Leon Battista Alberti
Leon Battista Alberti | |
---|---|
Born | 14 February 1404 |
Died | 25 April 1472 Rome, Papal States | (aged 68)
Nationality | Italian |
Known for | Architecture, linguistics, poetry |
Notable work | Tempio Malatestiano, Palazzo Rucellai, Santa Maria Novella, Basilica of Sant'Andrea |
Movement | Italian Renaissance |
Leon Battista Alberti (Italian:
He is often considered primarily an architect. However, as James Beck has observed,[3] "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts". Although Alberti is known mostly as an artist, he was also a mathematician: he made significant contributions to this field.[4] Among the most famous buildings he designed are the churches of San Sebastiano (1460) and Sant'Andrea (1472), both in Mantua.[5]
Alberti's life was told in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.
Biography
Early life
Leon Battista Alberti was born in 1404 in Genoa. His mother was Bianca Fieschi. His father, Lorenzo di Benedetto Alberti, was a wealthy Florentine who had been exiled from his own city, but allowed to return in 1428. Alberti was sent to boarding school in Padua, then studied law at Bologna.[6][7] He lived for a time in Florence, then in 1431 travelled to Rome, where he took holy orders and entered the service of the papal court.[8] During this time he studied the ancient ruins, which excited his interest in architecture and strongly influenced the form of the buildings that he designed.[8]
Leon Battista Alberti was gifted in many ways. He was tall, strong, and a fine athlete who could ride the wildest horse and jump over a person's head.
In 1438 he began to focus more on architecture and was encouraged by the Marchese Leonello d'Este of Ferrara, for whom he built a small triumphal arch to support an equestrian statue of Leonello's father.[7] In 1447 Alberti became architectural advisor to Pope Nicholas V and was involved in several projects at the Vatican.[7]
First major commission
His first major architectural commission was in 1446 for the façade of the
Alberti was employed to design two churches in Mantua, San Sebastiano, which was never completed and for which Alberti's intention can only be speculated upon, and the Basilica of Sant'Andrea. The design for the latter church was completed in 1471, a year before Alberti's death: the construction was completed after his death and is considered as his most significant work.[10]
Alberti as artist
As an artist, Alberti distinguished himself from the contemporary ordinary craftsmen educated in workshops. He was a
Among Alberti's minor but pioneering studies, were an essay on
Alberti took holy orders and never married. He loved animals and had a pet dog, a mongrel, about whom he wrote a panegyric (Canis).[9] Vasari describes Alberti as "an admirable citizen, a man of culture... a friend of talented men, open and courteous with everyone. He always lived honourably and like the gentleman he was."[11] Alberti died in Rome on 25 April 1472 at the age of 68.
Publications
Alberti considered mathematics as the foundation of arts and sciences. "To make clear my exposition in writing this brief commentary on painting," Alberti began his treatise, Della Pittura (On Painting) dedicated to Brunelleschi, "I will take first from the mathematicians those things with which my subject is concerned."[12]
Della pittura (also known in Latin as
In both Della pittura and De statua, Alberti stressed that "all steps of learning should be sought from nature".[14] The ultimate aim of an artist is to imitate nature. Painters and sculptors strive "through by different skills, at the same goal, namely that as nearly as possible the work they have undertaken shall appear to the observer to be similar to the real objects of nature".[14] However, Alberti did not mean that artists should imitate nature objectively, as it is, but the artist should be especially attentive to beauty, "for in painting beauty is as pleasing as it is necessary".[14] The work of art is, according to Alberti, so constructed that it is impossible to take anything away from it or to add anything to it, without impairing the beauty of the whole. Beauty was for Alberti "the harmony of all parts in relation to one another," and subsequently "this concord is realized in a particular number, proportion, and arrangement demanded by harmony". Alberti's thoughts on harmony were not new—they could be traced back to Pythagoras—but he set them in a fresh context, which fit in well with the contemporary aesthetic discourse.
