Portrait of Luca Pacioli

The Portrait of Luca Pacioli by Jacopo de' Barbari, painted in 1497 and now in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, depicts the renowned mathematician demonstrating a theorem from Euclid's Elements. Pacioli, a Franciscan friar, published the Summa de Arithmetica in 1494 and later collaborated with Leonardo da Vinci on the illustrated Divina Proportione. The glass rhombicuboctahedron and the young man beside him (possibly Guidobaldo da Montefeltro) reflect the intersection of art and mathematics.

Jacopo de' Barbari renders the mathematical instruments, geometric solid, and the open book with extraordinary precision, demonstrating the Northern Italian fascination with scientific accuracy and the perspectival representation of three-dimensional objects.