Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti ( born February 14, 1404 Genoa, † April 25, 1472 in Rome ) was an Italian humanist, writer, mathematician, art and architectural theorist and architect of the Early Renaissance.

Alberti is one of the most amazing and controversial figures of the Italian Renaissance. Jacob Burckhardt sees him in his " Culture of the Renaissance" a personification of the uomo universale. Gifted with exceptional many talents, he joined as an author of various books, art-theoretical treatises, mathematical treatises and books on social issues such as " Della famiglia " or large-scale satires such as " Momus " out. Moreover, he mastered all seven " liberal arts " so grammar, dialectic, rhetoric on the one hand, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music on the other side. Uniquely in his time but he was a theorist of painting, sculpture and architecture. as a cleric and longtime employee of the papal chancery he developed about addition, through its theoretical and practical study of Roman antiquity and his access to the leading humanist circles of the 15th century for the most expert of his time for the ancient architecture.

In his extensive work about the family he writes about the economics of the family budget, on marriage, parenting and friendship. His method for encrypting texts was not improved over several centuries, and his organ in the cathedral of Florence was widely praised. Alone in the art of painting, he should, as Giorgio Vasari complains have been a champion.

• 3.1 Palazzo Rucellai
• 3.2 Sepolcro Rucellai in San Pancrazio
• 3.3 Santa Maria Novella in Florence
• 3.4 San Francesco in Rimini, called Malatesta Temple
• 3.5 San Sebastiano in Mantua
• 3.6 Sant'Andrea in Mantua

Biography

Battista Alberti was born as the second, illegitimate son of Lorenzo di Benedetto Alberti and Bianca di Carlo Fieschi of Genoa. His father was the head of the major Florentine merchant family of the Alberti, who was banished as a loser in the power struggles of the time from Florence. From 1415 Battista attended the school of the humanist Gasparino Barzizza in Padua and then began the study of canon law in Bologna. Due to financial difficulties after the death of his father he moved to Padua to study physics and mathematics. 1428 he completed his studies with the doctor of canon law, the same year the banishment of Alberti by the Pope was released. For the next four years, there is no confirmed news of his whereabouts or activities, but perhaps he first visited his hometown of Florence. In 1432 he became secretary of Blasius Molin, Patriarch of Grado, also received the post of Abbreviators at the papal curia in Rome. Task of a Abbreviators was, documents that were needed for the papal course of business to design. During this time, Alberti also wrote his first literary masterpiece in Italian, the three books " Della famiglia ". Themes were the relationship between fathers and sons, the family and the household economy.

In 1434 he accompanied Pope Eugene IV into exile in Florence. He founded or renewed his friendship with the Florentine artists Brunelleschi, Donatello, Ghiberti and others and wrote soon after his famous art theoretical treatises " De Statua " and " De pictura ". During this time he also painted himself and put his middle name Leo or Leone. 1438 he took as a member of the papal delegation attend the Council of Ferrara. In Ferrara, he learned Leonello d' Este know and tried there for a job as a courtier. He also advised him in artistic matters. 1443 he returned along with Pope Eugene IV returned to Rome and began his studies of the architectural remains of antiquity. In this time he wrote a cartographic recording of Rome, " Descriptio urbis Romae ". 1447 he was awarded by Cardinal Prospero Colonna commissioned to involve two Roman ships from the bottom of Lake Nemi, but the attempt was unsuccessful.

1447 ascended with Tommaso Parentucelli a leading humanist as Nicholas V the papal throne. Nicholas began next to the construction of the Vatican Library immediately with an extensive construction activity. However, employees Alberti to the papal measures to beautification and renewal of Rome has not been established, even though he be the Pope in 1452 is now largely finished work on the building " De re aedificatoria " presented. Other hand, is busy at this time (from about 1452 ) his design for the new facade of San Francesco in Rimini, the so-called " Tempio Malatesta ". Between 1455 and 1458 he produced designs for the facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence and for the Palazzo Rucellai, both on behalf of the merchant Giovanni Rucellai. 1459 he spent in the company of Pope Pius II in Mantua, and made ​​the acquaintance of Ludovico Gonzaga. Ludovico commissioned him in 1460 with the design for the church of San Sebastiano, which remained a torso during his lifetime and was later rebuilt many times. In 1470 he was entrusted with the planning of the church of Sant'Andrea, whose foundation stone was laid on June 12, 1472 he no longer lived through. Alberti died on April 25, 1472 in Rome, in his last years sought interlocutor of the sovereigns and princes of northern Italy, highly regarded by the young humanists of the Platonic Academy in Florence and widely appreciated and in demand as a mathematician, engineer and expert on architecture.

