioning his
well-proportioned man, Mariano Taccola's statues.
Man as Microcosm places the mid-point at 48 The so-called addendum to De statuawas
the base of the pelvis (see n. 20 above), and published by Maria P. Simonelli, 'On
photographs of Donatello's St. Mark indicate Alberti's Treatises of Art and their Chrono-
that the mid-point is well below the hips. This logical Relationships', Yearbookof Italian
particular modification of the Vitruvian Studies, 1971, pp. 75-1o2. The short table
canon should undoubtedly be considered a is found in Magliabechiano II.IV.39, Ric-
part of the Florentine workshop tradition cardianus 927 and Ambrosianus o.8o
which Ghiberti knew and Alberti studied sup.
before writing De statua. It was probably not 49
According to the statement which pre-
Alberti who influenced Ghiberti in the late cedes the table (Simonelli n. 48 above, p. 98),
I420s
as Morselli contends, but Ghiberti and the height of a man is divided into 54 degrees.
other artists who instructed the theoretician The table is as follows:
on matters of proportion in the I43os-just
as they informed him about new methods of From the chin to the roots of the
hair degrees 6
perspective construction. From the foot to the roots of the
47 Grayson (introduction, p. 25) suggests 54
that one should investigate to what extent To the node of the neck hair, ,, 45
Width at the node of the neck 12
the exempedasystem reflects contemporary ,,
To the breast and the fork of the
practice. Charles Seymour (n. 24 above and stomach ,,
Sculpture in Italy, pp. and 9go) in- 39
9-Io To the navel ,,
vestigated the proportional system inherent 33
in the exempedaruler and noted similarities To the bone below which hangs the
between some of the measurements in the penis [27] ,, 37
To the middle of the thigh 21
tables and some of the proportions in Dona- ,,
To the knee joint 5
tello's MartelliDavid and the Bargello David. To the middle of the lower leg
,,
,, 9
My analysis of the tables amplifies and From the ground to the ankle (?)
extends the application of Seymour's obser- ,, 3
vations and confirms generally his findings- From the ground to the top of the head ,, 55
which, because this adds one degree
except with respect to the question of the date
of De statua and the question of Alberti's [to the total of 54], is 55 degrees
influence on Donatello. One might even The table as published contains either a
speculate on the basis of Seymour's measure- typographicalor a manuscripterror;obviously
appears to be an early version of the exempedatables recorded in the text of
De statua and is, in fact, little more than a reworked version of Cennini's
nine-face system expressed in terms of the gradusor degree.50
Because the short table does not account for the three-dimensional
character of the body, one understands why Alberti discarded it. Yet Alberti
did not totally reject the modular method when he devised the more complex
exempedatables, for he repeats the seven-unit length of the face in the tables
as if it were a basic modular unit of the whole: the hand is one face long; the
distances between the nipples and between the navel and the kidney are each
one face long; the length of the lower leg from the outer knee joint to the
instep and the distance between the navel and the fork of the throat are two
faces; the height of the outer knee joint is one face plus one Albertian foot
from the ground; the widths of the calf muscle, the thigh muscle, and the
neck are each half a face (P1. i5b and Appendix A, p. 93).
Despite the above measurements which attest to Alberti's dependence on
Cennini's system (or one like it), it is apparent from further consideration of
the base of the pelvis cannot be above the under the jaw to the base of the throat, one
navel, so the table should read 27 not 37 of the three measures. The throat, one
degrees. It is unlikely that the author of the measure long. From the pit of the throat to
table simply reversed the 37-degree and 33- the top of the shoulder, one face; and so for
degree measurements, for all other divisions the other shoulder [the same 2-face width is
of the body are 6, 12 or 3 degrees in length. used in the addendum table above] ... The
It is clear from the measurements listed in whole hand, lengthwise, one face [the same
this short table that the proportions of the relationship of face to hand is found in
body are established by using the length of Vitruvius's system and Alberti's exempeda
the face as the basic module. The importance tables]. From the pit of the throat to that
of the 6-degree face-length is emphasized by of the chest, or stomach, one face. From
placing it first in a list which otherwise is the stomach to the navel, one face. From the
concerned (with the exception of the width navel to the thigh joint, one face. From the
of the shoulders) with the height of any given thigh to the knee, two faces. From the knee
anatomical division from the ground. The to the heel of the leg, two faces. From the
importance of the face unit coupled with the heel to the sole of the foot, one of the three
author's insistence that the body is divided measures. The foot, one face long. A man is
into 54 units (when, in fact, there are 55) ties as long as his arms crosswise.' See Cennino
this table to the Italo-Byzantine method of d'Andrea Cennini, The Craftsman's Handbook,
proportioning the body with 9 faces or 27 transl. D. V. Thompson, Jr., New York
small units (half 54). The author of this table I960, pp. 48-49.
had the same difficulty in integrating the top There is in Cennini's treatise a problematic
of the head into the overall proportionate passage which indicates there are possibly 2
divisions of the body as did Cennino Cennini, small measures in the length of the neck
who categorically stated there were 82/3 (from the chin to the Adam's apple and from
heads in his well-proportioned man, when the Adam's apple to the top of the sternum).
