Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel: The Cube, the Square and the Root-2 Rectangle

Renaissance architects paid particular attention to systems of proportion, believing that in these lay the key to architectural excellence. Unfortunately, much of what was once known about these systems has been lost or forgotten in the ensuing centuries. A study of the Medici Chapel in Florence designed by Michelangelo reveals a geometric system based upon the irrational square root of two, which may have been used to generate rational proportions and architectural dimensions. The system sheds light on a chapter about geometry in the most important architectural treatises of the Renaissance, The Ten Books of Architecture by Leone Battista Alberti.