Piero della Francesca - Treatise on Geometry

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he National Critical Edition of the writings of Piero della Francesca starts with the Treatise on Geometry Libellus de quinque corporibus regolaribus , the first in the world dedicated entirely to this fundamental text by the great artist from Borgo San Sepolcro.

The Libellus written by Piero della Francesca after the Trattato d’Abaco and De Prospectiva pingendi (both forthcoming publications), was the first treatise on geometry of the Renaissance in which problems relating to the construction and calculation of polyhedrons, which had never before been drawn in stereometric form, were developed.

The treatise, which as survived as a single manuscript, the Vaticano Urbinate Latino 632 codex, compiled by an unknown author but accompanied by drawings, corrections and additions made by Piero himself, was dedicated to Guidubaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. This work was known from the beginning of the sixteenth century, not as belonging to Piero, and not even in Latin but as part of the Divina Proportione by Fra Luca Pacioli, who published it in Italian as his own work. The plagiarism was denounced by Giorgio Vasari and has been the object of heated dispute ever since.

This new and extraordinary publication was produced with the aid of sophisticated scientific and philological instruments and edited by a prestigious scientific commission composed of Cecil Grayson, Marisa Dalai Emiliani and Carlo Maccagni. It goes beyond a mere reconstruction of Piero della Francesca’s original text examining particularly the comparison between Piero della Francesca’s text and that of some sections of the Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli (from the codex preserved in the National Library in Florence).

A half leather box (size 260 x 360 mm) contains a 176 page facsimile of the Vaticano Urbinate Latino 632 codex, a volume of XLIV - 216 pages with a critical edition of the Latin text accompanied by the Italian version by Luca Pacioli, and a volume XXII - 224 pages with a critical edition of the drawings.

The Facsimile is limited to 998 numbered copies world-wide.

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