Who is Vitruvian Man?

Many people are familiar with da Vinci’s drawing, but do you know who Vitruvian Man is and why he is so significant?

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman architect who lived in the first century BC. He wrote De architectura libri decem (ten books on architecture) which covered topics of design, architecture, engineering and construction. These books were used and followed for centuries and were very popular during the Renaissance.

In a section on the planning of temples, Vitruvius explains that nature has created man with a certain symmetry and order of size of the parts relating to the size of the whole. He further explains, when building temples, the aim should be for a similar rational relationship.

Vitruvius describes in exhaustive detail the relationship of body parts (height of the head, length of the limbs, etc.) to the whole and relates them to a square, circle and triangle. Many people over the course of time have drawn Vitruvian Man based on this detailed description, but none have been as famous as the rendering by Leonardo da Vinci.