EURO ST 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 48: Filippo Brunelleschi, Panoramic Painting, Anamorphosis
Professor Smith
Europe Studies 10
Course Code: 24000
4 units
2018 Fall Quarter
Lecture
● An Alternative to Representing the Divine in Perspective
○ Nicholas of Cusa
○ German philosopher, theologian, mathematician, and astronomer
○ Writing at the same time as Brunelleschi and Alberti, but he’s in Germany, not
Italy
○ “On Learned Ignorance” (1453)
■ Explores the nature of the divine and what we can grasp of the divine
nature
● Understanding the divine in with math
○ Two of the chapters have the titles:
■ 11. Mathematics assists us very greatly in apprehending various drives
[truths]
■ 12. The way in which mathematical signs ought to be used in our
undertaking
○ God is infinite
○ As the maximum or greatest being, god contains everything
○ In god there is the “coincidence of opposites”, that is, in god opposites come
together
● We can’t fully grasp god, but we can get a sense by reflecting on the infinite
○ The diameter of a circle is a straight line, and the circumference is a curved line
which is greater than the diameter
○ So, if the curved line becomes less curved in proportion to the increased
circumference the circle, then the circumference of the maximum circle, which
cannot be greater, is minimally curved and therefore maximally straight
○ Hence, the minimum coincides with the maximum - to such an extent that we can
visually recognized that is necessary for the maximum line to be maximally
straight and minimally curved
○ Not even a scruple of doubt about this can remain when we see in the figure here
at the side that arc CD of the larger circle is less curved than arc EF of the smaller
circle, and that arc EF is less curved than arc GH of the still smaller circle
○ Hence, the straight line AB will be the arc of the maximum circle, which cannot
be greater
○ And thus we see that a maximum, infinite line is, necessarily, the straightest, and
to it no curvature is opposed
● Cusa one of the first thinkers of modernity
○ In a sense, nicholas of Cusa is still a medieval thinker: he says “there is no
proportion/comparison” between god as infinite and human beings is finite
○ But on the other hand, it is telling that he turns to mathematics
■ The idea that at infinity a circle in a sense becomes a straight line
○ We can’t quite wrap our heads around that, but we also sort of can
