Truls Ljungström’s Reviews > On the Shoulders of Giants: The Milan Lectures > Status Update

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Augustine onwards, mystics, theologians, & philosophers also said that monsters were somehow part of the natural order ordained by heaven &, in the great symphonic concert of cosmic harmony, they contributed—albeit purely by contrast (like shading & chiaroscuro in paintings)—2 z beauty of the whole. Because the orderly whole was beautiful, whatever monstrosity contributed 2 the equilibrium of that order was redeemed.

On the other hand, / Thomas Aquinas spoke of proportion as 1 of the 3 criteria of beauty, he was no longer speaking only in terms of mathematical ratios. / proportion was not just a correct arrangement of matter, but a perfect adaptation of matter 2 form, in the sense that a human body that was well adapted 2 the conditions of humanity should be considered proportionate. This made proportion also an element of virtue

Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, and so we can see farther than they, not because of our sharper sight or greater stature but because we have been raised higher by their great size

A very frequent topos in the Middle Ages argued that the ancients were taller and better looking, a position that would be completely untenable today: we need only look at the length of the beds Napoleon slept in. But in those days, perhaps, it was not entirely unreasonable, not only because the image people had of antiquity derived from commemorative statuary, ... & centuries of famine.