Archimedes hesitates, transfixed by the rhombicuboctahedron hovering on the edge of the page, like a strange species never before encountered in nature. His body, rendered in layered chiaroscuro print, appears in a pose of almost vigorous, if haltingly arrested, contemplation. In Ugo da Carpi’s (1480–1532) dramatic rendering after Raphael, human and geometrical body are staged as a study in contrasts. At once rational, ordered, and finite, the rhombicuboctahedron is also out of this world. It stands both for itself and for the idea of itself, so much so that it appears to flicker in and out of focus, as if in excess of the real. Swathed in a cascade of wrinkled and tangled cloth, the philosopher is captured on the cusp of apprehending the crux of knowledge made palpable as a discrete object. He grips a tabula rasa in his left hand, grappling with the decision of whether to divert his gaze in order to ensnare it. Perhaps he wonders if, in so doing, he would run the risk of the polyhedron, and all it represented, vanishing beyond the reaches of his imagination.