The pentagram map takes a planar polygon $P$ to a polygon $P'$ whose vertices are the intersection points of consecutive shortest diagonals of $P$. This map is known to interact nicely with Poncelet polygons, that is, polygons which are simultaneously inscribed in a conic and circumscribed about a conic. A theorem of Schwartz states that if $P$ is a Poncelet polygon, then the image of $P$ under the pentagram map is projectively equivalent to $P$. In the present paper, we show that in the convex case this property characterizes Poncelet polygons: if a convex polygon is projectively equivalent to its pentagram image, then it is Poncelet. The proof is based on the theory of commuting difference operators, as well as on properties of real elliptic curves and theta functions.

A lemma of Tits establishes a connection between the simple connectivity of an incidence geometry and the universal completion of an amalgam induced by a sufficiently transitive group of automorphisms of that geometry. In the present paper, we generalize this lemma to intransitive geometries, thus opening the door for numerous applications. We treat ourselves some amalgams related to intransitive actions of finite orthogonal groups, as a first class of examples.

We show that a certain category 𝓖 whose objects are pairs G ⊃ H of groups subject to simple axioms is equivalent to the category of ≥ 2-dimensional vector spaces and injective semi-linear maps; and deduce via the "Fundamental Theorem of Projective Geometry" that the category of ≥ 2-dimensional projective spaces is equivalent to the quotient of a suitable subcategory of 𝓖 by the least equivalence relation which identifies conjugation by any element of H with the identity automorphism of G.

A projective geometry of dimension (n - 1) can be defined as modular lattice with a spanning n-diamond of atoms (i.e.: n + 1 atoms in general position whose join is the unit of the lattice). The lemma we show is that one could equivalently define a projective geometry as a modular lattice with a spanning n-diamond that is (a) is generated (qua lattice) by this n-diamond and a coordinating diagonal and (b) every non-zero member of this coordinatizing diagonal is invertible. The lemma is applied to describe certain freely generated modular and Arguesian lattices.