This article analyses the nature and content of the so-called Vitruvian man by Leonardo, a study dealing with the proportions of the human body. The essay opens with an analysis of topics such as the image as the first element to be set out onto the page and its influence on the graphic arrangement of the text; the ambiguity between a private study and a study to be published; the dimension of the single page. It then proceeds towards an analysis of Leonardo’s drawing as an attempt to visualize in a perfect way a text by Vitruvius and the conception of the visual language as a philological instrument.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Laurenza, D., (2025), "The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo: Image and Text", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Quaderni d'italianistica

Original publication: Laurenza, Domenico. "The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo: Image and Text." Quaderni d'italianistica 27 (2): 2009. 36-56. DOI: 10.33137/q.i..v27i2.8577. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Quaderni d'italianistica. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Quaderni d'italianistica under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.