In Rome, Alberti spent considerable time studying its ancient sites, ruins, and arts. His detailed observations, included in his
Alberti wrote I Libri della famiglia—which discussed education, marriage, household management, and money—in the Tuscan dialect. The work was not printed until 1843. Like
Architectural works
Alberti did not concern himself with engineering, and very few of his major projects were built . As a designer and a student of Vitruvius and of ancient Roman architecture, he studied column and lintel based architecture, from a visual rather than structural viewpoint. He correctly employed the
In Rome he was employed by Pope Nicholas V for the restoration of the Roman aqueduct of Acqua Vergine, which debouched into a simple basin designed by Alberti, which was later replaced by the Baroque Trevi Fountain.
Some researchers
Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini
The Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini (1447, 1453–60)[19] is the rebuilding of a Gothic church. The façade, with its dynamic play of forms, was left incomplete.[10]
Façade of Palazzo Rucellai
The design of the façade of the
Santa Maria Novella
At
Pienza
Alberti is considered to have been the consultant for the design of the Piazza Pio II, Pienza. The village, previously called Corsignano, was redesigned beginning around 1459.[19] It was the birthplace of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius II, in whose employ Alberti served. Pius II wanted to use the village as a retreat, but needed for it to reflect the dignity of his position.
The piazza is a
Sant' Andrea, Mantua
The
Other buildings
- San Sebastiano, Mantua, (begun 1458)[19] the unfinished façade of which has promoted much speculation as to Alberti's intention [10]
- Sepolcro Rucellai in San Pancrazio, 1467)[19]
- The Tribune for Santissima Annunziata, Florence (1470, completed with alterations, 1477)[19]
Painting
Giorgio Vasari, who argued that historical progress in art reached its peak in Michelangelo, emphasized Alberti's scholarly achievements, not his artistic talents: "He spent his time finding out about the world and studying the proportions of antiquities; but above all, following his natural genius, he concentrated on writing rather than on applied work."[11] In On Painting, Alberti uses the expression "We Painters", but as a painter, or sculptor, he was a dilettante. "In painting Alberti achieved nothing of any great importance or beauty", wrote Vasari.[11] "The very few paintings of his that are extant are far from perfect, but this is not surprising since he devoted himself more to his studies than to draughtsmanship." Jacob Burckhardt portrayed Alberti in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy as a truly universal genius. "And Leonardo Da Vinci was to Alberti as the finisher to the beginner, as the master to the dilettante. Would only that Vasari's work were here supplemented by a description like that of Alberti! The colossal outlines of Leonardo's nature can never be more than dimly and distantly conceived."[9]
Alberti is said to appear in Mantegna's great frescoes in the
Contributions and cultural influence
Alberti made a variety of contributions to several fields:
- Alberti was the creator of a theory called "historia". In his treatise De pictura (1435) he explains the theory of the accumulation of people, animals, and buildings, which create harmony amongst each other, and "hold the eye of the learned and unlearned spectator for a long while with a certain sense of pleasure and emotion". De pictura ("On Painting") contained the first scientific study of perspective. An Italian translation of De pictura (Della pittura) was published in 1436, one year after the original Latin version and addressed Filippo Brunelleschi in the preface. The Latin version had been dedicated to Alberti's humanist patron, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga of Mantua. He also wrote works on sculpture, De statua.
- Alberti used his artistic treatises to propound a new humanistic theory of art. He drew on his contacts with early Quattrocento artists such as Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Ghiberti to provide a practical handbook for the renaissance artist.
- Alberti wrote an influential work on architecture, De re aedificatoria, which by the sixteenth century had been translated into Italian (by Cosimo Bartoli), French, Spanish, and English. An English translation was by Giacomo Leoni in the early eighteenth century. Newer translations are now available.
- Whilst Alberti's treatises on painting and architecture have been hailed as the founding texts of a new form of art, breaking from the Gothic past, it is impossible to know the extent of their practical impact during his lifetime. His praise of the Calumny of Apelles led to several attempts to emulate it, including paintings by Botticelli and Signorelli. His stylistic ideals have been put into practice in the works of Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, and Fra Angelico. But how far Alberti was responsible for these innovations and how far he was simply articulating the trends of the artistic movement, with which his practical experience had made him familiar, is impossible to ascertain.
