Symmetry and Symmetry: The Notion of the Antique Term Symmetria before its New Definition in the Renaissance

Abstract

The word ‘symmetry’ expresses in everyday language the correspondence in form, size, and arrangement of parts on opposite sides of a plane, line, or point. Such a concept of correspondence is the main idea of most definitions of this term in the various humanities disciplines discussed in this volume of European Review. But if we go back to the Greek origins of this term, we discover that the understanding of symmetry was completely different, that it signified mathematical commensurability of all important elements of a three-dimensional figure. This article discusses the termʼs initial meaning and its importance for the design and appreciation of beautiful architectonic and human bodies. It goes on to provide an outline of the main phases of the step-by-step development from the original concept towards its modern meaning established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.