1 For the extent to which architectural design was not exclusively the concern of architects see two important new studies: Ernst Gombrich, ‘The Early Medici as Patrons of Art’, Italian Renaissance Studies, ed. E. F. Jacob, London, i960, pp. 279-311; and Ludwig H. Heydenreich, ‘Federico da Montefeltro as a Building Patron’, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt on His 60th Brithday, London and New York, 1967, pp. 1-6.

2 L. B. Alberti, VArchitettura (de re aedificatoria), ed. with Italian translation by G. Orlandi, 2 vols., Milan, 1966, Preface, pp. 7-9. Future citations will indicate book and chapter, followed by page citations to this edition. I have consulted the translation of James Leoni which was made from the Italian translation of CosimoBartoli, published as Ten Books on Architecture, London, 1755, republished by Joseph Rykwert, London, 1955. I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Paul Oskar Kristeller for his help in adapting the translations, and to him and to Professor Rudolf Wittkower for their generous assistance during the preparation of an earlier version of this study.

3 See Richard Krautheimer, ‘Alberti and Vitruvius’, Acts of the XXth Congress of the History of Art, II: The Renaissance and Mannerism, ed. M. Meiss, Princeton, 1963, pp. 42-52. (This volume will be cited in future as XXth Congress.)

4 Kristeller, P. O. has pointed out that according to the ancients an art can be taught and learned. See ‘The Modern System of the Arts’, Journal of the History of Ideas XII (1951), 496–527 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and XIII (1952), 17-46; reprinted in Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts, New York, Evanston, and London, 1965, pp. 163-227; the reprint, p. 166. Alberti's insistence on the peculiar virtù of the artist marks the artist as unique, a distinctly modern concept.

5 De re aed.,Preface, 15.

6 Seneca, Ad Luciliumepistolaemorales, ed. and trans, by R. M. Gummere, London, and New York, 1917, Ep. 65, 450. This theme has a continuous tradition from antiquity to the Renaissance; see Jan Bialostocki, ‘The Renaissance Concept of Nature and Antiquity’, XXth Congress, 19-30.

7 De re aed.,vi.iv.459.

8 De re aed.,I.i.21.

9 De re aed.,VII.iv.549.

10 De re aed.,VII.iv.551.

11 De re aed.,vi.iii.453, among other places.

12 De re aed.,in addition to the two places cited above, see IX.viii.843-845; among other places.

13 De re aed.,I.vii.55, where the arch is denned geometrically; and III.xiii.235; among other places. See also below, note 35.

14 Argan, G. C., ‘The Architecture of Brunelleschi and the Origins of Perspective Theory in the Fifteenth Century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, ix (1946), 96–121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 De re aed.,VII.i.529.

16 De re aed.,I.i.19.

17 De re aed.,IX.X.861-863. For an interpretation of this passage and of the relationship between architecture and painting which is, in my opinion, misleading see Ludwig Heydenreich, ‘Strukturprinzipien der florentinerFruhrenaissance-Architektur: Prospectiva Aedificandi’, XXth Congress, 108-122.

18 De re aed.,i.viii.57-59; VII.iv.551; and IX.v.819 f.

19 De re aed.,ix.v.810 ff., and developed in subsequent chapters. See R. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, 3d ed., London, 1962, IV and passim.

20 De re aed.,IX.vii.837.

21 Ibid.For a different emphasis on the importance of the architect's judgment in using conceptions of concinnitassee Bialostocki, op. cit., passim.

22 De re aed.,ix.v.815. E. Panofsky, Idea, contributo alia storiadell'estetica, trans. Edmondo Cione, Florence, 1952, p. 32, n. 125(a), cites this passage as an expression of Platonism or of the doctrine of Plotinus. The next passage, in which Alberti defines ornament, he calls Ciceronian, citing the de naturadeorum, 1, 79. Santinello, Giovanni, Leon Battista Alberti, unavisioneesteticadelmondo e delta vita, Florence, 1962, pp. 224–228 Google Scholar, says the concept of concinnitasis based on Cicero and rhetoric; he recognizes the Platonic element, p. 232. He also correctly recognizes the central importance of concinnitas, and the deepening of the concept of beauty between books vi and ix; see pp. 228-238.

23 De re aed.,rx.v.815.

24 Alberti's concept of the history of architecture also placed tremendous emphasis on function as a qualitative standard. As Krautheimer outlines Alberti's history of architecture: ‘an architecture of mass (firmitas) born in Asia merges in Greece with grace (venustas), and finally, in Rome, with usefulness (utilitas).’ Op. cit., p. 48. Utility achieves greater importance than the other two factors because it is Roman and because it shows a higher achievement by man, since it took the mind of man the longest to contrive satisfaction for utility's demands.