Art Theoretical writings

In his writings on art theory Alberti strives observed by him in his time to change the usual artistic practice, namely, the ignorance ( ignorantia ) to eliminate the artist and explain reason and knowledge necessary to basics of art. Its merit lies in the fact of having given the discourse on art is a language and a rational and literary basis.

De Pictura (On the Art of Painting ) 1435/1436

The aim of the treatise is neither a history of painting still a craft guide in the way of Cennino Cennini, but the painting is supposed to be put on a scientific basis. In the first book is about the geometry of Euclid, optics and their application in the perspective painting. For Alberti, the body, in ancient times defined by divisibility by length, width and depth, an object that is hidden beneath the visible surfaces, or what is covered by the surface on which our vision reaches a limit is. Consequently, he has to deal with the problem of vision. The mobility of vision is difficult to reconcile with the rigid visual pyramid, the usual in his time optical model for vision in line. This leads him to a redefinition of the image as one of the possible cutting planes through the visual pyramid and its projection, which he calls window. With his remarks, he describes the theoretical foundations perspective. Practical tools for the painter are the scrim or velum and the peep-show, the camera ottica. A detailed mathematical description of a perspective view, however, provides only Piero della Francesca in his book De Prospect Pigendi to 1470th

In the second and third book is about the craft and mental skills of the painter. With ingenium Alberti refers to the creative and intellectual abilities of the invention ( inventio ), the judgment and the selection of assets ( iudicium ) and the appropriateness in relation to the selected object ( aptum ): These terms are borrowed from ancient rhetoric and are presented here as art-theoretical terms introduced. The executed work, which includes the pictorial representation of acting and suffering people, the historia is to prepare by careful studies. The term historia is more general terms with him, and only later the meaning was restricted to history painting.

The primary objective of painting is the effect of the painting at the viewer. The clear presentation of emotions to stimulate or generate certain emotions, moods, sensations sensual and spiritual insights in the viewer. Inexhaustible source and model for the artist is nature. It is important to grasp the nature of the eye and to look long and most careful attention to how precisely the nature, the wonderful Bildnerin of the things on the most beautiful elements, the surfaces has joined together. To study the nature but not necessarily such as diligence, skill and will power and perseverance of the artist have virtues ( virtus ), come to create a perfect work.

De Statua ( The statue ), 1435

De Statua is not - as one might assume after the title - "Treatise on the sculpture or the plastic, but a proposal to solve some problems such as the measurement of lengths and diameters of bodies and statues, the proportional enlargement or reduction of a model and. the ideal proportions of the human body " Schlosser emphasizes especially the " famous and important become systematics of Artistry " shows, that Alberti's distinction into three areas: Fine Artists ( fictores ) that build up of mud or clay figures or add material, sculptor ( sculptores ) to remove material to create the figure, and finally, for example, Gold and Silversmiths ( argentarii ) that produce molds made ​​of forged metal. For the purposes of surveying Alberti developed three instruments: the Hexempeda, a proportional bar, the Normae for the determination of diameters, and the Definitory, a complicated device with a round, which is divided into degrees of disc plus a movable pointer that on the head of be measured figure was attached. With this device he was able to determine the coordinates of each point in space or on the figure and hold in a table. The proportion chart of the human body at the end of " De Statua " ( Tabulae dimensionum hominis ) takes into account the length and width of the body and its parts also their third dimension.

De re aedificatoria ( About Construction ) 1443-1452

Alberti's large-scale textbook on construction was probably 1443-1452 in Rome, possibly at the instigation of the Prince of Ferrara, Leonello d' Este. Written in classical Latin, it was not directed at architects, but primarily formed to builders and to the academic world of the humanists. The focus of the work is the architecture of ancient Rome, who looked at Alberti as a model and inspiration for his presence. Here is his archaeological and historic preservation approach that would reconstruct a lost era and save them from utter decay, to distinguish him from his idealistic approach, which fill this self-contained period of Roman antiquity with new life and wanted to make it fruitful for his presence.