there were either 9 or 91/3. The addendum If this passage does record a 2-part division
table differs from Cennini's system, however, of the neck, then the total number of faces in
in that it replaces the vague phrase 'a face Cennini's system is 91/3, not the 9 faces usually
unit' with the more objective and potentially associated with Cennini's system nor the 82/3
precise term gradusor degree. The evidence faces he says exist in his well-proportioned
presented by Simonelli indicates strongly that man (Craftsman'sHandbook,p. 49). If Cen-
Alberti was indeed the author of this table. nini's system does contain 91/3 faces, it
50 Cennini gives the proportions of a man resembles the so-called pseudo-Varronic
as follows: 'First, as I have said above, the canon which was not officially mentioned in
face is divided into three parts, namely: the the literature until late in the Renaissance
forehead, one: the nose, another; from the nose (Panofsky, n. 2 above, pp. 76 and 93;
to the chin, another . . . From the chin Pomponius Gauricus (n. 2 above), pp. 78-79).-
the measurements recorded in the tables that Alberti subjected the anatomical
divisions of the body to a second type of mathematical control which corres-
ponds to the Vitruvian method of proportioning with simple fractional
ruler and the actual foot length
relationships.5' Both the pedesof the exempeda
of the well-proportioned man recorded in the tables is ten degrees long or
one sixth the whole; the same relationship of foot to body is found in the
Vitruvian system. It is perhaps more significant, however, that while many
other divisions in the tables do not correspond exactly to those proposed by
Vitruvius (nor do they fall on the pedesdivisions of the exempedaruler), they
are devised by the Vitruvian fractional method;52 for instance, the width of
51Vitruvius's system of proportions is in the head less than one foot in length. This
Ten Books on Architecture,transl. M. H. correction could have occurred because
Morgan, New York i960, iii.I,2: 'For the Alberti subsequently read Vitruvius more
human body is so designed by nature that carefully and discovered that the head in the
the face, from the chin to the top of the fore- Vitruvian system was 1/8 the whole while the
head and the lowest roots of the hair, is a 'head unit' from the node of the neck to
tenth part of the whole height; the open hand the top of the forehead was the same length
from the wrist to the top of the middle finger as the foot or 1/6 the whole; in Alberti's tables
is just the same; the head from the chin to the foot length designates the distance from
the crown is an eighth, and with the neck the node of the neck to the top of the head.
and the shoulder from the top of the breast to For a discussion of Alberti's complaints about
the lowest roots of the hair is a sixth; from the difficulty of interpreting Vitruvius's
the middle of the breast to the summit of the Latin see R. Krautheimer, 'Alberti and
crown is a fourth.... The length of the foot Vitruvius', Acts of the TwentiethInternational
is one sixth of the height of the body; of the Congressof the History of Art, ii, Princeton
forearm, one fourth; and the breadth of the 1963, pp. 43-52.
breast is also one fourth.' In iii.i,3 Vitruvius 52 In Alberti's system, the width of the
says, 'Then again, in the human body the shoulders is 1/4 of the whole, while in
central point is naturally the navel.' And in Vitruvius's system the width of the breast is
iii. 1,7 he says: 'And further, as the foot is one 1/4 of the whole. Alberti's face is 7/O of the
sixth of a man's height, the height of the whole rather than the 1/10of the Vitruvian
body as expressed in number of feet limited man. There are many more divisions
to six, they [the mathematicians] held that designated in De statua than in Vitruvius's
this was the perfect number . . .' system, and many of Alberti's measurements
Much has been made of Alberti's change relate incommensurately to the whole, while
of mind about Vitruvius's canon of propor- none does in the Vitruvian system. As noted
tions between the writing of De statua and above, Alberti relocated the mid-point of the
De pictura,particularly by those who date De body from the navel to the base of the pelvis;
statua early in the 143os. In De pictura (ii.36), by doing this he gave up an almost irresistible
Alberti refers to Vitruvius by name (some- symbol of man contained in the circle and
thing he does not do in De statua) and he the square, but he apparently made up for
says: 'The architect Vitruvius reckons the this loss by using other means to achieve an
height of a man in feet. I think it is more association between the human body and
suitable if the rest of the limbs are related to these geometrical symbols of perfection.
the size of the head, although I have observed Michel (n. 6 above, pp. 292-3 and 293, n. 2)
it to be well-nigh a common fact in men that related the shift in the position of the navel
the length of the foot is the same as the dis- with another canon used by ancient sculptors;
tance from the chin to the top of the head.' he noted that the whole relates to the height
Here Alberti agrees with Vitruvius as far as of the navel in the tables as 1.666:i, and
the body proportions are concerned, but he since 1.6i 8: i is the Golden Section, Michel
demurs with respect to the proper module. suggested Alberti meant to associate this
In De statua,Alberti takes over the Vitruvian measurement with the ideal. Prof. Grayson
module (the foot or pedes)and he retains the pointed out to me the striking coincidence
same relative value of foot to the whole, but that the number of man is designated in
he corrects himself, not Vitruvius, by making Revelation xiii:i 8 as 666. I have been unable
the shoulders is one fourth the whole, the height of the base of the pelvis is
one half the whole, the distance between the base of the pelvis and the waist
is one eighth the whole. Furthermore, the distances between the nipples and
the waist, the waist and the hips, the navel and the base of the pelvis, the tip
of the hand and the outer knee joint, and the maximum thickness of the
thigh are each one tenth the whole (Appendix A, p. 93). As the breakdown of
the vertical dimensions of the body in Appendix B (p. 94) demonstrates,
Alberti has employed an elaborate fractional scheme which is not just essen-
tially Vitruvian, but which asserts more forcefully than Vitruvius's few ratios
the actuality of a keenly analysed cubic form.
Because Alberti calculated anatomical divisions in terms of six hundred
units of measure, it is implausible statistically that any significant number of
these divisions should fall into a fractional or modular scheme. Not all the
measurements appear to have been adjusted according to a pre-established
programme, but by extrapolating from Alberti's tables the actual length of
the intervals between anatomical divisions, one discovers evidence, none the
less, of a consistent numerical pattern or formulaic response which was clearly
intended to show how the parts of the body 'accord well' with each other and
with the whole. That Alberti's system of relationships resulted from a com-
bination of medieval modular and classical fractional methods is discernibly
a characteristic of humanist endeavours to revive and reform the knowledge,
methods, and theories of the past. With the simultaneous use and overlapping
application of two modes of proportioning, Alberti acknowledges the authority
of the past, creates the appearance of a rigorous analysis of the human form,
and rationalizes two methods known and therefore easily employed by
contemporary sculptors.
Given the fact that so few manuscript copies of De statuaexist today, it is
fortunate that evidence has survived indicating one illustrator'sunderstanding
of the importance of the intervals between the measurements in Alberti's
tables. This evidence is provided by a late fifteenth-centurydrawing published
by Cecil Grayson in which the exempedatabulations are written in Hindu-
Arabic numerals, and the significant intervals are noted in Roman numerals.53
While the illustrator realized the function of certain fractional values and of
the face module in Alberti's system, he nullified the persistent repetition of
intervals which were six, seven, or ten degrees long (or multiples of these) by
unsystematically and incorrectly rounding off the exempeda measurements. By
the end of the fifteenth century, it would seem, the necessity of using the
tables precisely was no longer understood; the particular mathematical
constructs Alberti had employed in devising his tables were hidden beneath the
detailed, perhaps inaccurately copied, tabulations; and the simple repetition
to find the complete analysis of Alberti's the relationship of the height of the body to
tables which Michel promised to publish, but the height of the navel would be 1.625:1. It
perhaps the discovery of the Golden Section is possible Alberti noted this coincidence and
did not suit Michel's opinion that Alberti tried to use a similar relationship in his own
generally eschewed irrational numbers and tables. On the supposition that Alberti was
incommensurate relationships, and so he concerned with perfect navels, one can
dropped the matter. Also, it may be another conclude that Michel was on the right track.
