Leon Battista Alberti Bust

Leon Battista Alberti asked what an artist needed to know. His answers ranged across geometry, literature, ancient buildings, and the behavior of people within a city. Born in 1404, he worked as a humanist writer as well as an architectural designer.

In De pictura, written in Latin in 1435 and then in Italian, Alberti explained how a painter could organize a convincing view on a flat surface. Geometry was only part of the task: a painted narrative also needed gestures, variety, and figures whose actions a viewer could understand. The Italian version was dedicated to Brunelleschi.

His architectural writing examined buildings through proportion, use, materials, and civic life. On the facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, he brought existing medieval elements into a new composition. At Sant'Andrea in Mantua, his design drew on the vocabulary of Roman triumphal arches and vaulted interiors, though construction continued after his death in 1472.

Alberti’s Roman study involved measuring and interpreting ancient structures, then deciding how their principles might answer a new commission. His career also helps explain the growing distinction between an architect's design and the work of those responsible for building it.