Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), Italian architect and writer, who was the first important art theorist of the Renaissance and among the first to design buildings in a pure classical style based on a study of ancient Roman architecture.

Alberti was born in Genoa on February 14, 1404, the son of a Florentine noble. He received the best education available in the 15th century, first at the school of Barsizia at Padua (Padova) and then at the University of Bologna. He was proficient in Greek, mathematics, and the natural sciences. As a poet, a philosopher, and one of the first organists of his day, Alberti greatly influenced his contemporaries. In 1432, he was appointed a papal secretary by Pope Eugene IV.

Alberti's architectural training began with the study of antique monuments during his first stay (1432-1434) in Rome. Subsequently he joined the papal court in Florence, where he became intensely involved with the cultural life of the city. Among his friends and associates were the great architect Filippo Brunelleschi and the renowned sculptor Donatello. Probably at this time he became familiar with the mathematical laws of linear perspective, which Brunelleschi had studied. As explained in Alberti's treatise, Della Pittura (1436), they were of inestimable value to the painters of his own and succeeding generations. Alberti took an active part in the literary life of Florence and championed the literary use of Italian rather than the use of Latin. After spending nine years in Florence and other parts of Italy, Alberti returned to Rome in 1452. He was secretary to six popes. Under Pope Nicholas V, he was in charge of the projects for rebuilding Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican.

In the late 1440s, Alberti began to work as an architect. Although his buildings rank among the best architecture of the Renaissance, he was a theoretical rather than a practical architect. He furnished the plans of his buildings but never supervised their construction. The classical purity of Alberti's style, which prepared the way for Bramante and later architects, is evident in the facade of the Church of San Francesco at Rimini (1446-1455), adapted from the arch of Augustus at Rimini. Alberti had a number of pupils and associates, who carried out his plans for the facade of Santa Maria Novella and the Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451), both in Florence, and other famous buildings. His De Re Ædificatoria, completed about 1452 and published in 1485, was the first printed work on architecture of the Renaissance. He also wrote books on sculpture, the family, government, and literature. Alberti died in Rome on April 25, 1472.