53 MS Canon. Misc.
interesting coincidence, but if there were 172, fol. 232'v, Oxford,
82/3 faces in Cennini's ideal man, as he says, Bodleian Library; Grayson, pl. i.
of the six, seven, or ten degree lengths, which made the proportioning of a
statue a relatively easy project for the working sculptor, was lost (P1. i15b).14
It is possible that Alberti was secretive, or at least not forthright, about the
actual mathematical constructs he used in the tables because they were
commonly known to contemporary sculptors and needed no defence. Alberti
does, however, tip his hand when he makes the statement quoted above
about recording 'the fixed proportions' distributed in nature and then saying
he took his measurements according to a method used by the Greek artist
Zeuxis, who drew the most beautiful parts of the most beautiful maidens of
Croton to create the image of a goddess.55 One assumesfrom Alberti's version
of the legend that Zeuxis drew the nose of one girl, the leg of another, and so
on; this diligent Greek painter apparently did not calculate mean measure-
ments from the available models to achieve beauty and perfection as Alberti
recommends. None the less, although the details of the story about the
Croton maids do not dovetail with the techniques and methods described
in De statua, they do stress the important notions for Alberti that beauty
exists in the products of nature and can be discovered through a selective
process.
By presenting the Croton legend directly following a reference to the
beauty found in nature and just before the tables, Alberti alerts the reader to
look for something more in the tables than would be produced from a mere
random sample. At the very least, the Croton legend provides the tables with
an acceptable pedigree, but it was probably also meant to sanction the use of
54Alberti offers the sculptor several options the same precise articulation as a statue of a
for working out the correct dimensions of a nude figure, the type of commission would
figure; he can rough out the proportions by ultimately dictate the care with which the
using a few fractional divisions such as 1/2 the sculptor worked out the proportionate re-
whole determines the pelvis line, etc. But a lationships, but no matter what the circum-
more rigorously proportioned figure requires stances of the commission Alberti's tables
the sculptor to begin at ground level, as could be used with relative ease.
Alberti does in the tables, and to set the 55 De statua, I2, p. I35. According to John
height of the instep at 0.3.0 or 3 degrees Spencer (n. 15 above, p. 35), Alberti's source
above the ground and then add a 2-face for the maidens of Croton legend was Cicero's
module to arrive at the height of the outer De inventione, II.i, 3-5. In De pictura (iii.56,
knees, the next important anatomical junc- p. 99) Alberti uses the legend as Cicero
ture at 1.7.o. By then adding a series of 6- intended-to instruct painters to consult
or 7-degree measurements, the sculptor many models and not to rely exclusively on
establishes the height of the finger tips at their own talents; the discussion which
2.3.0, the wrist and the base of the pelvis at precedes the legend loosely associates know-
3.0.0, and the navel at 3.6.0. The insertion ledge of the function and symmetry of the
of a 2-face or 14-degree unit designates the body with beauty. In De statuaAlberti uses
fork of the throat, and a io-degree unit defines the legend to justify the application of mean
the top of the head. Having marked off some proportionals to the human figure and to
of the divisions of the body, the sculptor must clarify the process whereby the sculptor
repeat the above process to fix others by moves from the selection of beautiful parts
locating the position of the waist a distance of to the creation of a beautiful image. Only
1/8 the whole (0.7.5) above the pelvis, then in De re aedificatoria (ix.7 and x.5) does
establishing the position of the nipples and Alberti resolve the problem of how one
the hips 6 units above and below the waist chooses the beautiful parts in the first place
respectively. The same process may be by explaining that man is endowed with an
applied to widths and thicknesses. Since a innate spiritual quality which allows him to
statue of a clothed figure would not require judge the beautiful and abhor the ugly.
pre-established numerical relationships. Both Zeuxis and Alberti controlled
their observations in order to justify certain general concepts originating in
Greek aesthetics concerning the normative character of beauty and the
importance of selecting, adjusting and combining the parts of an artistic
composition properly. While not specifically identified, these concepts had
been alluded to earlier in De statuaduring a discussion of shipbuilding and the
composition of body members.56 If one criticizes Alberti for relying on a
trick of rhetoric rather than honest explanation to set up a connexion between
ancient aesthetic principles and the precepts at work in De statua,one over-
looks his reasonable expectation that his humanist friends would savour the
multiple ramifications of the Croton legend. Perhaps such friends might be
led to think, through Alberti's manipulation, of the philosopher of Croton,
Pythagoras, and of a link between the table format and the fabled canon of
Polyclitus.57
A few comments in De picturainstructive of his attitude about human
proportions, however, dispel many of the questions raised by Alberti's allusive
method of exposition in De statua. The technical recommendation in De
picturato scale a painting to bracciaunits, three of which represent the height
of the average man, has already been shown to be pertinent to understanding
56 De statua, 8, p. I29. Alberti says: (5o3E): 'One only needs to look, for example,
'Who would dare to claim to be a shipbuilder, at painters, builders, shipwrights, and all the
if he did not know how many parts there are other craftsmen-take the case of any you
in a ship, how one ship differs from another, like-to see how each of them arranges his
and how the parts of any construction fit particular material in a certain order, and
together? Yet among our sculptors how forces one part to be appropriate to and fit
many will there be who, if asked, will have another, until he has combined everything
observed and properly understood the struc- into an ordered and comely product.'