- He was so a skilled composer of Latin verse: a comedy he wrote when twenty years old, entitled Philodoxius, would later deceive the younger Aldus Manutius, who edited and published it as the genuine work of 'Lepidus Comicus'.
- He has been credited with being the author, or alternatively, the designer of the woodcut illustrations, of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a strange fantasy novel.[22]
- Apart from his treatises on the arts, Alberti also wrote: Philodoxus ("Lover of Glory", 1424), De commodis litterarum atque incommodis ("On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literary Studies", 1429), Intercoenales ("Table Talk", c. 1429), Della famiglia ("On the Family", begun 1432), Vita S. Potiti ("Life of St. Potitus", 1433), De iure (On Law, 1437), Theogenius ("The Origin of the Gods", c. 1440), Profugorium ab aerumna ("Refuge from Mental Anguish",), Momus (1450), and De Iciarchia ("On the Prince", 1468). These and other works were translated and printed in Venice by the humanist Cosimo Bartoli in 1586.
- Alberti was an accomplished Cipher Disk. The polyalphabetic cipher was, at least in principle (for it was not properly used for several hundred years) the most significant advance in cryptography since classical times. Cryptography historian David Kahn called him the "Father of Western Cryptography", pointing to three significant advances in the field that can be attributed to Alberti: "the earliest Western exposition of cryptanalysis, the invention of polyalphabetic substitution, and the invention of enciphered code".David Kahn (1967). The codebreakers: the story of secret writing. New York: MacMillan.
- According to Alberti, in a short autobiography written c. 1438 in Latin and in the third person, (many but not all scholars consider this work to be an autobiography) he was capable of "standing with his feet together, and springing over a man's head." The autobiography survives thanks to an eighteenth-century transcription by Antonio Muratori. Alberti also claimed that he "excelled in all bodily exercises; could, with feet tied, leap over a standing man; could in the great cathedral, throw a coin far up to ring against the vault; amused himself by taming wild horses and climbing mountains". Needless to say, many in the Renaissance promoted themselves in various ways and Alberti's eagerness to promote his skills should be understood, to some extent, within that framework.
- Alberti claimed in his "autobiography" to be an accomplished musician and organist, but there is no hard evidence to support this claim. In fact, musical posers were not uncommon in his day (see the lyrics to the song Musica Son, by Francesco Landini, for complaints to this effect.) He held the appointment of canon in the metropolitan Florence, and thus – perhaps – had the leisure to devote himself to this art, but this is only speculation. Vasari also agreed with this.[11]
- He was interested in the drawing of Paolo Toscanelli.
- In the domain of Aesthetics Alberti is recognized for his definition of art as imitation of nature, exactly as a selection of its most beautiful parts: "So let's take from nature what we are going to paint, and from nature we choose the most beautiful and worthy things".[23]
- Borsi states that Alberti's writings on architecture continue to influence modern and contemporary architecture stating: "The organicism and nature-worship of Wright, the neat classicism of van der Mies, the regulatory outlines and anthropomorphic, harmonic, modular systems of Le Corbusier, and Kahn's revival of the 'antique' are all elements that tempt one to trace Alberti's influence on modern architecture."[24]
Works in print
- ISBN 978-0-14-043331-9.; Della Pittura, in Italian (1804 [1434]).
- Momus, Latin text and English translation, 2003 ISBN 0-674-00754-9
- De re aedificatoria (1452, Ten Books on Architecture). Alberti, Leon Battista. De re aedificatoria. On the art of building in ten books. (translated by Joseph Rykwert, Robert Tavernor and Neil Leach). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988. ].
- De Cifris A Treatise on Ciphers (1467), trans. A. Zaccagnini. Foreword by David Kahn, Galimberti, Torino 1997.
- Della tranquillitá dell'animo. 1441.
- "Leon Battista Alberti. On Painting. A New Translation and Critical Edition", Edited and Translated by ISBN 978-1-107-00062-9, (books.google.de)
- I libri della famiglia, Italian edition[25]
- "Dinner pieces". A Translation of the Intercenales by David Marsh. Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York, Binghamton 1987.
- "Descriptio urbis Romae. Leon Battista Alberti's Delineation of the city of Rome". Peter Hicks, Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State university 2007.
