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Lot Essay
Underweysung der Messung, Dürer's treatise on mensuration (the branch of geometry that deals with the measurement of length, area, or volume), is the first of Dürer's three theoretical works on art to be published. Conceived as a practical guide to the rules of geometry and principles of perspective for artists, architects, sculptors, stonemasons and other craftsmen, the work introduced to northern Europe a system of projection that had been refined by the artists of the Italian Renaissance. In it Dürer formulated a comprehensive and mathematically sound basis for the realistic depiction of natural objects in space. 'The connexion of the beautiful with the natural, of the work of art with what is correct (i.e. mathematical) was a typical concept of the Renaissance. In the illustration of these principles lies the great historical importance of Dürer's theoretical writings... they were the foundation of accepted aesthetic dogma until the nineteenth century' (Carter, Muir, p. 31-32). 'Except for the Geometria Deutsch (ca. 1486-1487), a book of arithmetical rules for builders which Dürer knew and used, the Underweysung der Messung is the first mathematics book in German. With its publication Dürer could claim a place in the front ranks of Renaissance mathematicians' (Gillispie, p. 258-61).