Metaphysical permanencies and variations on Medieval and Renaissance minor beauty

This article aims to explore a theme of the metaphysica paupera from the reflections of the Friar Minor Luca Pacioli, highlighting their roots in the Neo-Platonic and Augustinian tradition, but also in some aspects of the Franciscan one. I will show, firstly, how in the early Franciscan environment the idea of minor beauty was progressively developed in relation to the form of life that places poverty at its centre. Secondly, I will outline how, in Bonaventure’s reflections, this idea, initially associated with a practical and moral dimension, is reframed in a theological sense, in terms of evangelical perfection, and in a metaphysical sense, finding its full foundation in the idea of a proportional beauty that establishes a metaphysics of relationship. Finally, I will highlight how both ideas – that of a metaphysics of relationship and a Franciscan matrix – persist in Pacioli, in his mathematization of knowledge, capable of including minor beauty as the metaphysical principle of the world, as well as of all human activities and forms of knowledge.