25 De re aed.,vi.i.445.

26 Vitruvius, de architettura, ed. and trans. F. Granger, 2 vols., New York and London, 1931, l.iii.2.

27 hoc.cit.For a discussion of Alberti's sources for these terms see Vassili P. Zoubov, ‘Leon Battista Albertiet les auteurs du Moyen-Age’, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Warburg Institute, eds. R. Hunt, R. Klibansky, L. Labowsky), IV (1958), 245-266; and Susan Lang, ‘De lineamentis: Alberti's, L. B. Use of a Technical Term’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXVIII (1965), 331–335 Google Scholar.

28 De re aed.,vi.ii.447.

29 As Orlandi points out in his note 3 to this passage, the definition is similar to Cicero's inOrator, 149, 164 ff.; and Brutus, 287, 325; see also for a resumé of sources cited for this passage, J. Bialostocki, ‘The Power of Beauty: A Utopian Idea of Leon Battista Alberti’, StudienzurtoskanischenKunst, Festschrift Ludwig Heydenreich, eds. W. Lotz and L. L. Moller, Munich, 1964, pp. 13-19; p. 16, n. 26.

30 Cf. Vitruvius, op. cit., III.i.

31 De re aed.,IX.V.8II.

32 Ibid.

33 Alberti, ‘De fatoetfortuna’, ed. with Italian translation by E. Garin, ProsatoriLatini del Quattrocento (La letteraturaitaliana, storia e testi), Milan and Naples, 1952, pp. 644- 656; English translation by A. B. Fallico and H. Shapiro, Renaissance Philosophy, 1: The Italian Philosophers, New York, 1967, pp. 33-40.

34 Alberti had spelled out the choice quite clearly in the prologue to I Libridellafamiglia, ed. Cecil Grayson (Operevolgari, I), Bari, 1960.

35 Alberti's concept of engineering derived from his interpretation of nature as an ordered, geometric system; structural forms were solid when regular and they were made regular through perspectival methods. The concept had been pioneered by Brunelleschi. See for this concept in general: P. Sanpaolesi, La cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore: II progetto, lacostruzione, Rome, 1941; the same, ‘Ipotesisulleconoscenzematematiche, statiche e mecchaniche del Brunelleschi’, Belle Arti(1951), 457-554; and, for the differences between the Florentine system of ‘perspective engineering’ and north Italian and north European engineering in this period, Ackerman, J. S., “Ars sine scientianihilest”: Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan,’ Art Bulletin, XXXI (1949)Google Scholar, 84- I II . Most of Alberti's conceptions of engineering are found in de re aed.,III, IV, and IX; see also above, n. 13.

36 De re aed.,x.i.869.

37 De re aed.,x.i.

38 Alberti, dellafamiglia, op. cit., p. 169.

39 De re aed.,II.ii and iii.

40 De re aed.,especially the passage which outlines his own method of design, IX.X. 861-863.

41 Alberti outlined the idea quite clearly in another short dialogue, ‘Virtus’, ed. with Italian translation by Garin, Prosatori, op. cit., pp. 640-645; English translation by Fallico and Shapiro, op. cit., pp. 31-33.

42 De re aed.,ix.xi.

43 See my article ‘Alberti's View of Painting and the Liberal Arts’ to appear in the Journal of the History of Ideas

44 Alberti, dellapittura, ed. Luigi Mallè (Raccolta di fonte per la storiadell'arte, vol. 7), Florence, 1950, p. 107. (For an English translation see On Painting, tr. John Spencer, New Haven and London, revised edition, 1966, p. 63.)

45 The interpretation proposed by G. C. Argan and others that perspective was developed by Brunelleschi as a tool for architectural design and subsequently developed by Alberti in the theory of architecture has come under attack recently by Howard Saalman in his review of Luporini, Eugenio Brunelleschi, forma e ragione, Art Bulletin, XLVIII 1966, 442–445 Google Scholar Saalman bases his criticism on the interpretation on his reading of de re aed., H.i., esp. 99, but fails to recognize that, 1) Alberti condemns the use of fancy renderings of projected buildings to give an inflated impression of the proposal, and 2) separates the product of the painter (a painting) from the product of the architect (a building) when he points out the differences between painter and architect; in other words, Alberti does not do what Saalman says he does: issue an ‘emphatic injunction against perspective as a tool for the architect’, by which Saalman must mean during the process of design. I am supporting here the ‘Italian thesis’, as Saalman calls it, for which see in addition to those cited in his review, Wittkower, R., ‘Brunelleschi and “Proportion in architecture” ‘, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xvi (1953), 275–291 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Bialostocki, ‘The Power of Beauty’, op. tit., passim.

