Editing Vitruvius (section)

===Proportions of man===
[[File:De Architectura030.jpg|thumb|left|"Vitruvian Man", illustration in the edition of {{lang|la|De architectura}} by Vitruvius; illustrated edition by Cesare Cesariano (1521)]]
[[File:Da Vinci Vitruve Luc Viatour.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Vitruvian Man]]'' by [[Leonardo da Vinci]], an illustration of the human body inscribed in the circle and the square derived from a passage about geometry and human proportions in Vitruvius' writings]]

In Book III, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3, Vitruvius writes about the proportions of man:
{{quote|3. Just so the parts of Temples should correspond with each other, and with the whole. The navel is naturally placed in the centre of the human body, and, if in a man lying with his face upward, and his hands and feet extended, from his navel as the centre, a circle be described, it will touch his fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/3*.html|title=LacusCurtius • Vitruvius on Architecture — Book III|website=penelope.uchicago.edu|access-date=20 June 2017}}</ref>}}

It was upon these writings that Renaissance engineers, architects and artists like [[Taccola|Mariano di Jacopo Taccola]], Pellegrino Prisciani and [[Francesco di Giorgio Martini]] and finally [[Leonardo da Vinci]] based the illustration of the ''[[Vitruvian Man]]''.<ref>{{citation|surname1=[[Marc van den Broek]]|title=Leonardo da Vinci Spirits of Invention. A Search for Traces |publisher=A.TE.M. |location=Hamburg|isbn=978-3-00-063700-1|date=2019|language=en}}</ref>

Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion.

The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential [[symmetry]] of the human body, and by extension, of the [[universe]] as a whole.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thewholeuniversebook.com/2/page2.html |title=Bibliographic reference |publisher=The Whole Universe Book |access-date=2011-11-30}}</ref>