The Vitruvian Man

The Vitruvian Man is a famous drawing with accompanying notes by Leonardo da Vinci made around the year 1492 in one of his journals. It depicts a naked male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. It is on display in the Gallerie dell' Accademia in Venice, Italy.
This image provides the perfect example of Leonardo's keen interest in proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature. It shows that He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe. It is also believed by some that Leonardo symbolised the material existence by the square and spiritual existence by the circle. Thus he attempted to depict the correlation between these two aspects of human existence.
The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body, and by extension, to the universe as a whole.