ture of any limb, the proportions within it 57Several scholars have noted the possi-
and of other limbs to it, and those of all of bility that Alberti was inspired to create his
them to the form of the whole body?' tables by reports found in various ancient
Grayson (introduction, p. 20) contends sources about the Canon of Polyclitus. See
that Alberti's reference to shipbuilding is Girolamo Mancini, Vita di Leon Battista
meant ' . . . to give the sculptor the technical Alberti, 2nd edn., Rome 1911 (repr. 1971),
advantages possessedby other "constructors" p. I23, n. I; Gadol (n. 2 above), pp. 81-82;
' Because Alberti associates Michel (n. 6 above), p. 393. No one has
.. shipbuilding
with a particular kind of composition of the seriously investigated the possibility that
members and the discussion of the matter Alberti attempted to recreate the Polyclitan
parallels a more general statement about Canon because little is known about it except
composition in De pictura (ii.36, pp. 73 and what can be adduced from a vague and
75), it is unlikely he meant to restrict the difficult passage from Philo Mechanicus's
reference to technical matters. Alberti is, in Syntaxis (4.1.49,20) which purports to be a
fact, alluding to a fundamental tenet of quotation from Polyclitus: 'Perfection [or the
proportionate relationships which ultimately excellent] arises para mikronthrough many
derived from the anthropometric, organic numbers.' The preceding is Pollitt's trans-
relationships subscribed to by Vitruvius, lation (n. I2 above, p. 15) of the passage
Galen, Pythagoras and others. For the which is usually cited (for instance, H. S.
theoretical inter-relationshipamong the ideas Jones, Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture,
of these writers see Pollitt (n. I2 above), Chicago I966, p. 129) as reading 'beauty was
pp. 14-22. produced from a small unit through a long
An interesting gloss to the text which may chain of numbers'. Since contemporary
suggest why Alberti selected shipbuilding as scholars cannot agree on its translation, one
the proper analogy for correct proportionate can only guess how Alberti understood this
order in a work of art is in Plato's Gorgias passage, but he certainly knew it.
the tools of measure in De statua.58This recommendation is another indication
of the bond between nature and art. More generally phrased but no less
informative are the statements that 'nature clearly and openly reveals' the
proportions of the human figure, that the length of one member is used to
discover the proportionate relationships of the other members, and that 'a
very small man is proportioned to a very large one; for there was the same
proportion of span to stride, and of foot to the remaining parts of the body in
Evander as there was in Hercules, . . .,59
While the above observations are interesting historically because they show
Alberti defending a position derived from a general understanding of Greco-
Roman sources, the purely speculative nature of the last citation, lifted from
the writings of Aulus Gellius,60 hardly seems to prepare for the apparent
scientific precision of the TabulaeDimensionum Hominisin De statua. The tables
reveal, however, that Alberti has not moved far from his position in De
pictura,and in fact that he employed the length of two members of the body
to discover the length of other members;61 that is, the incommensurate
relationships between the hand (or the face) and the whole (7:60) and the
hand and the foot (7:1 o), as well as the commensurate relationship of the
foot to the whole (io:6o or 1:6), are used for calculating the dimensions of
other anatomical divisions in terms of a system of mensuration with unit
divisions which obviously rely on multiples of six and ten.62 Granted, Alberti
worked with other ratios or fractions in his tables, but the emphasis placed on
the six-, seven-, or ten-unit length in the tables provokes curiosity. Since by
the time Alberti wrote De re aedificatoria he championed the whole number
sequences, simple fractions, commensurate values and mean proportionals of
Pythagorean theory, it strikes one as unusual that the fundamental ratios in
De statua should stress a combination of the commensurate and the incom-
mensurate.63 On the other hand, while in De picturaAlberti depended upon
Euclid's theorem concerning the similarity of triangles as proof that his
perspective construction produced scaled relationships between nature and
art, he avoided the issue of how the incommensurate relationships usually
resulting from this geometric formula might express the harmonious and the
,8 See above, p. 79. 5 Roman feet (7:50) and the foot-length to
59 De pictura, the whole body (io:60). It is possible,
i.I14, p. 51; ii.36, p. 75.
60oIbid, i.I4, p. 5o, n. I. however, that Alberti understood the pace
61 In De pictura (ii.36), Alberti says: 'I to be equal to 4 cubits or the height of the
would advise one thing, however, that in Vitruvian man as Leonardo did (Venice
assessing the proportions of a living creature Academy, R343); thus Alberti was thinking
we should take one member of it by which the of a 7:6o relationship. While discussing
rest are measured.' In telling the Evander Leonardo's analysis of Vitruvian proportions,
and Hercules legend (i.i14), however, Alberti H. Arthur Klein (Masterpieces,Mysteriesand
seems to be advocating the use of two Muddlesof Metrology: The Worldof Measure-
members (the hand and the foot) to assess the ments, New York 1974, p. 68) explains: 'By
proportionate relationships in the body. "pace" Leonardo meant not a single stride,
62 As far as the mathematical relationships but rather the complete cycle of left-right-
in the tables of De statuaare concerned, one left or right-left-right. If a 6-footer has a
is inclined at first not to take the legend of 3-foot stride, his pace is 6 feet.'
Hercules and Evander seriously because the 63 De re aedificatoria,
iii.I and vii.6. See also
relationships described would apparently be R. Wittkower, Architectural principlesin theAge
that of the hand-span to a pace-length of of Humanism, London 1949, pp. 97-99-
beautiful.•64In De statuaAlberti may be attempting to resolve this problem.
It is easy to see how Alberti came to associate the specific numerical
relationship of the foot to the whole body (1:6) and the number of feet to the
number of inches in a foot (6:Io) with perfection and beauty, if one assesses
the impact of Vitruvius's statements in De architectura relating human propor-
tions to the development of commercial systems of measurement. One cannot
afford to be critical of Vitruvius's argument in assessing this impact, an
argument which, in its carefree illogic, goes something like this: nature
distributes the members of the body in a proportionate relationship to the
whole, and therefore commercial systems of measurement were originally
derived from the length of various members of the body (one assumesVitruvius
meant the average or mean length of the finger, the palm, the forearm, etc.);
because philosophers contended that these measurements were apportioned
according to the perfect number ten, and mathematicians thought they were
apportioned according to the perfect number six, Vitruvius concluded that
the 'most perfect' number was a combination of ten and six.65 Vitruvius may
have been prompted to advocate this numerical relationship because of its
application in the Golden Section rectangle,66 but, in any event, the associa-
tion of these two numbers is found frequently in Alberti's tables and exempeda
system, whether it is ten plus six, ten times six, or ten to six. Furthermore,
how could Alberti doubt Vitruvius's conclusions when he saw the ten to six
relationship of the components in the Florentine bracciosystem?