Alberti first closely follows the only surviving from the ancient book on architecture, Vitruvius' De architectura libri decem from around 30-20 BC He takes over not only the number of books (ten), but also parts of the substance from the areas of materials science, building construction, building typology and from the whole complex of temples forms and orders of columns. It also sets the wholesale division of his treatise (more precisely, the books II -IX ) the famous Vitruvian categories firmitas (strength), utilitas ( usefulness ) and venustas ( Beauty) is based. Logically treat the books II and III of the issues Building Materials ( De materia and Construction ( De opere ), the books IV and V, the typological descriptions of both the public facilities ( De universorum opere ) as well as the individual sacred, public and private buildings ( De singulorum opere ), while it comes to jewelry in general ( De ornamento ) as well as to the decoration of temples and basilicas, the other public buildings and private homes in the books VI -IX. the Book I deals with the planning in general ( De lineamentis ), the book X of the repair of the building ( Qui operum instauratio inscribitur ).

While Alberti, however, remains largely dependent on Vitruvius and other writers in the questions of the ancient building practice, it dissolves in the field of architectural theory almost completely from its ancient predecessor. For example, he changed the qualifications required of the architect, which Vitruvius yet equally from craft practice ( fabrica ) and theoretical knowledge ( ratiocinatio ) composed, in favor of pure planner who operates in the work site of a construction manager. The six central Vitruvian basic concepts ordinatio, dispositional, Eurythmia, symmetria, decor and distributio he replaced completely by its own six categories regio, area, partitioned, paries, tectum, Apertio ( area, land, classification, wall, roof and opening). Above all, he is treading in the field of aesthetic theory territory by more than Vitruvius's initial thesis of the " taking away " and "Add " mechanism, which "seems to be designed belonging and will not miss anything at the sight of " a building, go out and progresses to a full definition of beauty: " Beauty is a kind of agreement ( consensus ) and line ( conspiratio ) of the associated parts with respect to a certain number ( numerus ), Relationship ( finitio ) and arrangement ( collocatio ), as the harmony ( concinnitas ), the perfect and original nature law requires. "

A striking feature of the architecture Alberti's theory is mainly their amazing modernity. Whether it comes to the new role of the architect as a pure planner with its own, no longer hand- embossed course of education or to the new image of the city with its equality of public space and buildings; whether it is the original Skelettbautheorie and the concept of bone and skin, skeleton and shell or the relativization of the concept of beauty and the inclusion of subjective perception in the aesthetic discussion - always have the concepts far into the future, in the least case, three hundred years until about the absolutism addition. in the age of Enlightenment, in the broadest case until well into the 19th and 20th centuries This is " De re aedificatoria " not only the first treatise of the modern era about the construction, but also stays on for a long time the most important writing on architectural theory.

Buildings

For the rich Florentine merchant Giovanni Rucellai Alberti designed the facade of the building on Via della Vigna, which were majority-owned by the family. The Rucellai, who had ascended to the highest Florentine society by great wealth and marriage with a Medici, should be adequately represented. For the urban complex includes the Palace, Loggia and Piazza.

Palazzo Rucellai

Facade design ( 5-axis ) ca.1455, expansion to 7 axes by 1462

A total of eight smaller buildings were combined to form a representative palace with an initial five, later seven axes. According to Vasari, Alberti designed the facade and turned in their division for the first time in modern history of architecture, the facade division of the Roman theater by means of one over the other asked columnar orders to. The facade of fine rustication is divided by flat pilasters and entablature strip, the capitals of the pilasters are based on the ground floor at the Doric, on the first floor on the Ionian, the second floor of the Corinthian order. Construction manager was perhaps Bernardo Rossellino, suspected as an architect of interior finishes.

Sepolcro Rucellai in San Pancrazio

Completed planning for 1457-1459, 1467

The only source that the design of Alberti comes, is the statement of Vasari. The oriented in Jerusalem on Holy grave tomb is covered with marble panels and is divided by Corinthian pilasters. Two pilasters hold a three squares of white marble, in each of which a circular ornament is embedded. In addition to varied star shapes these Tondi contain the emblems of the Medici and Rucellai.

Santa Maria Novella in Florence

Design of the facade 1457/58, 1470 completed.

Begun in 1278 gothic church of the Dominicans was consecrated in 1420. The facade with geometric incrustations of green and white marble remained unfinished until the middle of the 15th century. According to Vasari, Alberti gave a design to the completion of the facade for the Rucellai. Construction manager, Giovanni Bettino.

