Portrait of Luca Pacioli

The portrait of Luca Pacioli with a student is undoubtedly the most debated painting by Jacopo de’ Barbari, regarding both the attribution of the work and the identification of the figures, the inscription on the piece of paper and its stylistic characteristics.

The painting represents the famous mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli (1445-1517) Piero della Francesca’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s friend, standing in front of a table full of tools.

The Portrait of Luca Pacioli and Disciple has been featured innumerous surveys of the history of mathematics, of the his-tory of science, and of the Renaissance.

The various mathematical objects displayed are not merely attributes that qualify Pacioli as teacher or elements for a visual biography of the friar, they are part of the panel’sexposition of the new mathematics as an abstract and novelsubject. This exposition—which, was invented by Pacioli himself—aims at making the mode of thinking supported by this new mathematics important to the viewers,directly challenging them to engage it instead of simply contemplating the picture and its subject. It is for this pur-pose that the painter offered to the beholder a pen with which to write and a square and a compass with which to draw geometric diagrams. The focal point of this painting, thesegeometric figures formed the basis for the grammar of the visual analytic reasoning that, as a form of knowing, was beingintroduced into court culture during the second half of the fifteenth century by Pacioli and other mathematical humanists.

Since 1903 this panel has been part of the collections of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples; unfortunately, it's early provenance is incomplete.