ABSTRACT

The historical study of graphic notations and representations related to the mechanical sciences during the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries shows the development of new technologies of vision that evolved out of merging physiological knowledge and Galilean mechanics. The visual language associated with a newly interpreted Vitruvian firmitas is nurtured by Renaissance humanistic culture with a new impulse offered by anatomical studies. A study of the evolution of the provisional frames used in the narrative development of the firmitas in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries is essential in understanding the translations taking place from anthropomorphic architecture to mechanical engineering.