The possibility that the system of human proportions in De statuaelucidates
a traditional norm approved by classical philosophers and mathematicians
and enunciates the rule of numerical perfection is strengthened if one accepts
the premise that his opinions in De re aedificatoriareflect, at least generally,
the direction of his thinking in De statua.67 Alberti contends in De reaedificatoria
64 De
pictura, i.I13, PP. 49 and 51; i.15, Architecture. . ., transl. with notes and intro-
p. 51. See also the notes to Grayson'sedition, duction by John R. Spencer, ii, New Haven
pp. io8-14; Edgerton, n. 20 above, passim; 1965, p. xxxi, fols. 2v and 4r-4v), plagiarized
John White, Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial freely from Vitruvius when discussing the
Space,London 1967, passimand esp. p. 121. inter-connexion of proportions, commercial
65 Ten Books on Architecture,iii. 1,
5-8. systems of measurement, and perfection.
Vitruvius's assertion about the development 66 The formula for the Golden Section is
of standard lengths from parts of the human A:B = B:(A+ B), and it results in the ratio
body is, historically speaking, a correct one, of 1.618:1; this ratio was usually approxi-
which applied equally to the Ist century and mated as 8:5 (1.6:i1) but it could also be
the 15th century. See Klein (n. 62 above), approximated as i6:io (i.6:I) or io:6
chaps. 4 and 5; C. J. Scriba, Conceptof (1.666:1). A Golden Section rectangle with
Number, Manheim 1968, chap. i. For a a short side of Io would have a long side
commentary on the importance of perfectus divided geometrically into segments measur-
numerusor the teleiosin ancient art criticism, ing 6.I8 and Io, and a Double Golden
see Pollitt (n. 12 above), pp. 263 and 419- Section rectangle with a short side of 0o
422. For a discussion of the use of perfect would have a long side divided into segments
numbers in medieval design techniques see 6. 18, io, and 6.18; this latter figure is also
Kenneth J. Conant's 'The After-Life of known as the 'root-5' rectangle and has a
Vitruvius in the Middle Ages', Journalof the ratio of 2.236: I.
67 For a discussion of some
Societyof Architectural Historians,xxvii, 1968, correspondences
pp. 33-38. Not only did Vitruvius influence between De re aedificatoria and De statua, see
Alberti in this matter, but other 15th-century Grayson, introduction, p. 21. Seymour, p. 9
writers, such as Filarete (Filarete'sTreatiseon (op. cit. Appendix C, p. 95) suggested that
that the number six is the 'most perfect' because it consists of all its own parts:
that the number ten is the 'most perfect of all' because its square is composed
of four continued cubes; and' . . . that the Almighty God himself, the Creator
of all Things, takes particular Delight in the Number Seven . . .'68 Such
hyperbole is enough to convince the reader of Alberti's dedication to the idea
that some numbers are 'more perfect' than others. The importance of perfect
numbers and numerical relationships is stated in the same chapter of De re
'
aedificatoria,where he defines beauty as follows: ... we may conclude Beauty
to be such a Consent and Agreement of the Parts of the Whole in which is
found, as to Number, Finishing, and Collocation, as Congruity, that is to say,
the principal Law of Nature requires.'69 The association of beauty, perfect
numbers, the proportionate relationship of the parts and the principal law of
nature, is explicit in De re aedificatoria;and it is this same alliance which is
strongly indicated by the comments directly preceding the tables in De
statuaand clarified in the tables themselves.
Even the paean to the number seven in De re aedificatoria, however, is not
to
enough justify its role in De statua's of
system proportions because, according
to Alberti's theory of proportions, a rational relationship of the parts to each
other and to the whole must exist; yet seven does not relate commensurately
to either the whole or the basic unit of measurement, the foot. The sequence
six, seven and ten (or any reordering of that sequence) does not directly
result from commonly used formulae, such as the Golden Section or the
Fibonacci Series, nor does it accord with the Pythagorean ratios which
dominate Alberti's thinking in De re aedificatoria.70 The probability that these
three numbers signify a numerical code meant to have a symbolic as well as a
practical function similar to the Pythagorean Series, however, is suggested by
the history of column proportions presented in De re aedificatoria.In Book ix
of that work, Alberti relates how the traditional widths of the columns were
derived from the human body and therefore were either one-sixth or one-tenth
of the whole (thus indicating he had taken Vitruvius seriously), but Alberti
contends these proportions were either too squat or too slender. Thus the
eight-to-one proportion of the Ionic column was generated from the arithmetic
because of Alberti's 'two-fold definition of modum delectari, . . .' In this passage
statua' which encompasses the general and Alberti also comments on other qualities of
the particular, the norm and the variable perfection to be found in the numbers 3, 4,
. . it might be possible to link the image of 5, 8 and 9; one must assume that the symbolic
man to the mathematical order underlying force of these numbers depended in part on
the universe about him, a Stoic idea as much placing them in correct relationship.
as a neo-Platonic one.' 69De re aedificatoria,ix.5. 'Quae satis
68 De re
aedificatoria,ix.5. English transl. constant, statuisse sic possumus: pulchritu-
from G. Leoni (cf. n. 6 above). For the Latin, dinem esse quendam consensum et conspira-
see edn. of Giovanni Orlandi, Milan I966: tionem partium in eo, cuius sunt, ad certam
'Et senarium inter rarissimos perfectum numerum finitionem collocationemque
nominant, qui suis omnibus integris constet habitam, ita uti concinnitas, hoc est absoluta
partibus.' 'Decimum putabat Aristoteles primariaque ration naturae, postularit.'
numerum omnium haberi perfectissimum, ea 70In the Fibonacci Series of Leonardo of
fortassisre, uti interpretantur, quod quattuor Pisa, each digit is the sum of the two pre-
continuis collectis cubis eius quadratum ceding digits: 1,1,2,3,5,8,1I3, etc. It, like the
compleature.' 'Et septannario constat sum- Golden Section, has the same approximate
mum rerum opificem Deum maiorem in ratio of 8:5.
7
9go JANE ANDREWS AIKEN
mean of six and ten; the seven-to-one proportion of the Doric shaft was
calculated by taking the arithmetic mean of six (chosen because it was the
least amount of the first set of numbers) and eight (chosen because it was the
Ionic mean); the nine-to-one proportion of the Corinthian shaft was generated
from ten and eight.7" One learns from the description of the above process
that Alberti thought the formula for the arithmetic mean was the correct one
to use when determining architectural proportions derived from the human
body, but that since he alters the factors to produce a desired result, he was
not constrained to employ the formula in a mathematically stringent way.
