Geometric figures enjoyed mystical understanding.
Special numbers had mystical interpretations. Thus according
to the Pythagoreans, "1" corresponds to a point; "2" corresponds to a line
(2 points); "3" corresponded to a (flat) surface (3 points); "4" corresponded
to a 3-dimensional solid (4 points). Furthermore, 1+2+3+4 = 10. Sir Francis
Bacon was quite aware that all these mystical beliefs were nonsense,
nevertheless such mystical belifs were part of the social ideology. There
were other influential mystical views about numbers, such as there being
5 elements: air, earth, water, fire, and quintessence: each element
corresponding to a 3-dimensional solid with the quintessence corresponding
to the dodecahedron (hence the number "12"):
click here.
The first geometric dance was by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx
(Ballet comique de la Royne).
1
1
"Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baoroque Body",
Mark Franko, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993, p. 140
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