The Arts of Ornamental Geometry, A Persian Compendium on Similar and Complementary Interlocking Figures. A Volume Commemorating Alpay Özdural (Muqarnas, Supplements) (English and Persian Edition) Bilingual Edition

The subject of this study is a Persian work on ornamental geometry. Discovered in the 1970s, the only extant manuscript copy known so far comprises folios 180r– 199r of Ms. Persan 169, a volume of collected works in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. This volume, referred to henceforth as the Paris Codex, consists of twenty-five treatises on the mathematical sciences, covering a variety of topics ranging from the astrolabe to finger counting and a period from the late tenth to the mid-fifteenth century. Altogether they give the impression of having been collected and bound for somebody who was interested in the practical applications of mathematics in various fields.The document to be considered here is listed as the twenty-fourth treatise in the Paris Codex. This work (i.e., the Anonymous Compendium) was mentioned only briefly in the catalogues of Edgar Blochet and Francis Richard, who described it as containing “solutions for different geometric problems accompanied by figures.” After its discovery by historians of Islamic art and architecture, however, its significance for both fields began to be appreciated. It is a unique document in which both verbal and pictorial descriptions of geometric constructions for scores of ornamental patterns are provided. It thus combines the information that can be supplied by mathematical sources and gathered from architectural drawings preserved in the form of scrolls. This dual character sheds new light on the creative process of the architectural arts.The main hypothesis underlying this study is that mathematicians played an active role in Islamic art and architecture. This unique document provides us with ample evidence in support of this argument. Even at first glance, it appears to embody the informal link between theory and praxis in the Islamic world. To demonstrate the collaboration of mathematicians and artisans that it represents, in Chapter 2, titled “Analyses,” each construction will be analyzed with respect to the history of mathematics on the one hand, and the history of art and architecture on the other. Then, in Chapter 3, “Synthesis,” the treatise as a whole will be assessed in terms of topics around which the constructions are loosely classified, in order to illustrate its role as the documentation of a series of meetings between theoreticians and practitioners of geometry.

More for scholars of islamic tile design history, than designers, as the manuscript in question is short. However it is a very beautiful book, and if you want to see an original approach, and have spare cash, then get it; but for a wealth of design ideas see Arabic 'Geometrical Pattern and Design' (Dover Pictorial Archive) by J. Bourgoin, etc.The cover gives a good idea of what the manuscript pages look like.