sansaregina:art history meme • [1/8] artists: leon battista albertiLeon Battista Alberti (February 1

sansaregina:art history meme • [1/8] artists: leon battista albertiLeon Battista Alberti (February 14, 1404 – April 25, 1472) was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man.His first major architectural commission was in 1446 for the facade of the Rucellai Palace in Florence. This was followed in 1450 by a commission from Sigismondo Malatesta to transform the Gothic church of San Francesco in Rimini into a memorial chapel, the Tempio Malatestiano. In Florence, he designed the upper parts of the facade for the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, famously bridging the nave and lower aisles with two ornately inlaid scrolls, solving a visual problem and setting a precedent to be followed by architects of churches for four hundred years. In 1452, he completed De re aedificatoria, a treatise on architecture, using as its basis the work of Vitruvius and influenced by the archaeological remains of Rome. The work was not published until 1485. It was followed in 1464 by his less influential work, De statua, in which he examines sculpture. Among Alberti’s smaller studies, pioneering in their field, were a treatise in cryptography, De componendis cifris, and the first Italian grammar.  “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.” -- source link

More pics about