Alberti had to be considered in its design the layout of the ground floor, the large round window on the first floor of the basilica and the pent roofs of the aisles. While respecting the existing parts he further developed the concept in its old sense. The new games were more regular and more spacious, worked out the geometrical lines clearer. Three-quarter columns as a frame of the portal and the corners of buildings and colossal pilasters on the sides of the facade give the floor a closed shape. In addition, the ground floor is summarized by a high attic area above the crossbar. The articulated by flat pilasters essay upstairs borders the oculus and is crowned by a classical pediment. The solution found for Santa Maria Novella, cover the shed roofs of the side aisles by two volutes was, in consequence of many architects, especially during the Baroque imitated.

San Francesco in Rimini, called Malatesta Temple

Start of construction 1452

From Sigismondo Malatesta Alberti was commissioned an external transformation of S. Francesco ( since the 19th century Cathedral ) from Rimini to an appropriate burial place for him and his Isotta degli Atti third wife. San Francesco was since 1312 the grave lay the Malatesta. 1452 Alberti designed for the Church a new facade cladding marble surrounding the building on three sides. The front facade is a free interpretation of the Roman triumphal arch motif, probably inspired by the nearby Arch of Augustus in Rimini. The pages were designed as arcades, whose arched openings containing sarcophagi. Alberti provided for the construction plans and only a model and gave written instructions from Rome. Was carried out the project of the architects Matteo and Agostino di Duccio de'Pasti. The façade remained unfinished, their planned appearance can only be sketchy recognize a coin that was minted to mark the start of construction.

Of particular importance for the history of architecture are built for Ludovico Gonzaga in Mantua churches of San Sebastiano and Sant'Andrea, which revolutionized the church. They are the only buildings that Alberti has fully designed. Both were not completed in his lifetime, Sant'Andrea begun shortly after his death. Both buildings Alberti is free and creative to come up with the ancient rules.

San Sebastiano in Mantua

Start of construction 1460

San Sebastiano is a central building on the plan of a Greek cross. The building has an unusually high base (possibly due to start-up and moisture problems), the facade is divided by pilasters and finished with a pediment. The construction was changed several times in the sequence, so that the original concept Alberti is no longer to determine exactly.

Sant'Andrea in Mantua

Start of construction 1472

In Sant'Andrea Alberti replaced the aisles of the normal basilica ground plan through a series of chapels, a momentous for the church of the late Renaissance and the Baroque renovation. In the facade, he combines the ancient temple front with a triumphal arch motif with flat pilasters instead of the usual columns or half-columns.

Alberti oriented apparently also on a biblical text, where the first book of Kings ( 6.7 ) describes the Solomon's temple, whose proportions of length, breadth and height he receiveth. The temple measured 60/20/30 Ellen, Sant ' Andrea 120/40/60 bracci ( a braccio = 47 cm ). The final completion of Sant ' Andrea lasted around 300 years, with major changes in design and concept. For Alberti, the church was still limited to the nave and side chapels. Later, a transept, which is crowned with a dome, also a choir and two conches has been attached.

Writings and literary works

• Philodoxius, Comedy,
• De religione, 1429-1432
• Ephebia, 1429-1432
• De commodis litterarum atque incommodis to 1430-32
• Vita Sancti Potiti 1433
• Intercoenales, tables, 1430-43
• I Libri della famiglia. [ 1433-1441 ]. First edition 1843. Turin 1969.
• De pictura. [ 1435 dedicated to Filippo Brunelleschi ]; Della pittura full text, lat
• De statua, [ 1435/36 ]
• Apologi, about his philosophy of life
• De iure 1437
• Pontifex, 1437
• Vita, Autobiography, 1438 [ Anonymous and untitled published ]. Lat.-dt. Ed and inlaid. by Christine Tauber. Trans. and comm. by Christine Tauber and Robert Cramer. Q.s. Frankfurt, Basel, 2004.
• Villa, About Agriculture, 1438
• Theo Genius, 1440

• Canis. [ 1441/1442 ], praise his dog.
• Musca, the fly over, 1441
• Profugiorum from aerumna, 1441/42
• Certame coronario, [ printed in 1441 ], poetry competition
• Grammatica della lingua toscana, 1441-47
• Descriptio urbis Romae, The earliest preserved city of Rome surveying the modern era
• Navis, 1447
• De motibus poneris 1448
• Ludi rerum Mathematicarum, [ before 1452 ]
• De re aedificatoria, Rome, architectural theory treatise, first release;
• Momus o del principe, [ 1440 ], Satire
• De Porcaria coniuratione, 1453
• Trivia Senatoria, 1460
• De Componendis Cifris. [ 1466/1467 ], De componendis cyfris, lat pdf, full text, instructions for encrypting texts.
• De Iciarchia 1468