Leon Battista Alberti
14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian humanist, architect, and polymath, often cited as an archetype of the Renaissance universal man. His treatise On Painting codified linear perspective for artists, and De re aedificatoria became the first printed book on architecture. As a practicing architect he designed influential works including the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini and the facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Leon Battista Alberti.
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- Ewuare the Great (1400–1473) Overlapped 68 years →
- Johannes Gutenberg (1400–1468) Overlapped 64 years →
- Donatello (1386–1466) Overlapped 62 years →
- Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464) Overlapped 60 years →
- Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) Overlapped 56 years →
Life events
Leon Battista Alberti was born in Genoa, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Florentine merchant whose family had been exiled from Florence.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAlberti received a rigorous classical education in Latin at the renowned school of Gasparino Barzizza in Padua.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAlberti completed his studies at the University of Bologna, taking a degree in canon law despite his stronger inclination toward letters and mathematics.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAlberti entered the papal civil service in Rome as an abbreviator, drafting official documents, a post that supported his scholarly work for decades.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAlberti wrote his influential humanist dialogue on household, education, and civic life in the Tuscan vernacular.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn Florence, Alberti wrote the first modern treatise on painting, giving artists the earliest systematic account of linear perspective; an Italian version followed in 1436 dedicated to Brunelleschi.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFor Sigismondo Malatesta, Alberti designed a classical marble shell around the church of San Francesco, one of the first buildings to revive the Roman triumphal-arch motif.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAlberti completed his ten-book Latin treatise on architecture, modeled on Vitruvius, which after its 1485 printing became the first printed book on the subject.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgCommissioned by Giovanni Rucellai, Alberti completed the harmonious marble facade of Santa Maria Novella, reconciling Gothic fabric with classical proportion.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAlberti died in Rome on 25 April 1472, shortly after designing the church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua.
Source: en.wikipedia.org