There’s a Limbo Moon Above
The best-known German goldsmith of the sixteenth century, Wenzel Jamnitzer, is also remembered for his study of the five platonic solids, Perspectives of Regular Bodies, in which he proposed that out of the same five bodies one can go on endlessly making all other bodies. / The five solids originate with Pythagoras, but are named after Plato, who paired four of the five solids with each of the four elements and the fifth with heaven to make up the difference: tetrahedron (fire), octahedron (air), cube (earth), icosahedron (water), and dodecahedron (heaven). / The idea is that the universe is made up of a handful of shapes and out of these shapes other shapes are made.