TheDivina Proporzione
"DIVINE PROPORTION"
The Divine Proportion is based on the golden number, which
according to someone contains the key of knowledge. The number
is 1,618 and it corresponds to what is considered a “particularly
aesthetic ratio”. In fact it defines the “ideal
relation”, an arithmetic measure which is enjoyable for
the eye, called also “golden mean proportion” or
“golden section”.
Without getting into great depth we can say that this number,
also called phi, is as well used to trace different circles
divided
through ten – called decagons – or through five
– i.e. pentagons, called pentagrams or pentacles too.
The empiric discovering of the golden ration “comes from
the most remote ancient times, from the prehistoric era”.
We presume that our ancestors learned very soon how to trace
and divide circles; they of course privileged the division of
circles through five, because of the five fingers of the human
hand.
These are in fact “obvious” numbers indeed they
lead to the natural calculation of some special proportions.
However, only the Greeks, first of all Euclid, originally theorised
these calculations. Before him Pythagoras - or at least his
disciples - tried to disclose their mystery.
Inside their sect, that was protected by the most absolute
secret, the golden number was associated to the sacred, particularly
to the five-pointed star - a symbol of life, beauty and love.
The pentacle is commonly thought to be the symbol through which
the Pythagoreans recognised each other, but it came into our
tradition throughout the centuries as a talisman of good health:
we find it on some ancient coins and on several gothic cathedrals
and churches.
Also Plato recognised that the golden number had a privileged
role in the explanation of the universe. During the XII century,
Fibonacci, also Called Leonardo da Pisa, mathematician, merchant
and great traveller got in touch with this scientific discipline
in the Middle East, developing the famous “Fibonacci sequences”.
For the architects and painters of the Middle Ages the pentagon
became the symbol of the “Quintessence”, literally
said “the fifth element”, i.e. absolute perfection,
ideal beauty. The pentacles and circles traced with the compass
were kept absolutely secret among the corporations.
In 1509 Leonardo Da Vinci illustrates De divina proportione,
the work of a Franciscan mathematician, Luca Pacioli. This book
with pictures by Da Vinci had a great success, as it was the
written version of an ancient oral tradition. It was revealing
a mystery.
Today we know that the divine proportion is present in architecture
(Le Corbusier frequently used it), in painting, in music, in
the structure of some poems, but also in nature, in many plants
and animals (many flowers have five petals, some leaves are
placed on stems according to the phi ratio, which is present
also in the starfish and the sea urchin). The divine proportion
seems also to rule the human body: the navel, for example, divides
the body according to the golden number.
