CHAPTER II — Critical Commentary & Notes

On the Distance from the Profile to the Nape (Cotozzo) of the Said Head, on the Proportions of the Eye and Ear, and on the Painter’s Perspective Net (Rete).

Historical & Mathematical Commentary

  • :person:`*Alberti’s * <alberti>`Velo, Leonardo’s Pariete, and Dürer’s Drahtgitter (La Rete)**: Pacioli’s detailed description on Folio 0067 (f. 26r) of the painter’s perspective net (rete)—a wooden frame strung with lute-strings, silk threads, or sinews fixed between the artist’s eye and the subject and matched to a squared drawing surface—links Leon Battista Alberti’s velo (De pictura, II.31, 1435), Piero della Francesca’s coordinate projections in :cite:`De Prospectiva Pingendi <piero:prospectiva>`, Leonardo da Vinci’s pariete di vetro / net, and Albrecht Dürer’s famous woodcuts of the draftsman’s net in the Underweysung der Messung (1525, composed after Dürer’s 1506–1507 visit to Venice and Bologna where he met Pacioli's circle!).

Constantin Winterberg’s Commentary (1889 Edition)

  • Winterberg Footnote 1 (Arch. Cap. II, p. 299): By quadro here Pacioli means a right-angled rectangle (Rechteck), partitioned by parallel lines. (Winterberg Fussnote 1 (Arch. Cap. II, S. 299): Rechteck.)

Philological and Folio Apparatus

  • 1509 Paganini Witness Folios: 0067, 0068 (f. 26r–f. 26v)

  • Winterberg 1889 Italian Source: winterberg/02_architectura_italian/002_cap_II.txt

  • Winterberg 1889 German Source: winterberg/04_architectura_german/002_cap_II.txt

  • Marginal Woodcut Diagrams: 0 figure(s) extracted from the 1509 Venice witness.