DÜRER, Albrecht: De Symmetria partium in rectis formis humanorum corporum

DÜRER, Albrecht: De Symmetria partium in rectis formis humanorum corporum libri in latinium conversi / De Varietate figurarum et flexuris partium ac gestibus imaginum libro duo [Latin editions of 1532 and 1534]. Published by Dürers widow, Nürnberg 1532, and by Hieronymus Formschneider, Nürnberg, 1534 Two works in one volume. 4:o (30,9x21 cm). #80 (including title, blank) and #56 (including title, blank) unnumbered leaves. Illustrated with more than 150 mostly full-page woodcut illustrations and diagrams. Last part of second book (i-k) misbound. 19th-century binding. Bohatta 20-21; Meder XXIX.2-3. LATIN EDITION, in two parts, of Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion first published 1528 in German. Dürer's treatise on human proportion was the earliest of the three theoretical works written in his later years. He began formulating mathematical rules for the proportions of the human form soon after his first trip to Venice in 1494-95. For his mathematical formulations he drew upon the works of antiquity as well as the Italian rediscoveries; as for his other theoretical works, his goal was to establish a scientific basis for aesthetics and to provide practical guidelines for draftsmanship. "The book is the synthesis of Dürer's solutions to his self-imposed formal problems; in it he sets forth his formal aesthetic. Dürer's aesthetic rules are based firmly in the laws of optics--indeed, he even designed special mechanical instruments to aid in the measurement of human form. He used the height of the human body as the basic unit of measurement." (DSB). Book IV is of the greatest interest as it presents for the first time many "new, difficult, and intricate considerations of descriptive spatial geometry. Dürer's chief accomplishment as outlined in the Four Books is that in rendering figures. he first solved the problem of establishing a canon, then considered the transformation of forms within that canon. In so doing he considered the spatial relations of form and the motions of form within space" (DSB IV, pp. 259-60). Camerarius' translation popularised the fame of the book throughout Europe. "Without Camerarius' translation, Dürer's writings would not have achieved exceptional dissamination in Europe. Without Camerarius translation, Michelangelo would never have seen Dürer's theory of proportion" (translation from Dürer Katalog, Nürnberg, 1971).

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