One also realizes from the above that the sequence 6, 7, 8, 9, io meant more
to Alberti than is readily discernible, for it was associated in his mind with
the use of the mean and it incorporated all legitimate column proportions,
including what might be called the archetypal species of 6:i and io0:i sup-
posedly taken directly from the human body. Assuming Alberti started with
six and ten in De statua,there is a strong indication that he used the above
arbitrary application of the arithmetical mean proportions (the series should
be 6, 8, o10, I2, etc.) rather than a statistical mean, to justify some of the
measurements in his tables. For instance, the arithmetical mean of six and
ten is eight, and the head in Alberti's well-proportioned man is eight degrees
long. While the nine-degree length appears only twice in the tables, the
arithmetical mean of seven and ten is eight and one-half (8.5), and this length
appears in the vertical divisions of the tables a significant number of times
(Appendix B, p. 94). Since he, however, does not use it in the discussion of
column proportions in De re aedificatoria, the question remains of how Alberti
justified the incommensurate relationship of seven to ten in the first place.
Cennino Cennini's system of proportions provides a precedent for an
arithmetically incommensurate relationship between the face and the whole,72
but both tradition and contemporary practice indicate Alberti turned to
another source and selected a geometrical method mentioned in De re aedifica-
toria as producing 'natural proportions for the use in structures'.73 This
method had been discussed by Plato and Vitruvius, was known during the
Middle Ages, and was used by artists of the fifteenth century. Variously called
the 'secret of the medieval masons', quadrature, or the Roriczer formula, the
method applies-to the proportioning of forms-a geometric formula for
doubling the area of a square by determining the diagonal of a given square
and using the diagonal as the side of the double square.74 By consequence (and
71 De re Duccio's Maesta', Part I, Art Bulletin, lv, 1973,
aedificatoria,ix.7.
72 If there were
82/3 faces in Cennini's ideal pp. 356-8; Dorothea F. Nyberg, 'Brunel-
man, the ratio of the face to the whole would leschi's Use of Proportion in the Pazzi
be 1:8.666. One again seems to be dealing Chapel', Marsyas, vii, 1957, pp. 1-7; Howard
with a relationship that has at least the aura Saalman, 'Early Renaissance Architectural
of the Golden Section. Theory and Practice in Antonio Filarete's
73 De re Trattato di Architettura',Art Bulletin, xli, 1959,
aedificatoria,i.12 and ix.6.
74For a discussion of this method and its pp. 89-io6. Matthias Roriczer's Biichlein von
use in medieval and early Renaissance art der Fialen Gerechtigkeitwas first published in
see: Paul Frankl, 'The Secret of the Medieval Regensberg in 1486, but as Lon R. Shelby
Masons with an Explanation of Stornoloco's convincingly argues (op. cit. n. 35 above,
Formula by Erwin Panofsky', Art Bulletin, pp. 46-61), the medieval masons' formula
xxvii, I954, PP. 46-60; John White, described in that book was not much of a
'Measurement, Design, and Carpentry in secret. According to the formula, no matter
most importantly) the areas of the squares relate commensurately as 2:I and
the sides relate incommensurately as 1.414.1. Thus, the commensurate and
the incommensurate are always embodied in the same formula. If, as the
evidence suggests, the number ten was the 'most perfect of all' to Alberti,
and he started with ten as the side of his square (a possibility reinforced by
the tables and the exempeda system since the vertical dimensions of a man are
divided into six, ten-unit feet, and the maximum thickness of the body is ten
units), he would generate a series of double (or half) squares with the following
side values: 3.5:5:7:Io:14:20 etc.75 Even though rounding off the irrational
numbers resulting from the formula must have presented a problem, the
final sequence rationalizes the following relationshipsfrom the tables: one-half
face to one-half foot to one face to one foot to two faces to two feet etc. Since
7:10o
is an approximation of the relationship of the sides of all squares to their
diagonals, the seven-unit length of the hand or the face and the ten-unit
length of the foot would no doubt call to mind this geometric form and its
attendant aura of perfection.76
Few things could be more acceptable or seem more significantly natural
to a humanist like Alberti than the relationships obtained from a series of
squares. In addition, a formula for determining three-dimensional relation-
ships in the design of a building has many pertinent associative values which
Alberti would have welcomed. Specifically, it binds the planar measurements
of the tables to three areas of artistic and theoretical concern: the cubic
nature of the body; the perfection of the circle and the square (both conspi-
cuous shapes in the design of the finitoriumand the normae);and architectural
form (the association of the human body and architecture being one of the
most persistent truisms of Vitruvian and early Renaissance writings on the
subject of proportions). Perhaps Alberti was prompted to combine in his
tables mathematically commensurate and geometrically incommensurate
relationships because such relationships existed in the buildings of Brunelleschi
and the sculpture of Donatello; this combination is later acknowledged in
De re aedificatoria,the writings of Filarete and the work of Francesco di
Giorgio.78 Literary precedence for this combination was provided in De
what its name, the diagonal of a square equals persistent use of 6, 7 and io in the tables
the side of a square times the square root of 2; expresses in a mathematically arbitrary but
conversely, the side of a square equals the symbolically significant way a connexion
diagonal times I over the square root of 2. between Alberti's system of human propor-
Given a side of Io the diagonal would be tions and the square as well as the Golden
14.141; also related to this formula is a Section rectangle.
7 Vitruvius, TenBooksonArchitecture, iv. 1,6;
figure known as the 'root 2' rectangle which
had sides relating according to the ratio of De re aedificatoria,ix.7; Filarete's Treatiseon
1.414:I. Architecture,i, fol. 2V.
