I want to speak about the world’s very first maze picture artist, Francesco Segala.
Francesco Segala (c. 1535-1592) was an Italian artist, born in Padua, Italy, who was primarily known as a sculptor and architect, but who made a unique contribution to the history of mazes and especially maze art. My research suggests he was the first picture maze artist.
Here's what is known about him:
Pioneer of Picture Mazes:
He is widely credited as the first artist to create picture mazes, which are puzzle maze designs that form recognizable figures.
His designs included a variety of shapes such as ships, dolphins, crabs, dogs, snails, horsemen, and human figures. One notable design mentioned is a "labyrinth-man" which symbolized the pursuit of knowledge.
It's important to note that while he designed these intricate figurative mazes, it's doubtful whether many of his designs were actually constructed as physical hedge mazes. They were likely more often found as illustrations, perhaps in a "Libro de laberinti" (Book of Labyrinths) as some sources suggest. This makes his contribution more about the concept and artistic representation of such mazes rather than their physical construction.
Working primarily as a sculptor and architect meant he was always designing 3D objects. It is interesting to think how that may have inspired his drawing of objects in 2D and mazing them. Essentially isn’t that what an architect does when drawing plans ? He would have lived in a time when hedge mazes were around. A drawn maze was square or circular. He broke this barrier by using new shapes.
Here is a page from the excellent book, Through the labyrinth : designs and meanings over 5000 years (2000) by Hermann Kern AMZN, showing some of the maze art of Francesco Segala. Notice how the crab maze contains a labyrinth looking section in the center of the body :
