Mapping the Persistence and Evolution of the Quincunx

Abstract

AbstractThe quincunx is a pattern that passes through different ages and cultures of Western world. It spread in the Byzantine era; it flourishes during the Renaissance, either in combination or as an alternative to the Vitruvian proportioning criteria; it suffers from a process of mathematization in the eighteenth century; it arrives at the twentieth century in the form of the so-called “nine-square grid problem” and is further re-evaluated in its historical prospective at the end of the century, in the Post-modern context. This article provides a mapping of its diffusion and inquires its development and evolution through the centuries.