Exempla Imperfecta: the “Curious” Image of the Platonic Solid

Artists, philosophers and mathematicians coming from different historical eras reflected on the proportions and symmetry of the solid forms, adopting the five regular polyhedra as elements of the highest expression of earthly and celestial order and perfection. The knowledge of these eternal arche-types of perfection, followed by semi-regular polyhedra and their combina-tions, became essential in treatises, especially during the Renaissance. They appeared on the frontispieces of texts to justify the scientific reliability of the texts themselves and, more importantly, they were favoured models on which to demonstrate the perspective technique to obtain a clear and intelli-gible two-dimensional image of their spatiality. Nevertheless, not only a graphic evolution but also the demolition of their eternal balance is clear while browsing the many illustrations of regular polyhedra and their derived shapes. In line with the historical-artistic events of the post-Renaissance era, the regular polyhedra, gaining obsolete and “dangerous” positions, are over-whelmed by an imagination which explores aesthetic opportunities and of-fers the observer attractive and endearing images.
In response to this evolution, the French Minim friar J. F. Nicéron (1613-1646) offers his “version” and spatial articulation of the regular solids on the edge between the rigor of the Italian perspective tradition and the new North-ern European trends. The author consciously tried to break the archetypal au-ra of immutable shapes to reveal, to the trained eye, not only a playful ele-ment, but also a faithful adhesion to the poetics of the Cartesian doubt, on the edge between scientific rigour and taste for wonderfulness