Leon Battista Alberti (born the February 18th 1404 with Genoa - died the April 20th 1472 with Rome), writer, Philosopher, painter, Architect, theorist of painting and the Sculpture, was a Italian Humaniste of the Renaissance. Its life is described, with many errors, in the Vies of the best painters, sculptors and architects of Giorgio Vasari.

Biography

Alberti was born with Genoa, wire naturalness of Lorenzo degli Alberti, descendant of a famous line of bankers and commercial florentins (the Alberti). His/her mother was according to any probability a maidservant of the family and, in this context, it is not possible for him to inherit the immense paternal fortune, which totals two of his/her cousins. After the death of his father, in 1421, he studies the right to the Université of Bologna. Contrary to what was said a long time, Alberti forever carried out a turn of Europe at the 25 years age; on the other hand, unlike many its contemporaries, the formation of Alberti was done in several cities, in Italy of north. According to her dires, its family wanted that it is devoted to what had made the fortune of the family, i.e. the trade and the bank (Alberti were the bankers of the popes at the end of 14th and the beginning of the 15th century); but it is towards the letters that Battista (he will add later the Leon nickname to its first name) is turned, by taking the minor orders and by receiving a first benefit inside the Florentin territory; he becomes “apostolic abbreviator then”, i.e. pontifical civil servant; but its statute of natural child will attach his Roman career as much as its possible implication in the policy florentine. It is initially thanks to the letters that it tries to be made recognize, of the twenty years age at approximately the fifty years age, while meeting, more than all in its own fatherland, Florence (which it visits for the first time in 1430), hostility, even ostracism. It is true that in its many satirical writings, Alberti does not hesitate to be caught some in the humanistic medium Florentin and the Roman Curia with a corrosive tone and a liveliness which one will not find of as soon as in the world literature. The first document which proves that Alberti is implied in an architectural building site goes back to 1454 (letter with Matteo de' Pasti, director of the building site of the Tempio malatestiano with Rimini). Starting from this date, Alberti obtains truly the recognition, and even the glory which he sought since the twenty years age. It can then return to Florence and take possession of the palate of his Benedetto grandfather; its place is then that of a intellectual and moral authority recognized. He dies in Rome a few months after having made visit the Roman ruins with the young person Laurent Splendid the.

Activities of Alberti

It is one of the most important figures of the Renaissance, great writer and philosopher, in Latin as in Tuscan, and theorist of the perspective mathematical and more generally of arts. Wire of one exiled Florentin, he studied the canonical right, but also mathematics and philosophy with Venice, Padoue and Bologna. Probably thanks to the assistance of some of his parents (in particular the prelate Alberto degli Alberti and Francesco d' Altobianco) it became, in Rome, in 1432, a “apostolic abbreviator” with the service of the popes Eugene IV and Nicolas V. It is there that was born its interest for the classicism. He lived in Florence and in the cities of the center of Italy (while following displacements of the pope Eugene IV) during ten years. For this period, it tries in particular to promote the literature in vernacular language (i.e. Tuscan); but the failure of this combat, in particular in Florence, pushes it towards other territories, and particularly worms of work of genius and towards architecture. Ghost in Rome, it wrote the Descriptio Urbis Romae , " foreground; scientifique" of a city (probably with an aim of finding the layout of the aqueduct of Acqua Vergine). Starting from the art of antiquity, it worked out the theory of the beauty as a harmony, exprimable mathematically in its parts and its whole: thus the base of architectural projection is in the “proportionality” of the Roman buildings. This harmonic vision is present in all its works. In 1434 it arrived at Florence and discovered in the art of Brunelleschi, Masaccio and Donatello the assertion of its own principles. While being a deep admiror of the Latin language, Alberti is very early persuaded that it would be vain to want the ressusciter. Thus it organizes in Florence, in 1441, a contest of poetry in vulgar language: the certame coronario , which was intended to reinforce the prestige of Italian.

Towards the end of his life, Leon Battista Alberti did not leave any more Rome but for the rare ones and short stays with Florence and Mantoue. Once the plans and drawings of a monument given, it did not remain on the building site and entrusted to others the monitoring and the control of work. Christophe Landini tells, in, its Quæstiones camaldulenses , that some friends, Laurent and Julien de Médicis, Alemanno Rinuccini, Pietro Acciaioli, etc, withdrawn during heats of the summer in a villa close to the convent of Camaldules, learned with the improvist the arrival from Alberti, descended at Marsile Ficin. They solved not to turn over for a few days to Florence, in order to enjoy more completely the presence of large the Humaniste. Time occurred in long talks, “in a sprinkled meadow of a brook, in the shade of a plane tree”. All these Platonic S of the Rebirth, grouped around Alberti, listened to develop of the sovereign well, the contemplative life and the working life, the allegories of Virgile, all that, written Landino, “ memoriter, lucid ac copiose . ” It is certain that Landino knew Alberti well, but it is quite as certain as the portrait that he draws up his thought in the Disputationes camaldulenses , a few years after its death, does not have great a deal to see with what Alberti expressed in its written works. Worse, this fictionalized image pushed the historians towards a Platonic interpretation of the thought of Alberti which is with the antipodes realism almost aristotelician of this thought.

The mathematician

Alberti gave a beautiful method of construction of the decrease apparent depth of the squares when one moves away from the ground line, in perspective.

The architect

Alberti got busy to restore the formal language of the classical architecture.

He wrote a work on architecture, Of Re aedificatoria ( Art to build ), made up about 1450 but published after his death in 1485, which was translated into Italian, French, Spanish and English during the 18th century. The English translation most precise was carried out by Giacomo Leoni at the beginning of the 18th century. In this work, Alberti proposed new methods of Fortification which became traditional for the cities at the time of the Artillerie and of the seats of several tens of years. This famous treaty of architecture, which, according to Focillon, conferred on its author an authority comparable with that of Vitruve, played, with the De Pictura , a leading role in the evolution of the art of the Renaissance.

