Piero della Francesca's Archimedes

Piero della Francesca's Archimedes

A splendid 15th century manuscript uniting the mathematical genius of the Greek mathematician Archimedes (ca. 287 – ca. 212 BC) and the Italian Renaissance humanist Piero della Francesca (ca. 1415–1492). Archimedes was also a physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer who is regarded as one of the greatest minds of classical antiquity. Aside from anticipating modern calculus and accurately approximating pi, he created numerous machines for both civilian and military applications. During the Siege of Syracuse (213–212 BC) in the course of the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), his weapons helped defend the city, although he himself was killed when the Romans took the city, despite the express order of their commander General Marcus Claudius Marcellus (ca. 268 – 208 BC) not to. As a student of mathematics, della Francesca used geometric forms and perspective to create his serene paintings, frescoes, and altarpieces. During the course of the 1450’s, he transcribed Archimedes’ On the Sphere and Cylinder, Measurement of a Circle, On Conoids and Spheroids, On Spirals, On the Equilibrium of Planes, The Quadrature of the Parabola, and The Sand Reckoner into the manuscript at hand. It is stored under the shelf mark Ricc. 106 in Florence’s Biblioteca Riccardiana. Della Francesca adorned the meticulously written text with red and blue initials as well as 200+ illustrations in the margins, in which the artist distilled complex geometric figures into clear, discernible diagrams characterized by an imaginative use of space and perspective. He is thus able to reproduce three-dimensional objects on the page.