Vitruvian Man

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A discussion earlier sparked some thoughts about a drawing made some 5 centuries ago by the renowned Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, a sketch now commonly referred to as "The Vitruvian Man". This sketch demonstrates the perfect proportions for a healthy human male, and is heavily annotated to show relative distances and measurements thereof. It has been the focus of study for generations of students of art, architecture, anatomy and design ever since. Leonardo da Vinci took his inspiration from notes by a Roman civil engineer and architect, Vitruvius, who lived in the first century BC, hence "Vitruvian". The nude male figure is sketched arms akimbo, with the navel at the center of a circle that the fingertips and feet touch. The figure is also sketched in a square, where the distance from head to toe matches the distance between the middle fingertips when the arms are outstretched at the sides of the body. A line bisecting the center of the square horizontally passes across the pubis. The two images are superimposed. The Vitruvian Man is featured on the rear of the Italian €1 (Euro) coin, although the coin attempts to give some depth to the image, requiring the removal of some detail from the original sketch. What better way to hono(u)r the original than to have it on national coinage? That a sketch has been so widely studied means there are many re-interpretations out there, some with quite accurate representations of the male, and sometimes female, anatomy. In appreciation for all that this image has inspired, the World Science Festival in 2014 created the attached video. I wonder what Leonardo would think if he were alive today to see how his sketch has been used and what it has inspired...