CHAPTER LXX — Critical Commentary & Notes

How to Locate in Order All the Bodies Drawn in Perspective in This Book, as Well as Their Physical Models According to Their Public Table.

Historical & Mathematical Commentary

• Pacioli’s Physical Polyhedra Models (*Forme Materiali*): Cap. LXX gives us a precious physical description of the sets of 60 three-dimensional models that Pacioli constructed with his own hands (as he also notes in Architectura Cap. VI, Folio 0072: one set of 60 for Duke Ludovico Sforza, one set for Galeazzo Sanseverino, and a third set in Florence for Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini):

  • Each polyhedron was suspended from a cord (cordiglio);

  • Attached to the cord between two black amber (jet) beads (fra doi ambre negre) was a small parchment label (vn breve) bearing the Roman numeral (I–LX) and the body’s name in Greek and Latin (identical to the cartouches printed on Leonardo's woodcut plates!).

Philological and Folio Apparatus

• 1509 Paganini Witness Folios: 0059 (f. 22r–f. 22r)

• Winterberg 1889 Italian Source: winterberg/01_divina_proportione_italian/070_cap_LXX.txt

• Winterberg 1889 German Source: winterberg/03_divina_proportione_german/070_cap_LXX.txt

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