Description
Atomist iconography appears at the end of the sixteenth century and by the hands of Giordano Bruno, who, with his woodcuts, engraves the first images of the atom in De triplici minimo et mensura. Area Democriti is one of them and gives form to a set of philosophical doctrines. In it, one sees a sphere surrounded by six others of the same diameter and each of them has a nucleus drawn in its centre. It illustrates cosmic growth: the minimum (or atom) gives rise to all that exists for its endless self-replication - Giordano Bruno is a defender of the infinite conception of the universe -, being a vital principle. This growth is structurally geometric (beginning with the geometric point - note in the image) and the form of the minimum of matter does not cease to reappear in the form of the maximum: from the point to the physical atom and from this to the Heavens, as the image also alludes to with the representation of the six-pointed stars and, again, with the central nucleus. In addition, the agglomeration of the circles creates a hexagon and a larger circle. From this larger circle, imagine then six other circles added around it, as first, and so on. For the philosopher, this would be the invisible scheme of the expansion of matter that would continually emanate from the monad-atoms.
Bibliography
Lüthy, Christoph. (2010). Centre, Circle, Circumference: Giordano Bruno's Astronomical Woodcuts. Journal for The History of Astronomy - J HIST ASTRON. 41. 311-327.