- (LA) Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria, Argentorati, excudebat M. Iacobus Cammerlander Moguntinus, 1541.
- (LA) Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria, Florentiae, accuratissime impressum opera magistri Nicolai Laurentii Alamani.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari. 1, Firenze, Tipografia Galileiana, 1843.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari. 2, Firenze, Tipografia Galileiana, 1844.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari. 4, Firenze, Tipografia Galileiana, 1847.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari. 5, Firenze, Tipografia Galileiana, 1849.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Opere, Florentiae, J. C. Sansoni, 1890.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Trattati d'arte, Bari, Laterza, 1973.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Ippolito e Leonora, Firenze, Bartolomeo de' Libri, prima del 1495.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Ecatonfilea, Stampata in Venesia, per Bernardino da Cremona, 1491.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Deifira, Padova, Lorenzo Canozio, 1471.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Teogenio, Milano, Leonard Pachel, circa 1492.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Libri della famiglia, Bari, G. Laterza, 1960.
- Leon Battista Alberti, Rime e trattati morali, Bari, Laterza, 1966.
- Franco Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti: Opera completa, Electa, Milano, 1973;
In popular culture
- Leon Battista Alberti is a major character in Roberto Rossellini's three-part television film The Age of the Medici (1973), with the third and final part, Leon Battista Alberti: Humanism, centering on him, his works (such as Santa Maria Novella), and his thought. He is played by Italian actor Virginio Gazzolo.[26]
- Mentioned in the 1994 film Renaissance Man or Army Intelligence starring Danny DeVito.
- Mentioned in the 2004 book The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-08-055058-9. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
- ISBN 978-0-691-18331-2. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
- ^ James Beck, "Leon Battista Alberti and the 'Night Sky' at San Lorenzo", Artibus et Historiae 10, No. 19 (1989:9–35), p. 9.
- ISBN 978-3-0346-0473-4– via Duke Libraries.
- ISBN 978-0198691372.
- ^ Treccani encyclopedia, Leon Battista Alberti
- ^ a b c d Melissa Snell, Leon Battsta Alberti Archived 2015-09-06 at the Wayback Machine, About.com: Medieval History.
- ^ ISBN 0706408578
- ^ a b c d Jacob Burckhardt in The Civilization of the Renaissance Italy, 2.1, 1860.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Joseph Rykwert, ed., Leon Baptiste Alberti, Architectul Design, Vol 49 No 5-6, London
- ^ a b c d Vasari, The Lives of the Artists
- ^ Leone Battista Alberti, On Painting, editor John Richard Spencer, 1956, p. 43.
- Alhazen’s Optics", Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 15, issue 2 (2005), pp. 189–218 (Cambridge University Press).
- ^ a b c d e Liukkonen, Petri. "Leon Battista Alberti". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.
- ^ a b Alberti, Leon Battista. On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Trans. Leach, N., Rykwert, J., & Tavenor, R. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1988
- ^ Center for Palladian Studies in America, Inc., Palladio's Literary Predecessors Archived 2018-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 12.
- ^ D. Mazzini, S. Simone, Villa Medici a Fiesole. Leon Battista Alberti e il prototipo di villa rinascimentale, Centro Di, Firenze 2004
- ^ a b c d e f g h Franco Borsi. Leon Battista Alberti. New York: Harper & Row, (1977)
- JSTOR 43104980.
- ^ Virgil, Bucolica, Chapter X.
- ^ Liane Lefaivre, Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997
- ^ De Pictura, book III: Ergo semper quae picturi sumus, ea a natura sumamus, semperque ex his quaeque pulcherrima et dignissima deligamus.
- ^ Brosi, p. 254
- ^ Alberti, Leon Battista (1908). "I libri della famiglia".
- ^ The Criterion Collection, The Age of the Medici (1973) | The Criterion Collection
References
[1] Magda Saura, "Building codes in the architectural treatise De re aedificatoria,"
[2] Third International Congress on Construction History, Cottbus, May 2009.
