İnsan Bedeninin Simetrisi

The author investigated, in the shaping of suitable and well-proportioned bodies, exactly how far certain parts should be from others. This elegant and beautiful arrangement of limbs is what constitutes beauty; therefore, in translating the title, we noted that Symmetry is taught in these books. This was first given to painting, as Pliny says, by Parrhasius, but was practiced most by Euphranor, who also composed volumes on the subject. Although the Latin language lacks a specific certain name for this, we may translate it as "commensuration" or "proportion." And so, through art which follows nature, a method is sought by which everything is made in the expression of forms just as it would have been in reality. In the measurement of bodies, there are two paths: one of height and the other of width. As you know, we have understood width in two ways. For even in profile drawings, as marked on a flat surface, I thought it would be sufficiently understood that this refers to "thickness," so that respect is given to the solidity of the body. To the same point belongs what they call "depth," as when one recedes from the right-hand parts, such as in a head turned sideways—for example, from the eyes to the ears. The measurement of height is indeed that of length.