He writes for the same period Of will pictura (1436, dedicated to Brunelleschi) and the Of ruled (1464).

If Brunelleschi built, Alberti theorized: it applied its scientific base to the work of art, gave again of the nobility to the rank of artist, put the Peinture, the Sculpture and the Architecture on the same plan as the Littérature and than the Philosophie. The craftsman thus became a intellectual .

Achievements with Florence

With Florence, the Rucellai palate, in via della Vigna, was started in 1455 (today seat of the Alinari Museum); its frontage is a pure Structure geometrical divided by doric Pilastre S , ionic and Corinthian.

For the very elegant small Temple of Holy Sepulchre (1467) in the Rucellai vault close to San Pancrazio (today seat of the Museum Marino Marini), it took again the proportions of Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The same year, it was charged by Marchese Ludovico Gonzaga with carrying out the platform of S. Annunziata.

It supplemented then the frontage basilica of Santa Maria Novella (1470) on a ordering of the Rucellai family, by recovering marble the upper part and the major gate but especially by crowning the unit of a traditional triangular tympanum and by adding two vaults inlaid at the sides thus hiding the tilted roofs of the side aisles.

Achievements out of Florence

However, it is elsewhere than it developed the major part of its activity in the architectural field.

In Rome it employed by the Pope Nicolas V in the restoration of the papal palate and that of the Roman Aqueduct of Acqua Vergine , which emerged in a simple basin drawn by Alberti, which will be replaced later by the Fontaine of Trevi. It also restores the churches of Santo Stefano Rotondo and Santa Maria Maggiore. With Rimini, it builds the temple Malatestiano (1450), genuine proclamation of the classicism of the Rebirth in the pure respect of a Gothic church which had existed as a preliminary. Finally with Mantoue, it left the “amount” of its architectural thought in the churches of San Sebastiano (1460) and of Sant' Andrea (1470) which thus anticipates the typical plans of the churches of the Counter-Reformation.

The humanistic one

In addition to mathematics and architecture, Alberti contributed to many fields:

• In art, it is more known for its treaties whose Of will pictura ( Of painting ) (1435) which contained the first scientific study of the perspective . An Italian translation of Of will pictura ( Beyond will pittura ) was published the year following the Latin version and was dedicated to Filippo Brunelleschi. He wrote also work in connection with the sculpture, Of Ruled .

• It was so gifted in versification Latin E that a Comédie which it had written in its twentieth year, Philodoxius, misled later Alde the Young person, who published it and published it like a true work of Lepidus.
• It was credited as author with Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , a strange novel of imagination whose typographical qualities and the illustrations did one of the more beautiful books ever published.
• In music, it was famous to be one of best the organists of the time.
• Alberti was a cryptographe achieved for its time, and invented coding polyalphabetic. This one was, at least on the principle, even if it really were not used before several tens of years, the most significant projection on the matter since the time of Jules César. The historian in cryptography David Kahn called it the “Father of Western cryptography”, thanks to three signification advances in this field which can be allotted to Alberti: “the oldest Western theory of cryptanalyse, the invention of polyalphabetic substitution, and the invention of the code of coding” ( The Codebreakers , 1967).
• According to certain sources, Alberti was able to be held feet togethers upright, and to jump above the head of a man. “We are in the presence of a man who is not included in any category. Leon Battista Alberti… was born in Venice after a Florentin exile… and fell in love with art, the music, the literature and the philosophical circles. Florence answered by acclaiming it like an almost perfect man. He was very beautiful and strong; excelled in all the physical exercises; could, with the attached feet, to jump to the top of a man upright had fun to tame wild horses and to climb mountains. He was good singer, eminent organist, had a charming conversation, was an eloquent speaker, a man of an alert intelligence but sober, a gentleman of refinement and courtesy… like Léonard one half-century later, Alberti was a Master, or at least a qualified expert, in a dozen fields - mathematics, mechanics, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, drama, philosophy, civil code and canon law…”

( The Rebirth , Will Lasting, pp. 107-108)

It was also interested in the card design and worked with the astronomer and cartographer Paolo Toscanelli.

Its writings

• Beyond famiglia (first drafting in 1432 but it is taken again until in 1443), treated having for topic the family life, it breaks up into four books in which the author tackles the following subjects: the education of the children (I delivers), love and the marriage (delivers II), administration of the richnesses and the good use of the heart, the body and time (delivers III), friendship (IV deliver). The family is exaltée there like the most important natural and civil institution. Alberti asserts the power of human freedom against the obstacles of fortune; it theorizes an art of the knowledge food based on the control of reality and the realization of happiness by a serene and balanced life.
• Of Re aedificatoria (1485), treated of architecture which was published in French in 1553 under the title Architecture and Art to bastir well Consultation of the work. Translated for the second time into 2004 by Pierre Caye, Francoise Choay with a title closer to its Latin version: Art to build ISBN 2020121646
• Of will pictura , treated on French painting published in 1869 pennies the title Of the statue and of painting Consultation of the work, new illustrated and explained edition left in 2007, Allia editions under the original title De Pictura translates of Latin and introduced by Danielle Sonnier; also, edition in three languages of Beyond will pittura (Of Painting) per T. Golsenne and B. Prévost, 2004.
• Of ruled , treated on the sculpture
• Philodoxius , a comedy
• On the other hand, it is important to say that the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , which was allotted to him, on the basis of scientifically soft argumentation, which by enquiring isolated, whose conclusions are accepted by no specialist in the humanistic one, is not Alberti.

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