Hermione Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> robin cook Wrote:

> > > > [Origen] came up with a pyramid shape for
> his
> > > > ark by battening together statements in the
> > Old
> > > > Testament in a rather awkward way.
> > >
> > > I don't think "awkward battening" is an
> > accurate
> > > description.
> >
> > - Well I tend to agree with Colavito, the
> musings
> > of religious scholars on the subject are just
> > silly. Their psychological and moral insights
> may
> > be valuable but their 'scientific' statements
> > don't correspond to reality.
>
> If we can go back and look again at what Colavito
> said:
>
>

Quote

Origen in Genesis Homily 2, Philo in
> Questions and Answers on Genesis 2.5, and Clement
> in Stromata 6.11 all claimed that the Ark was
> pyramidal in shape. They derived this from the
> account in Genesis, which claims that the Ark was
> three hundred by fifty cubits at the base but rose
> to a window embedded in a peak just one cubit
> square. They concluded, therefore, that the ship
> must be pyramidal to fit those measurements.
> (60)

>
> These early writers were making statements based
> on differing interpretations of differing
> translations. They weren't making "scientific"
> statements.

- They certainly weren't.

> > This painting by Uccello is lauded because of
> the evidence of perspective in the two objects on
> > either side.
> So, the lunette "The Flood and the Waters
> Receding" (Diluvio e recessione delle acque). with
> with two symmetrical views of Noah's Ark. (The reproduction you originally showed was the lower view, "The Sacrifice and Drunkenness of Noah").

- I don't know what the two chest-like objects on either side of the upper panel are, neither boats nor pyramids. The symmetry of the objects is clearly a compositional device. Perhaps one should view the panel as a kind of cartoon narrative. At any rate a realistic pyramid is shown at the top of the upper panel (you need to enlarge the picture). And another such in the lower panel.

> I haven't been able to find any detailed
> present-day commentary on these works by Uccello,
> although I found this, by Vasari:

> Below this story, likewise, he painted the
> drunkenness of Noah, with the contemptuous action
> of his son Ham—in whom he portrayed Dello, the
> Florentine painter and sculptor, his friend—with
> Shem and Japhet, his other sons, who are covering
> him up as he lies showing his nakedness. Here,
> likewise, he made in perspective a cask that
> curves on every side, which was held something
> very beautiful, and also a pergola covered with
> grapes, the wood-work of which, composed of
> squared planks, goes on diminishing to a point;
> but here he was in error, since the diminishing of
> the plane below, on which the figures are
> standing, follows the lines of the pergola, and
> the cask does not follow these same receding
> lines; wherefore I marvel greatly that a man so
> accurate and diligent could make an error so
> notable. He made there also the Sacrifice, with
> the Ark open and drawn in perspective, with the
> rows of perches in the upper part, distributed row
> by row; these were the resting-places of the
> birds, many kinds of which are seen issuing and
> flying forth in fore[Pg 137]shortening, while in
> the sky there is seen God the Father, who is
> appearing over the sacrifice that Noah and his
> sons are making; and this figure, of all those
> that Paolo made in this work, is the most
> difficult, for it is flying, with the head
> foreshortened, towards the wall, and has such
> force and relief that it seems to be piercing and
> breaking through it (136-7)
> [web.archive.org].
> [/quote]

- Vasari appears to describe elements from both panels.

> Origen's ideas about a pyramidal shape for the Ark
> seem to have been widely accepted at the time -
> [it.wikipedia.org].

- Apparently Uccello and Ghiberti's illustrations of this idea are all we have - I've found no other on the web.

European pictures of Egyptian pyramids before and after Ghiberti are invariably rather steep so why did he depart from this common depiction? Although chiefly working from Christian sources it is possible that he had knowledge of Herodotus' account but we'll never know why he came up with such a realistic pyramid. Questions remain - why did he not follow Uccello in representing the 'decking' and other features on the exterior of the pyramid, but instead divided the pyramid faces into formal numbered zones. And why are Ghiberti's 'horizontal' lines sloping if they are supposed to represent the prescribed horizontal partitions of the ark? The axis of the whole pyramid is tilted to the right - why did he portray the pyramid using tilted perspective? Artistic license doesn't do it for me.