Above: Luca Pacioli (1445 - 1514, sometimes "Paciolo") is the central figure in this painting (by Jacopo de Barbari*, 1495).  Perhaps no other work so epitomizes the deep Renaissance connection between art and mathematics.  Pacioli (a Franciscan friar, shown in his robes) stands at a table filled with geometrical tools (slate, chalk, compass, dodecahedron model, etc.), illustrating a theorem from Euclid, while examining a beautiful glass rhombicuboctahedron half-filled with water. (source) Maat Giorgio De Santillana Leopardi Musil Valery Poe Mallarmé Ponge Hoffmanstahl Wittgenstein Leonardo da Vinci Kublai's Atlas Hyperpolyhedra Leibniz Crystal Flame We were tourists — we were taking pictures (by Dana Turken)