The book has been viewed at the «Zentralbibliothek Zürich».
Department «Alte Drucke», 3rd floor. Zähringerplatz 6, 8001 Zürich.
General Information
The book’s measurements are 305 x 215 x 25 mm. According to traditional book sizes it can be classified as a Folio (2°). It consists of two works by Albrecht Dürer, while the first one is the examined «Underweysung der Messung […]». The book comes with 189 pages and 100 illustrations. Thereof 74 pages and 36 illustrations belong to «Underweysung der Messung […]». No pagination can be noticed in the book, whereas the illustrations are numbered continuously (and start over in the second work). There is neither a strict seperation in chapters, sections or related nor does an index or any kind of a list of contents exist.
Short Abstract
«Underweysung der Messung […]» is a scientific work by Albrecht Dürer. Published in 1525 it contributes studies to mathematical insights made by the author himself. Explanations in german language introduce or follow geometric analyses. Those analyses investigate (new) possibilities of construction. Parabolas, conic sections and hyperbolas for instance are described regarding the way they can be analysed and designed. The title, certainly, refers to this pretty straight, which describes the content as «[…] Messung mit dem zirckel und richtscheyt in Linien ebnen unnd gantzen corporen […]». Compass (zirckel) and a straight edge (richtscheyt) are the main tools to make contructive derivations in both the plane (ebnen) and space (gantzen corporen).
The work’s structure is methodical. After introducing basic forms in geometry (Messung), further drawings build upon those. As Dürer was a major painter during the Renaissance, this theoretical work was part of his investigations in the theory of proportion.
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