What is the title of Leonardo's drawing of a man inside a circle and square?

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The drawing of a man inside a circle and square is Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Leonardo made it around 1490 while he was working in Milan. The image shows a nude male figure in two superimposed poses, combining artistic observation with a study of ideal human proportions.

The drawing was inspired by the Roman architect Vitruvius, whose treatise De architectura described how a properly proportioned human body could fit within both a circle and a square. Leonardo did not simply copy the ancient description. He adjusted the geometry using his own measurements and observations, placing the navel at the circle’s centre and the genitals at the square’s centre.

The work is sometimes given the longer title The Proportions of the Human Figure after Vitruvius, based on Leonardo’s notes. It is drawn in pen and brown ink with touches of watercolour on paper and is now held by the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. Because the paper is fragile, the original is rarely displayed. The Birth of Venus, David and The Thinker are famous works, but none depicts this geometric human-proportion study.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026

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