- F. Canali e V. C. Galati, V. Galati, Leon Battista Alberti a Napoli e nei baronati del Regno aragonese. Cultura, Archeologia, Architettura e città. Parte Prima, StrStudi, Consulenze, Autopsie antiquarie e Giudizi tecnici (in Apulia, Campania, Latium, Lucania, Marsica, Picenum e Sicilia), in Memorabilia tra natura e geometria. Il Culto del Passato dalla Inventio alla Reinterpretazione, cura di F. Canali «Bollettino della Società di Studi Fiorentini», 30-31, 2021-2022, pp. 426-483.
- F. Canali, Leon Battista Alberti, Geografo utoptico per la tecnica dell'Architettura nell' Italia di Flavio Biondo. in Memorabilia tra natura e geometria. Il Culto del Passato dalla Inventio alla Reinterpretazione, cura di F. Canali «Bollettino della Società di Studi Fiorentini», 30-31, 2021-2022, pp. 314-425.
Further reading
- Albertiana, Rivista della Société Intérnationale Leon Battista Alberti, Firenze, Olschki, 1998 sgg.
- Clark, Kenneth. "Leon Battista Alberti: a Renaissance Personality." History Today (July 1951) 1#7 pp 11–18 online
- Francesco Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti. Das Gesamtwerk. Stuttgart 1982
- Günther Fischer, Leon Battista Alberti. Sein Leben und seine Architekturtheorie. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt 2012
- Fontana-Giusti, Korolija Gordana, "The Cutting Surface: On Perspective as a Section, Its Relationship to Writing, and Its Role in Understanding Space" AA Files No. 40 (Winter 1999), pp. 56–64 London: Architectural Association School of Architecture.
- Fontana-Giusti, Gordana. "Walling and the city: the effects of walls and walling within the city space", The Journal of Architecture pp 309–45 Volume 16, Issue 3, London & New York: Routledge, 2011.
- Gille, Bertrand (1970). "Alberti, Leone Battista". ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
- Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti. Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance. New York 2000
- Mark Jarzombek, “The Structural Problematic of Leon Battista Alberti's De pictura”, Renaissance Studies 4/3 (September 1990): 273–285.
- Michel Paoli, Leon Battista Alberti, Torino 2007
- Les Livres de la famille d'Alberti, Sources, sens et influence, sous la direction de Michel Paoli, avec la collaboration d'Elise Leclerc et Sophie Dutheillet de Lamothe, préface de Françoise Choay, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2013.
- Manfredo Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects, trans. Daniel Sherer. New Haven 2006.
- ISBN 978-0-300-07615-8.
- Vasari, The Lives of the Artists Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-283410-X
- Wright, D.R. Edward, "Alberti's De Pictura: Its Literary Structure and Purpose", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 47, 1984 (1984), pp. 52–71.
- Giovanni Ponte, Leon Battista Alberti: Umanista e scrittore, Tilgher, Genova, 1981;
- Paolo Marolda, Crisi e conflitto in Leon Battista Alberti, Bonacci, Roma, 1988;
- Roberto Cardini, Mosaici: Il nemico dell'Alberti, Bulzoni, Roma 1990;
- Rosario Contarino, Leon Battista Alberti moralista, presentazione di Francesco Tateo, S. Sciascia, Caltanissetta 1991;
- Pierluigi Panza, Leon Battista Alberti: Filosofia e teoria dell'arte, introduzione di Dino Formaggio, Guerini, Milano 1994;
- Cecil Grayson, Studi su Leon Battista Alberti, a cura di Paola Claut, Olschki, Firenze 1998;
- Stefano Borsi, Momus, o Del principe: Leon Battista Alberti, i papi, il giubileo, Polistampa, Firenze 1999;
- Luca Boschetto, Leon Battista Alberti e Firenze: Biografia, storia, letteratura, Olschki, Firenze 2000;
- Alberto G. Cassani, La fatica del costruire: Tempo e materia nel pensiero di Leon Battista Alberti, Unicopli, Milano 2000;
- Elisabetta Di Stefano, L'altro sapere: Bello, arte, immagine in Leon Battista Alberti, Centro internazionale studi di estetica, Palermo 2000;
- Rinaldo Rinaldi, Melancholia Christiana. Studi sulle fonti di Leon Battista Alberti, Firenze, Olschki, 2002;
- Francesco Furlan, Studia albertiana: Lectures et lecteurs de L.B. Alberti, N. Aragno-J. Vrin, Torino-Parigi 2003;
- Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti: Un genio universale, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2003;
- D. Mazzini, S. Martini. Villa Medici a Fiesole. Leon Battista Alberti e il prototipo di villa rinascimentale, Centro Di, Firenze 2004;
- Michel Paoli, Leon Battista Alberti 1404–1472, Paris, Editions de l'Imprimeur, 2004, ISBN 2-910735-88-5.
