Pavel Aleksandrovich Florenskii was a Russian philosopher, theologian, art theoretician, and scientist-polymath. He was born January 22, 1882, of a Russian father and Armenian mother, and died on December 8, 1937. Florenskii lived in the Caucasus, mainly in Tiflis (Tbilissi), Georgia, until 1898, when he entered the Department of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. Endowed with many talents, he was invited to stay at the university after graduation for further studies in mathematics, but declined and instead entered Moscow Theological Academy in 1904. By then he was already known as an active member of the Russian Symbolist movement; he published poetry, essays, and philosophical articles, and he corresponded with Andrey Bely—a leading Symbolist poet and theorist—regarding basic theoretical problems of Symbolism. In 1908 Florenskii graduated from the Academy and stayed there as a professor of philosophy. In 1911 he was ordained a priest. Between 1906 and 1914 he wrote...