~ The actual series is 3.486:4.930:7.072: 78 In addition to n. 74 above, see White,
10o:14.141:19.995. To understand how Al- Art Bulletin, I969, pp. 135-41; Henry Millon,
berti dealt with the problem of irrational 'The Architectural Theory of Francesco di
numbers and incommensurate relationships, Giorgio', Art Bulletin, xl, 1958, pp. 36-44;
see V. Zubov, 'Quelques aspects de la th6orie Jeffrey Ruda, 'A 1434 Building Programme
des proportions esth6tiques de L. B. Alberti', for San Lorenzo in Florence', Burlington
Bibliothlqued'humanismeet Renaissance,xxii, Magazine,cxx, pp. 358-61 ; Howard Saalman,
1960, pp. 54-61I. 'San Lorenzo: the 1434 Chapel Project',
76 One might even speculate that the ibid, pp. 361-4. In the last article Saalman
pictura,where Alberti cited the legend of Evander and Hercules as illustrating
the principle of scale relationships and the particular way in which the hand
and the foot relate to the body. But quite aside from considerations of myth-
ology, Alberti's system of proportions developed from a Florentine artistic
milieu which accepted the simultaneous use of commensurate fractional
divisions and the incommensurate relationships of geometric formulae in the
proportioning of three-dimensional forms.79 While contemporary artists may
have had many practical reasons for combining commensurate and incom-
mensurate relationships in their work, Alberti could only effect the final
analogy to the order and beauty of nature by endowing his tables in De statua
with symbols of numerical and geometrical perfection.
In summary, Alberti's De statuais fundamentally new in its definition of
the structural condition of three-dimensional form and in its insistence on
observing and measuring the human body. At the time Alberti wrote De statua
however, he, like his contemporaries, still required both the fractional and the
modular modes of proportioning to validate his insights. He neither rejected
nor belittled contemporary practices, but he restructured them according to
the dictates of a systematically organized theory of form which served an
ideal of beauty derived in part from Greek and Roman aesthetics. Alberti
changed the point of view, he changed the terminology, and he changed the
circumstances; but he reiterated and synthesized many variables in the
history of writing on human proportions to confirm what Vitruvius, Cennini
and others before him had assumed to be true about the existence of the
excellent and beautiful in human form.
Harvard University
notes (p. 362) that the dimensions for the closer to the relationships derived from the
tribuna or the apsidal niches for the projected medieval mason's formula than these dimen-
side aisle chapels described in the document sions which were required by contract for the
published by Ruda were 31/2 braccia deep, early Renaissance church of San Lorenzo.
7 Saalman
7 bracciawide, and were contained in a space (n. 74 above), pp. 97-o101.
Iol/8 braccia wide; one could hardly come
APPENDIX A
Measurements from Alberti's Tables Governed by Modular and/or Fractional
Relationships
1/2 whole (3.0.0): Height to base of pelvis
Height to wrist
1/3 ,, (2.0.0): From fork of throat (top of sternum) to base of pelvis
1/4 ,, (1.5.o): Width of shoulders
1/5 ,, (1.2.0): From hips to nipples
1/6 ,, (1.o.o): Length of foot
Maximum distance between sides above hips
Distance from top of sternum to top of head
1/ , (0.7.5): From base of pelvis to waist
Thickness from penis to buttocks
Thickness from breast to back
1/x10 ,, (0.6.0): Thickest part of thigh
From outer knee joint to tip of hand
From base of pelvis to navel
From hip to waist
From waist to nipples
1/12 ,, (0.5.0): From top of head to hole of ear
From hole of ear to top of sternum
From waist to bottom of shoulder blades
1/15 ,, (0.4.0): From hole of ear to roots of hair
Thickness of neck at Adam's apple
Width of upper arm muscle below deltoid
Maximum width at knee
Thickness at knee cap
Thickest part of calf
1/20 ,, (0.3.0): Height to top of instep
Thickness of narrow part above top of foot
Thickness of deltoid
From chin to hole of ear
1/24 ,, (0.2.5): Width of narrow part below knee bone
Width at mid-calf below the muscle
1/s25 ,, (0.2.4): Maximum width between ankle bones
1/30 ,, (0.2.0): Length of neck
1/40 ,, (0.1.5): From navel to waist
From base of pelvis to hips
Width of leg above ankles
1/60 ,, (o. 1.0): From top of head to roots of hair
From chin to Adam's apple
From Adam's apple to top of sternum
From nipples to bottom of shoulder blades
From elbow to waist
2 faces (i.4.0): From top of instep to outer knee joint
From navel to top of sternum
I face (0.7.0): Length of face
Length of hand
Width between nipples
Thickness from navel to kidneys
'/2 face (0.3.5): Width of calf muscle below knee
Width of thigh muscle above knee
Width of neck
APPENDIX B
Exempeda
Ruler Divisions of the Body Fractional and/or Modular Relationships
VI-Top of Head1 -/ 6.0.0 - - -

59 Roots of Hair 0.I 0050
/60
58 0.7.0
57 1/15 0.4.0 5-9.o i face ./12
112
.0.
56 I/ foot
55 Hole of Ear 55.0 o.8.o -
54"x/go 0.5.0
53 0.3.0 1/12
52 Chin /0..50
- 0.2.0
5I 535.i.0 0.I.05.I.o ..
o--
V-Fork of Throat 1ie
/6 0.1.0o5.o.o0 /30
49
48
46
47o.6.5 0.8.5
45 o-4-0 3.4.0
45 2 faces
44
Nipples4-35
43 Bottom of Shoulder Blades 1/60 0. .0 4 -2.5
42 4.2.5 o.6.o 2.o.o
41 1/3 1 1/3
IV- 1115 0.4.0
.4.02 feet
39 Elbow 3.8.5 .2.0
38WWaist 1/ 0..0o 5 - x/
37 xaist./6 2/4o0.I.5375
-
36 Navel 3.6.0 o.6.o -
35 1/0
34 0.4.5 o.6.o
33
1/xo
32 Hips 1 3.15 - -
31 /o 0.1.5 - -
III-Base of Pelvis/Wrist 3.o.0
29
28 0.3.3 0.8.5 0.7.0
27 Testicles/Base of Buttocks 2.6.9 1 face
26
25 0.3.9
24
23 Tip of Hand -2.3. - -
22
21 0.6.0 0.6.o
t0 o.6.o 1/1 x/1o
II--
19
i8
17 Outer Knee Joint - .7.o - - - 3.0.0
16 0.2.7 1/2
15 Base of Knee 1.4.3 3 feet
- 0.8.5
32o4.
