Quadrature of the circle: inscribed circles, lunes, and roots
Circles set within circles, curvilinear triangles, and a compass rule for square roots
A crowded geometry sheet covered with circles inscribed in circles, quadrants, polygonal rings and curvilinear-triangle (lune) figures, worked through in mirror-script across several columns. Leonardo pursues the quadrature of the circle by proportional argument, showing that three or two circles inscribed in a greater one are worth half of it, and reducing the 'portions' to squares and curvilinear triangles labelled a, b, c, d, e, f. A closing note gives a compass construction for finding the square root of a number on a line, and a rule that circle-to-circle proportion equals the proportion of the squares of their diameters.
On this page
Three inscribed circles and their curvilinear triangles
The 3 circles enclosed in the greatest circle are worth half of it. Striking away their 24 hatched portions is the same as removing them from the 3 curvilinear triangles def, leaving the perforated circle abcdef equal to the greatest square of the greatest circle; the remainder, divided by 3, gives the quadrature of each triangle def.
Proportions of circles inscribed within a circle
The circle at the top contains the 3 largest circles it can hold, together worth half of it, so each smaller circle is worth a sixth of the greater. Hence one of their 4 greatest portions is worth one-sixth of a greatest portion of the containing circle, and the 4 greatest portions of the great circle equal 24 of the small circles' portions.
Circle proportion equals the proportion of the squares of diameters
Stated as a general rule: the proportion from circle to circle is the same as that from square to square formed by multiplying the diameters of those circles by themselves.
A compass rule for the square root of a number
To find any root on the line af — here the root of two — lay out the two spaces ab and bc, add a like space cd to obtain ad, take its middle o, set the compass foot at o, and open the compass to the spaces a-o and o-d.
