Four Books on Human Proportion

Now I will show how you can measure the figure you have planned. For example, let us say the first male figure to be painted is of a well-built and rustic man, whose head is one-seventh of his total height. Draw a straight horizontal line, and upon it place three perpendicular lines of the same height as the figure you have proposed to make. Of these three lines, the first will be for the profile view original: obliquæ imagini, literally "oblique image," referring to a side or three-quarter view, the second for the front view, and the third for the back view. With these parallel lines arranged in the manner I have described, apply the measurement of the height of the limbs—that is, the notable parts—from the top of the head all the way to the lowest part of the sole. In this way, you will observe in our examples that we have tracked the height of the limbs through equally or directly drawn horizontal lines across the perpendiculars. We have marked these with their own distinct numbers, adding a number to the measurement of each part so that the certainty of this entire system might be immediately clear to the viewer.

You will find these principal horizontal lines are often called by several names, though sometimes more or fewer. In the first and highest place is the top of the head original: verticem; next below this line is the place for the forehead; below this, the eyebrows; in the lower, the nose; in the one also lower, the chin. And in this way, one descends to the top of the shoulders, the hollow of the throat original: iugula, the chest, the armpits, the shoulder blades, the breasts, below the breasts, the waist original: lumbos, the loins or where one is girded, the navel, the curve of the hips, the hip joints original: corendices, the belly, the pubis, the end of the male organ original: extremam glandem, the bottom of the buttocks, the furrows of the thighs, above the knee, above the back of the knees, the middle of the knee, below the back of the knees, the bottom of the outer calf, the bottom of the inner calf, the instep original: montem pedis, literally "the mountain of the foot", the bottom of the outer ankle, and the sole.

We shall add these names in their proper place in the examples on the perpendicular lines by which the length of the limbs is indicated, so that the clarity of this system, which I have followed in the entire work, may be established.

From the top of the skull, which is called the bregma The bregma is the anatomical point on the skull where the coronal and sagittal sutures meet., all the way to the top of the middle of the collarbone original: iuguli, let there be one-tenth and one-eleventh part. To the top of the shoulders, two parts. To the bottom of the chin, one part of seven Dürer's "7" means 1/7th of the total body height.. The very center of the top of the head is between the skull-top and the forehead. From the chin to the roots of the hair, one-tenth.

If you divide this The face into three equal spaces, the first will designate the forehead, the second the eyes and nose, and the third the mouth and chin. desingnabit: original spelling for designabit From the collarbone to the top of the chest, one-thirtieth. Under the armpits, one-thirteenth. To the breasts, one-tenth. Below the breasts, one-eighth. For the waist, two-elevenths. From the waist to the navel, one-fortieth. For the curve of the hips, one-thirtieth. For the bottom of the hip joints, one-tenth. For the private parts, one-eighth. For the end of the male organ, one-sixth. For the bottom of the buttocks, one-tenth and one-eleventh. From the bottom of the buttocks to where the thighs are, as it were, furrowed—that is, to the middle of the thigh—one-eighteenth. From the sole to the bottom of the ankle, one-twenty-eighth. From the sole to the instep, one-twentieth.

And having thus measured the length of the body all the way to the bottom of the thigh, it remains for the knee also to be placed in its own spot. When that is done, three unequal measurements of the total stature of the body will exist. Namely, from the top of the middle collarbone to the bottom of the thigh is the first and longest; from the bottom of the thigh to the middle of the knee is the second and indeed less long; from the middle of the knee to the bottom of the shin is the third and shortest. For the upper members—as is very easy to observe in a man—are usually longer and stronger. The Body original: Corpus, a name you often hear, you should understand as a fit length composed of parts and capable of motion. Now I return to those three measurements: know that they ought to agree with one another in a certain proportion, so that the proportion by which the length of the body matches the length of the hip—calculated from the top of the thigh to the middle of the knee—is the same proportion by which this is compared to the shin.