Story of an architecturally suggestive polyhedron: from medieval trade to Renaissance art and modern design

We describe a balance weight dated to the Early Islamic Period from the Hecht Museum at the University of Haifa (Israel) Its polyhedral shape was attributed to a truncated elongated octagonal bipyramid. To our knowledge, the earliest Renaissance book containing the image of this polyhedron is “La Pratica di Prospettiva” published in 1596 by Florentine architect and perspective artist Lorenzo Sirigatti. We described an outline of Sirigatti life and the importance of his book for scientists and artists, Galileo Galilei among them. We depict examples of lamps and lanterns in European cities shaped as the truncated elongated octagonal bipyramid, as well as a drawing by Raphael with a lantern of a similar form. Finally, we discussed why the artist chose this particular polyhedron for his drawing.