Professor Butter Beard and the “Vitruvian Man”
“The mind of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things, such as devils and similar things, which may bring your honor, because by indistinct things the mind is stimulated to new inventions.” – Leonardo da Vinci
By the end of the December holidays, my brain has melted to mush. Between finishing the semester, closing out the theater season, onboarding all the end-of-year physician hires, and revealing my inner-Santa close to four dozen times, my poor mind barely survived on reruns of “Beat Bobby Flay” and Hallmark Christmas movies (the equivalent of stale theater popcorn). With the dawn of New Year’s Day, I slowly wean my noggin back into humanity, starting with devouring new cookbooks like novels, returning to my PBS stories, and sharing well-deserved lazy Saturdays with Vincent, Rembrandt, Durer, and of course, my treasured mentor Leonardo.
Leonardo da Vinci famously wrote, “To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” Sigh. With just those words, I can feel my brain cells shaking their limbs, feeling a little frisky and joyfully regenerating, ready to dance towards the light of a new dawn.
A gift I gave myself this holiday was “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,” and I have been absorbing it page by page every morning with my first “Cup o’ Joe.” Even Nellie recognizes these essential fifteen minutes as sacred “dad time.”
I’ve reached Leonardo’s course of study of the human figure in a series of drawings which tabulate the proportions of the human body and establish mathematical ratios between its different parts. Now here is where we find the influence of Vitruvius, the great Roman architect and military engineer of the first century CE, whose writings constitute a unique record of classical theory and practice on subject of human “harmonious” proportions.
The most famous of Leonardo’s proportional studies is the so-called “Vitruvian Man,” or “Homo ad circulum,” which has since become a kind of logo for the artist and his aspiring mind. Drawn in pen and ink on a large sheet of paper (13 ½ by 9 ½ inches), the work is now in the Accademia in Venice. The da Vinci scholar Charles Nicholl writes, “It’s presence in Venice is probably connected to the printing of Fra Giocondo’s folio edition of the works of Vitruvius, published in Venice in 1511, which contains an engraving based on the drawing.”
Leonardo’s drawing shows a single man in two distinct positions – each corresponding to two sentences written by Leonardo above and below the image. The man who stand with his legs together and his arms out horizontally illustrates the sentence written directly below the drawing: “The width of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height.” This man is shown enclosed in a square, each of whose sides measures 96 fingers (or 24 palms).
The other figure, with his legs spread and his arms raised higher, expresses a more specialist Vitruvian rule: “If you open your legs and raise your outspread arms till the tips of your middle fingers are level with the top of your head, you will find that the center of your outspread limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle.” This man is shown enclosed in a circle of which his navel is the center.
Charles Nicholl poses the possibility that Leonardo’s version of the Vitruvian Man is actually a self-portrait. There are points against this theory including the drawing is dated 1490 and the man appears to be a tad older than thirty-eight. Also, the drawn face exemplifies mathematical proportions listed the accompanying text including, “the distance from the roots of the hair to the eyebrows is equal to the distance from the tip of the chin to the mouth.” But Leonardo adds his own personal flair by including penetrating, deeply shadowed eyes and a thick mane of luscious curly hair parted in the middle. That’s enough to convince me that the artist may have drawn a perfectly proportioned version of himself – the “ideal” Leonardo.
After a chilly Nels hike to the ocean and back, I still had images of the Vitruvian Man in my mind, but they had deliciously morphed into a baked circle of spiced brioche, stuffed with basil pesto (yup, from my summer garden), paper-thin slices of salami, and fontina and parmesan cheese – artistically twisted using mathematical proportions and centering around a “navel” topped with pink sea salt. As the smell of baking bread and cheese filled our kitchen, I thanked Leonardo with a smile and a knowing nod for “stimulating my mind towards a new invention.”
Twisted Brioche with Basil Pesto, Salami and Fontina
One 10” circular loaf
One recipe Prof BB’s Brioche (easy to find on this site)
½ cup homemade pesto (I prefer the classic variation of fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil)
Salami of your choice, sliced paper thin
1 cup coarsely grated cheese (I prefer 1/3 cup parmesan and 2/3 cup fontina)
1 large egg whisked with 1 Tbsp water to use as an egg wash
Olive oil to brush over the baked loaf
1) Make your favorite brioche dough. My recipe can be found on this site, or another recipe I recommend is Paul Hollywood’s version in his book “Bake.”
2) I do recommend seasoning the dough with lemon zest, salt and black pepper, and a pinch or two of chili flakes. If you use a recipe that uses about 4 cups of flour, you will have enough dough to make this decorative bread and also one bread loaf for delicious toast and sandwiches.
3) Follow your chosen recipe and let the dough fully rise for 60-90 minutes. Divide the dough in half – use one half for a sandwich loaf and then divide the remaining dough in half again.
4) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
5) Draw a circle the size of your chosen round baking dish or cake pan onto a piece of parchment paper and then turn the paper over with the ink on the underside. Roll the first half of the dough on the parchment paper to ½” beyond the drawn circle. Spread the pesto onto the dough leaving a clean ¾” border. Layer the salami over the pesto in a single layer.
6) Roll the second half of the dough to a circle the same size as the first. Sprinkle the grated cheese on the first circle, maintaining the ¾” clean border. Paint the egg wash on the clean border of the first circle. Place the second circle on the first and lightly squeeze the edges to seal.
7) Mark a 1 ½” circle in the center. Then, with scissors, slice the circle into 16 wedges, not cutting into the central circle. Lift the dough on the parchment into the baking pan. Then take two wedges at a time, twist twice, pinch them together and fit them back into the pan (see photograph). Let rise again for 20 minutes while you oven pre-heats.
8) Bake the loaf for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Let the loaf cool in the baking pan for 20-30 minutes and then brush the top with olive oil to glaze. (If you are baking a second sandwich loaf, bake them at the same time for roughly the same amount of time.)
9) Serve warm with your favorite tomato sauce on the side for dipping.
