CHAPTER I

A decorative historiated initial 'P' features a landscape scene with a tree on the left and a building or figure in the background. The Philosopher The Philosopher: A standard Renaissance reference to Aristotle. In his work Categories, Aristotle defines "Quality" and identifies its fourth type as the shape and outward form of an object. makes the fourth species of Quality to be "figure," and the specific form belonging to each thing—namely, the external form appearing on the surface. To this he adds both curvature and straightness, and whatever else (he says) is of this kind. The learned The learned: referring to Scholastic philosophers and geometricians. define figure as a certain quality or differentiation of a surface according to the angles which it either possesses or lacks. Moreover, the specific categories of figure seem to be the round and the angular. Of the angular, indeed, there are the triangle, the square, the pentagon, the hexagon, and so on. These, in turn, are observed either only on the surface or within solid bodies. It seems, moreover, that the name of figure is sim... The text breaks off mid-sentence; the Latin "sim" likely intended to begin "similis" (similar) or "simul" (at the same time).