daniele capo

Writing my post on the so-called Villard diagram I said that I haven’t found any source to attribute it to Villard himself. I tried to find more information about it and Tschichold seems the source. In turns Tschichold follows Hans Kayser that attributes this diagram to Villard. I have not read the original text of Kayser, but the references I found in wikipedia and searching with google (here) say that Kayser based his theory on two drawings, found in the portfolio, of the proportions of a man. You can interpret the drawing as a way to divide a length in thirds, the ‘extrapolation’ of the concept, I think, is the product of Kayser.

The only thing you need to understand the Villard-Kayser-Tschichold diagram is a basic knowledge of euclidean geometry, then one of the question about the diagram is: how much does Villard (a medieval man) know about euclidean geometry? I know nothing about medieval geometry, but you can find an answer in an article written by Marie-Thérèse Zenner. However in the portfolio you find a drawing that shows a method for measuring a building, it shows clearly that Villard has, indeed, practical knowledge of the use of proportions and similarity. So the answer should be: yes.

Another question is about the drawings of the man found in Villard’s portfolio, is it simply a drawing of a man or is it a method for dividing a length?
In the article cited above the author says that the sketch of two flamingos is a memory aid for the construction of a right angle then, I think, it can be as well that our sketch was a memory aid for dividing a length in thirds. I have doubts, instead, about the usefulness of the “full” diagram (the Kayser-Tschichold one): is it practical to use this method to divide a segment in, say, 13 pieces?