13
13 1..75
I2 0.5.8 I.7.o
I- I face+
9 foont 1.4.0
8 Mid-Calf - o.8.5 foot 2a faces
7
6 0.5.4
5 o.8.5
4 Inner Ankle Bone
o.3.I
3 Top of Instep 0.3.0
2 Outer Ankle Bone 0o.2.2 0.3.o
I 1/20
APPENDIX C
THE DATING OF DE STATUA
The proposed dates of De statua range from the early I430S to the 1460s: H. Janits-
chek (L. B. Alberti, Kleinerekunsttheoretische Schriften,Vienna 1877, p. xxxiii) dates it to
1464 as does Julius Schlosser (Letteraturaartistica, 3rd edn. Florence 1967, p. 125) on
the assumption that it was written close to the time Alberti sent a copy to Giovanandrea
de' Bussi when he became Bishop in 1466. Giorgio Flaccavento ('Sulla data del "De
Statua" di Leon Battista Alberti', Commentari,xvi, 1965, p. 218) also proposes a late
date. Richard Krautheimer (LorenzoGhiberti,i, Princeton 1970, p. 323, n. 33) assumes
De statua was written between 1432 and 1433 because of possible connexions to Descriptio
Urbis Romae (since redated to the I440s by some scholars). Charles Seymour, Jr.
(Sculpturein Italy 1400oo to 150oo, Harmondsworth 1966, p. 220, n. 12) dates it between
1430 and 1435 because of a reference to Della pittura as unpublished (since proven
spurious by Grayson) and because he found some similarities between Alberti's system
of proportions and those used in Donatello's bronze David and Martelli David. M. P.
Simonelli ('On Alberti's Treatises of Art and Their Chronological Relationships',
Yearbookof Italian Studies, 1971, p. 77) dates it prior to 1434. Alessandro Parronchi
('Sul "Della Statua" Albertiano', Paragone,x, 1959, PP. 4-8) argues for a date prior to
De pictura because of possible connexions between De statua and medieval ideas and
methods of projection. Grayson thinks (introduction, pp. 20-21I, n. I above) that it was
written between 1449 and the early 1450os because of technical connexions with
Descriptio Urbis Romae and De re aedificatoria.Joan Gadol (n. 2 above, p. 76, n. 26) also
posits a connexion between De statua and Descriptio Urbis Romae because the finitorium
described in the former is similar to the surveying device described in the latter; Gadol,
however, believes the surveying techniques in Descriptio Urbis Romae predate those in
Ludi matematiciand consequently dates De statua after 1437 (because it is not mentioned
in the autobiographical Vita anonymaof that year) but before the completion of De re
aedificatoria.
Grayson argues that the essay must have been written after the 1449 completion of
Poggio Bracciolini's translation of Diodorus Siculus which contains a reference, found
in De statua, to constructing a statue in two different places so that the two halves fit
together precisely when finished. According to Remigio Sabbadini (Scopertedei codici
latini e greci ne' secoli xiv e xv, reprint Florence 1967, p. 47), Giovanni Aurispa brought a
copy of Diodorus to Florence in 1423. According to Paul L. Rose (The Italian Renais-
sance of Mathematics: Studies on Humanists and Mathematiciansfrom Petrarch to Galileo,
Geneva 1975, p. 41 and n. 162) another copy of Diodorus was owned by Nicolas V,
who had Jacobus Cremonensis translate it for him between 1449 and 1452. In addition,
Traversari suggested Marsuppini should translate Diodorus's history around 1429 (see
Charles L. Stinger, Humanismand The ChurchFathers: Ambrogio Traversari(1386-1439)
and ChristianAntiquity in the Italian Renaissance,Albany 1977, p. 34). It hardly seems
likely that this Greek MS, which contained a wealth of information about ancient life
and art, should go unnoticed for 26 years. What does seem evident is that Alberti had
heard general reports of the Diodorus commentary at the time he wrote De statua
(from Poggio, Aurispa, Traversari, Marsuppini or Nicolas V). In De statua Alberti
discusses a statue being made in two parts on the islands of Paros and Luigiana (paras.
whereas in De re aedificatoria(vii.6), he knows the passage more precisely and,
5,
likeII);
Diodorus, cites a statue of the Pythian Apollo being sculpted on the islands of
Samos and Ephesus. Rather than confirming a post-I449 date for De statua, the general
reference to Diodorus in De statua suggests a pre-1449 date, some time prior to the
completion of Poggio's or Jacobus's translations.
The most fruitful approach to the problem of dating De statua seems to be the one
proposed by Grayson and Gadol that Alberti applied the premises and insights of De
pictura with ever deepening precision to other art forms. For instance, Alberti's concept
of beauty appears to develop from a general reference in De pictura (iii.55), to a state-
ment of the ways it exists in nature's products in De statua (xii, pp. 133 and 135), to a
comprehensive definition of its components in De re aedificatoria(ix.5). Other examples
are discussed here in the text and notes, and include changes in the formulae used for
proportioning, in his interpretation of Vitruvius's treatise and in his exploitation of the
maidens of Croton legend. Although the internal evidence does not allow one to arrive
at a precise conclusion (and the text and/or the tables may have been worked on in the
mid-143os), De statua was probably completed after 1437 and before Alberti began
work on De re aedificatoria.
2-
-. ro
---59.0
59-.
57-
52- 5.2.0 ch
51- . no
V 0.5---5.1.0 5.0.0 fork
1.
55
45-
4- 0. 7 0
43- 4.3
42-
4-
.0.6.0
3-3.8
---3.7
37-
36-
,---3.6.0
.0
---3.0
\%. 29-
••-
28-
27-
26-
25-
24-
23- --- 2.3
22-
21-
19-....0.6.0
is- -0.3.5
17-
... 1.7
16-
L3I5 0
13-
12-
5-
4-
3- 0. O3.0
1.0.0
a-Using the Exempeda Ruler and the Finitorium according to b-The Fundamental Human Proportions
Alberti's instructions (p. 75) Exempeda Tables (pp. 82, 85)

Aiken 1980

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Leon Battista Alberti's System of Human Proportions

Author(s): Jane Andrews Aiken

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By Jane Andrews Aiken

n his shortessay entitled De statua,Leon Battista Alberti claims that nature

neologism combining a Greek and a Latin from Alberti's terms of measurement in De

VI-Top of Head1 -/ 6.0.0 - - -

THE DATING OF DE STATUA

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