47 There is an important difference, however. The painter addresses each citizen individually; whereas the architect addresses citizens collectively, or at least emphasizes the collection of citizens rather than each citizen in turn.

48 Boccaccio, Geneahgiadeorumgentilium, trans, and discussed by Osgood, C. G., Boccaccio on Poetry, 2nd. ed., New York, 1959 Google Scholar, xvi.vii.39; see also XVI.xvii.79.

49 For example, the extended description of private houses, de re aed.,IX.iv.

50 Boccaccio, op. cit., XIV.xiii.64.

51 Salutati, ‘Letter to John of San Miniato’, Epistolario, ed. by F. Novati, Rome, 1891- 1911, iv.i.170-205; 186; translated by Ephraim Emerton, Humanism and Tyranny; Studies in the Italian Trecento, Cambridge, Mass., 1926, pp. 312-341; 323.

52 L. Bruni, Vita di Dante, ed. Angelo Solerti, Autobiografia e vitede'maggioriscrittori italianijino al secolodecimottavo, narrate da contemporanei, Milan, 1903, pp. 94-112; p. 109.

53 Wittkower, Architectural Principles, I and passim.

54 It is indeed suggested, but seldom claimed or stated. Alberti is loosely taken to be a Renaissance Neoplatonist because his name is often juxtaposed with discussions of authentic Neoplatonists. See for example, Bialostocki, ‘The Power of Beauty’, op. cit., p. 17: ‘Andre Chastel stressed the interest of Alberti in neoplatonism [A. Chastel, MarsileFicin etl’art, Geneva and Lille, 1954, 107 ff.] Wittkower also connects Alberti's “inborn sense” with the Neoplatonic tradition in Renaissance thought’, at which point Bialostocki citesArchitectural Principles, p. 27.

Chastel indicates clearly (pp. 108-109) that Alberti's treatise contains Pythagorean elements exploited by the Careggi academy, but no more. Of dellapitturaChastel states that it is ‘inclinéesvers les propositions du nouvelhumanismeplatonicien’, (108) and of the treatise on architecture: ‘Il n'enfaut pas conclurequ'Albertifutsurtousces points debiteur des doctrines neoplatoniciennes: c'estimposée aux philosophes de l’Académie de leur “pythagorisme” ‘. (109) Wittkower also stresses Pythagorean elements, and in a confusing passage which moves from Alberti through Cusa to Pacioli and includes a misleading note to Gombrich's study ('IconesSymbolicae, the Visual Image in Neo-Platonic Thought’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XI [1948], 163-192) on Neoplatonic intuitions, he manages to suggest to Bialostocki the misleading impression quoted above. These three instances indicate that the identity of the Platonic tradition Alberti was following has not been sought and that Alberti can therefore easily be incorrectly linked by the unwary with Ficino. Similar examples abound in the literature; it would only be tiresome to cite them here.

55 There was Neoplatonism of a new stripe, at least new to Italy, however, in Pletho's lectures in Florence in 1438. Alberti was there then, and perhaps profited from them, but hardly to the extent of others who founded and labored at the Academy after 1462. See P. O. Kristeller, The Philosophy of MarsilioFicino, trans. V. Conant, New York, 1943, pp. 15 ff.; and the literature cited below, n. 57.

56 Panofsky, E., ‘Artist, Scientist, Genius: Notes on the ‘Renaissance-Dämmerung” ‘, in The Renaissance: A Symposium, Six Essays, by Ferguson, W. K., et ah, New York and Evanston, 1962, pp. 123–182 Google Scholar, passim; also Panofsky's Idea, passim; and his The Life and Art ofAlbrechtDürer, 4th ed., Princeton, 1955, pp. 273-284; and Nauert, C. G., Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought, Urbana, 1965, pp. 121 Google Scholar ff.

57 In addition to the works cited in n. 55, see Cassirer, E., The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, trans. M. Domandi, New York and Evanston, 1963, p. 164 Google Scholar, n. 2; Frances Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1947, pp. 79- 85; and R. and Wittkower, M., Born Under Saturn, London, 1963, pp. 98 Google Scholar ff.

58 For Platonic texts available to Alberti by about 1440, see R. Sabbadini, Le Scoperte deicodiciLatini e Grecine'secoli XIV e XV, 2 vols., Florence, 1905-1914; Robb, Nesca, Neo-Platonism of the Italian Renaissance, London, 1935 Google Scholar; Kristeller, P. O., Supplementum Ficinianum, Florence, 1937 Google Scholar,1., clvi-clvii; R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries (1954), New York, 1964, App. I, 484-485 (not always reliable); Garin, E. ‘Ricerchesulletraduzioni di Platonenella prima metà del secolo XV, Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi, Florence, 1955,1, 338–374 Google Scholar; Resta, Gianvito, ‘Antonio Cassarino e le sue traduzioni da Plutarco e Platone’, Italia medioevale e umanistica, II (1959), 207–283 Google Scholar; and Vittorio Zaccaria, ‘Pier CandidoDecembriotraduttoredellaRepubblica diPlatone’, ibid., 179-206.