- Anna Siekiera, Bibliografia linguistica albertiana, Firenze, Edizioni Polistampa, 2004 (Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Leon Battista Alberti, Serie «Strumenti», 2);
- Francesco P. Fiore: La Roma di Leon Battista Alberti. Umanisti, architetti e artisti alla scoperta dell'antico nella città del Quattrocento, Skira, Milano 2005, ISBN 88-7624-394-1;
- Leon Battista Alberti architetto, a cura di Giorgio Grassi e Luciano Patetta, testi di Giorgio Grassi et alii, Banca CR, Firenze 2005;
- Stefano Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti e Napoli, Polistampa, Firenze 2006; ISBN 88-88967-58-3
- Gabriele Morolli, Leon Battista Alberti. Firenze e la Toscana, Maschietto Editore, Firenze, 2006.
- F. Canali, "Leon Battista Alberti "Camaleonta" e l'idea del Tempio Malatestiano dalla Storiografia al Restauro, in Il Tempio della Meraviglia, a cura di F. Canali, C. Muscolino, Firenze, 2007.
- Alberti e la cultura del Quattrocento, Atti del Convegno internazionale di Studi, (Firenze, Palazzo Vecchio, Salone dei Dugento, 16-17-18 dicembre 2004), a cura di R. Cardini e M. Regoliosi, Firenze, Edizioni Polistampa, 2007.
- F. Canali (ed.), «Bollettino della Società di Studi Fiorentini», 16–17, 2008.
- Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Alberti e la porta trionfale di Castel Nuovo a Napoli, in «Annali di architettura» n° 20, Vicenza 2008.
- Massimo Bulgarelli, Leon Battista Alberti, 1404-1472: Architettura e storia, Electa, Milano 2008;
- Caterina Marrone, I segni dell'inganno. Semiotica della crittografia, Stampa Alternativa&Graffiti, Viterbo 2010;
- S. Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti e Napoli, Firenze, 2011.
- V. Galati, Il Torrione quattrocentesco di Bitonto dalla committenza di Giovanni Ventimiglia e Marino Curiale; dagli adeguamenti ai dettami del De Re aedificatoria di Leon Battista Alberti alle proposte di Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1450-1495), in Defensive Architecture of the Mediterranean XV to XVIII centuries, a cura di G. Verdiani, Firenze, 2016, vol.III.
- S. Borsi, Leon Battista, Firenze, 2018.
External links
Leon Battista Alberti.
- Albertian Bibliography on line
- MS Typ 422.2. Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404–1472. Ex ludis rerum mathematicarum : manuscript, [14--]. Houghton Library, Harvard University.
- Palladio's Literary Predecessors Archived 2018-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
- "Learning from the City-States? Leon Battista Alberti and the London Riots", Caspar Pearson, Berfrois, September 26, 2011
- Online resources for Alberti's buildings
- Alberti Photogrammetric Drawings [4] Archived 2009-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
- S. Andrea, Mantua, Italy
- Sta. Maria Novella, Florence, Italy
- Alberti's works online
- De pictura/Della pittura, original Latin and Italian texts (English translation)
- Libri della famiglia – Libro 3 – Dignità del volgare on audio MP3
- Momus, (printed in Rome in 1520), full digital facsimile, CAMENA Project
- The Architecture of Leon Battista Alberti in Ten Books Archived 2020-08-03 at the Wayback Machine, (printed in London in 1755), full digital facsimile, Linda Hall Library
- Works of Alberti, book facsimiles via archive.org