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VITRUVIUS IN DYSTOPIA OR WHEN MOST HUMANS DON'T MEASURE UP
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2024
Extract
In the second decade of the fifteenth century, the book-hunter Poggio Bracciolini and two friends recognized Vitruvius’ De architectura among the moldy manuscripts at the monastic library at St. Gall in Switzerland. Although their find was not the first copy of De architectura to be identified, the reception of Vitruvius among Italian humanists tends to be afforded special attention in academic, public, and popular culture alike. Commonly shuffling at the center of that attention is L'Uomo Vitruviano of Leonardo da Vinci, usually dated to the 1490s. In Italian, and in his famous mirror writing, Leonardo mentions Vitruvius by name in the first word of his notes above his rendering of the homo bene figuratus and engages with the content of De architectura 3.1.2f. above and below it.
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References
1. Gordan (1991), 187–91; Weiskittel and Reynolds (1983).
2. The original drawing is Leonardo da Vinci's ‘Study of Human Proportions in the Manner of Vitruvius’, in Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, catalogue no. 228. See fig. 5.3.
3. Sgarbi (1993), 40–7.
4. Lester (2012), 219f.
5. Gries (2015), 294.
6. Hariman and Lucaites (2007).
7. The Vitruvian Idiocracy poster and the Vitruvian Westworld poster from its first season are easy to find through online searches. Gender-wise, as Craig A. Williams (2016), 239, points out of the homo bene figuratus in De architectura, ‘we find the Latin noun denotating a non-gendered human no less than four times in the opening sentences of Book 3 (3.1.1: hominis bene figurati, 3.1.2: corpus hominis, 3.1.3: homo, 3.1.4: corpus hominis). And this homo has no broad shoulders or upper-body musculature, and certainly no genitals. Instead, we read of a head with its forehead, face, hair, nose, chin; of hands, fingers, palms, and elbows; of a chest (pectus); of feet; and of a navel at the center.’
8. Science fiction films have been treated from a classical reception perspective; see, e.g., Rogers and Stevens (2015).
9. The power of white male mediocrity is beginning to garner high-profile critical attention; see, e.g., Oluo (2020).
10. Patel (2006).
11. Emerson (2006).
12. Patel (2006); see also Portman (2007); Jones (2021).
13. Garcia (2006).
14. Cozzalio (2006); emphasis in the original. That poster comprised the entirety of the promotional materials, and apparently its print run was so small that the film's own production designer, Darren Gilford, did not track one down until several years later (Jones [2021]).
15. Garrett (2022).
16. See Bond (2019).
17. Though, as Nichols (2017), ch. 4, has demonstrated, Vitruvius engages amply with concepts from rhetorical culture, the ‘figura’ of homo bene figuratus does not seem to have any connection to rhetorical figures, which were not called figurae until Quintilian (e.g., 8.1.1, 8.3.59, 9.1.3, 9.2.7). See also Williams (2016), 236f.
18. Box Office Mojo (2007), rental total as of February 18; accessed August 22, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20070310044753/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=homevideo&id=idiocracy.htm.
19. Raymond (2016).
20. Bailey (2015).
21. Stanley (2016). The Telegraph re-ran this piece on the day after the 2016 election.
22. @etanjc (2016) on (then) Twitter, February 24, 12:27pm, accessed July 2, 2018. https://twitter.com/etanjc/status/702545314733895680?lang=en.
23. Stein (2016).
24. Quinnipiac University Poll (2017), ‘American Voters Have Few Kind Words for Trump, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Expel Moore If He Wins, Voters Say Almost 2-1’, December 12; accessed August 2, 2018. https://poll.qu.edu/Poll-Release-Legacy?releaseid=2507.
25. Anthamatten (2017).
26. ‘Film Series: This Week in Dystopia’ (2018), February 8–11; accessed July 2, 2018. https://ash.harvard.edu/event/film-series-week-dystopia.
27. One review in 2016 that does express concern with those logics is Johnson (2016). For a discussion of why classical reception needs disability studies, see Silverblank and Ward (2020).
28. Miller (2016).
29. Vint (2007), 7f.
30. See the rest of this section for greater detail about the significance of some of these names and places. Episodes entitled ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’, ‘Dissonance Theory’, ‘The Bicameral Mind’, and ‘Virtù e Fortuna’ (to name just a few) encourage a deeper engagement with the philosophies, struggles, and goals of its characters.
31. Landsberg (2018), 200.
32. MacKillop (2004) s.v. ‘Medb’.
33. This analysis was written for the September 2018 seminar from which the articles in this special issue originate; that is, it was written before COVID and before the runs of Westworld season three and four, which opens the show from its containment within the theme park and thrusts Ford's AI into a complicated and, sometimes, convoluted global battle amongst humans and AI. The focus of the circulations of The Vitruvian Man on or near the 2016 election year well organizes our screen-texts, so our analysis hews closely to the narrative events of the first two seasons. Some effort has been made to mention pertinent details from seasons three and four where necessary. The world of season three is different enough that it often appears more loosely inspired by than serial to prior seasons. There are continuities worth noting, however: third season Dolores-as-Charlotte still turns out, in the end, to enact Ford's goals of human reformation and host revolution; Maeve is still a warrior and fixated on saving her daughter; Bernard is still a moral and loyal host who begins to repair his divisions; and Dolores’ sacrifice hands a new white man named Caleb, who is mal-adjusted to and ill-served by an algorithmically determined world, the mantle of saving what remains of the world. And, indeed, season four revisits many of the themes from the first two seasons, resulting in human and host annihilation, and rebirth, again, now wholly through the omnipotent figure of Dolores-as-Christina.