59 Bruni, op. cit., p. 107.

60 Ibid.

61 See Curtius, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask, New York and Evanston, 1963, pp. 474–475 Google Scholar.

62 Boccaccio, op. cit., XIV.vii.39.

63 Bruni, Ad PetrumPaulumHistrumdialogus, ed. with Italian translation by E. Garin, Prosatori, pp. 44-99; 60.

64 Bruni, Vita di Dante, p. 107.

65 Sallust and Livy qualified as poets since they wrote history. Ibid.,p. 109.

66 Boccaccio, op. tit., XIV.vii.40.

67 Ibid.

68 Bruni, op. cit., 108.

69 Ibid.,p. 109.

70 Wittkower, Architectural Principles, I and IV.

71 Walker, D. P., ‘Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance Platonists’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xvi (1953), 100–120 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; passim.

72 See note 54, above. See also Wittkower, Architectural Principles, p. 27, II. 2; and Bialostocki, ‘The Power of Beauty’, passim.The nearest he does come to saying it contains an emphasis on the importance of vision as well as the ability to know quality instinctually. See de re aed.,II.i.95 f. GiannozzoManetti, in his description of the renovations of St. Peter's Basilica proposed by Nicholas V with Alberti's assistance, is perhaps the first person closely related to Alberti to draw attention to anthropomorphic or man-asmicrocosm and to cosmic references in an architectural design. Manetti carefully stated that neither man nor the cosmos was a source Nicholas had in mind; indeed, Manetti states that he had discovered them himself through contemplation of the design. See the text of the relevant section from Manetti's life of Nicholas published by Torgil Magnuson inStudies in RomanQuattrocento Architecture, Stockholm, 1958, pp. 351-362,Il. 130 ff.

73 For this entire problem see Giehlow, Karl, ‘Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance'Jahrbuch des kunsthistorischenSammlungen des allerh. Kaiserhauses, XXXII 1915, 1–229 Google Scholar 29-34 and 91; Cassirer, op. at., pp. 161 ff.; E. Gombrich, ‘Botticelli's Mythologies: A Study in the Neo-Platonic Humanism of His Circle’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vni (1945), 7-60; the related article cited in n. 54, above; and R. Watkins, ‘L. B. Alberti's Emblem, the Winged Eye, and His Name, Leo’, Mitteilungen des KunsthistorischenInstituts in Florenz, ix (1959/60), 256-258.

74 Alberti, Tranquillitadell'animo, in Operevolgare, ed. A. Bonucci, Florence, 1843,1, 7-126; 77.

75 Cassirer has said of this concept that it is ‘one of the basic motifs of the Renaissance’, and he calls it microcosmic, but in the sense Pico had in mind, that man is a free-willed, intellectual creature independent of place or of predetermined value predicated upon outside forces or definitions. This concept ‘seemed to be the middle ground where the Renaissance concept of nature and its concept ofhumanitatismet and reciprocally determined each other. As a symbol, as an image of nature, man is as much related to nature as he is distinctfrom it’. (Original emphasis.)Individual and Cosmos, p. 109. No later theorist would maintain so great a distinction between man and nature. Filarete is at times absurdly anthropomorphic in his theoretical foundations for design. (See theTreatise on Architecture, published with facsimile and translation by J. R. Spencer, 2 vols., New Haven and London, 1965.) A more intelligent anthropomorphism is offered by Francesco di Giorgio. In the Preambolo to his Trattato di architetturacivile e militare (codiciSenese S.iv.4 and Magliabechiano n.I.141; critical edition by Maltese, Corrado,Trattati di architetturaingegneria e arte militate, 2 vols., Milan, 1967, n, 294–300 Google Scholar), he recognizes astrology and Vitruvius as authentic sources because of the importance both place on the proportions of men's bodies, and he says that ‘sipuò dire chetutti li edificimoderni sienopieni di errori e di partisenza la debitaproporzione o simmetria’. (297) Indeed, Lotz, W., ‘EinDionakratesdarstellung des Francesco di Giorgio,’ Mitteilungen des KunsthistorischenInstituts in Florenz, v (1937/42), 428–433 Google Scholar; 428; states that Francesco di Giorgio raised the concept of anthropomorphic proportions for architecture to the status of a postulate.