The Bodily Temple 
height of such a seat must correspond 
very nearly with the length of a man’s 
leg. In the Pitti palace the balustrade 
which crowns each story answers a similar 
purpose : it stands in no intimate relation to 
the gigantic arches below, but is of a height 
convenient for lounging elbows. The door 
to Giotto’s campanile reveals the true size of 
the tower as nothing else could, because it is 
so evidently related to the human figure, and 
not to the great windows higher up in the shaft. 
The geometrical plane figures which play 
the most important part in determining 
architectural proportion are the square, the 
circle, and the equilateral triangle ; and the 
human figure is intimately related to these ele¬ 
mentary forms. If a man stand with heels 
together and hands outstretched horizontally 
in opposite directions he will be inscribed 
within a square, and his arms will mark, with 
fair accuracy, the base of an inverted equilateral 
triangle the apex of which will touch the 
ground at his feet. If the arms be extended 
upward, and the legs separated, the extremities 
will touch the circumference 
of a circle having its center 
in the navel. 
The figure has been va¬ 
riously analyzed with a view 
to establishing numerical 
ratios between its parts. 
Some of these are so simple 
and easily remembered that 
they have obtained a certain 
popular currency, such as 
the length of the hand 
equaling that of the face, 
the span of the horizontally 
extended arms equaling the 
height of the figure, and the 
well-known rule that twice 
around the wrist is once around the neck, 
and twice around the neck is once around 
the waist. The Roman architect Vitruvius, 
writing in the age of Augustus Ctesar, formu¬ 
lated the important proportions of the statues 
of classical antiquity; and except that he 
makes the head smaller than normal (as it is 
and should be in heroic statuary), the ratios 
which he gives are those to which the ideally 
perfect male figure should conform. 
Doctor Rimmer divides the figure into four 
parts, three of which are equal, and corre¬ 
spond to the lengths of the leg, the thigh, 
and the trunk; while the fourth, which is 
two-thirds of one of these thirds, extends 
from the sternum to the crown of the head. 
One excellence of such a division, aside 
from its simplicity, consists in the fact that it 
is equally applicable to the face. The lowest 
of the three equal divisions extends from the 
tip of the chin to the base of the nose, the 
next coincides with the height of the nose, 
(its top being level with the eyebrows), the 
last with the height of the forehead ; while 
the remaining two-thirds of one of these 
thirds represents the horizontal projection 
from the beginning of the hair on the 
forehead to the crown of the head. 
The relation of all these facts to 
architecture is of the same nature as that of 
the facts pertaining to musical harmony, 
discussed in a previous essay. By means of 
this sort of analysis we approach nearer to 
an understanding of that great mystery : the 
beauty and significance of numbers, of which 
mystery music, architecture, and the human 
figure, in certain of their aspects, are equally 
presentments. 
Claude Bragdon. 
196 
