ABSTRACT
Mathematics played a key role in Renaissance aesthetics, in concepts such as analogia , lineamenti , concinnitas , commensuratio , polygonal and polyhedral geometries, Pythagorean harmonies, the tetractys, and the Platonic Lambda, as developed in the writings of Leon Battista Alberti ( De pictura , De re aedifi catoria ), Nicolas Cusanus ( De docta ignorantia , De coniecturis , De circuli quadratura ), Marsilio Ficino ( De amore , Opera Omnia ), Piero della Francesca ( Trattato d’abaco , De prospectiva pingendi ), and Luca Pacioli ( De divina proportione ). For these writers, mathematics was seen as the most fundamental concept that could link nature, the human mind, and the divine mind in the humanist project, which resulted in a particular kind of aesthetics and artistic creation. The mathematical principles were taken from ancient writers such as Plato and Vitruvius, so their validity was not questioned; nor was their role in defi ning relations between human and divine, and humanity and nature. This chapter hopes to show that mathematics played a role in the humanist world view and Renaissance aesthetics.
