出版社：Institute of the History of Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
摘要：Leonardo's Vitruvian Man has usually been treated in the context of
studies of ideal proportions, although the symbolism of micro- and macrocosms
should also be taken into consideration. The idea of Man as the centre of the
universe was a common feature of Renaissance humanism, but it was Nicholas of
Cusa who applied the symbolic relationship of the square and the circle to a
humanistic definition of Man's unique position in the universe and his human
dignity. According to Cusa's theory of the coincidence of opposites, it is in
Man that the finite and the infinite coincide. Cusanus invented several
metaphors to illustrate his theory - the most interesting one based on
proportion that holds between the square and the circle. Man is subject to all
the limitations of the physical world, declares Nicholas of Cusa (and its
therefore inscribed into a square, a symbol of the world), yet the inexhaustible
power of his creative spirit (indicated through the circular motion of the human
body forming the circle) simultaneously lifts him above those limitations.
Leonardo's study of human proportions clearly reflects this specific
relationship: when standing firmly the figure is inscribed in a square, but when
rotated the man's outstretched limbs form a circle. As Leonardo was familiar
with at least some of Cusa's ideas, there is a strong possibility that his
Vitruvian Man in its monumental simplicity and its expression of dignity
also reflects the philosopher's concept of dignitas hominis.
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