LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI 

Architect of Florence
     (I404-1472)

LETTERS are of the greatest use to all those artists who delight in them, but 

especially to sculptors, painters and architects, by paving a way for their 

inventions, while tvithout them no one can have a perfect judgment, however 

great his natural ability. Who does not know that in choosing sites for buildings 

it is necessary to consider philosophically the severity of pcstilential winds, 

the unhealthiness of the air, the smell and exhalations of impure and unhealthy 

waters? Who does not know that it is necessary when a work is to be begun to 

ascertain, unaided, by mature reflection, what to avoid and what to adopt, 

without 

being obliged to have recourse to the theories of others, which, when unilluminated 

by practice, are usually of little assistance. But when theory and‚ practice are united 

in one person, the ideal condition is atta!ned, because art is enriched and perfected 

by knowledge, the opinions and writings of learned artists having more weight and 

more credit than the words or works of those who have nothing more to recommend 

them beyond what they have produced; whethqr it be done well or ill. The truth 

of these 

remarks is illustrated by Leon Battista Alberti, who, having studied the Latin tongue 

and practised architecture, perspective and painting; has left works to which modern 

artists can add nothing, although numbers of them have surpassed him in practical 

skill. 

His writings possess such force that is it commonly supposed that he surpassed all 

those 

who were actually his superiors in art. Thus it is clear from experience that, with 

respect 

to fan,e and name, writings enjoy the greatest power and vitality, for books easily 

penetrate 

everywhere and inspire confidence if they are true and lie not. It is no marvel, then, 

if the 

famous Leon Battista is better known by his writings than by the works of his hands. 

He was born in Florence 1 of the most noble family of the Alberti, spoken of 

elsewhere, 

and he endeavoured not only to explore the world and measure antiquities, but also 

paid 

much more attention to writing than to his other work, following his inclination. 

He was an 

excellent mathematician and geometrician, and wrote a Latin work on architecture 

in ten 

books, published by him in 1485. It may be read to-day in the translation by the 

Rev. M. 

Cosimo Bartoli, provost of S. Giovanni in Florence. He wrote three books on 

painting, 

which have been translated into Tuscan by -I. Ludovico Domenichi. He wrote a 

treatise on 

traction and on measiiring elevations, the Libri della Vita Civile, and some erotic 

works 

in prose and verse, while he was the first to employ the Latin prosody for verses 

in the vulgar 

tongue, as may be seen in this letter of his: 

Questa per estrema miserabile pistola mando

A te che spregi miseramente noi.

Leon Battista happened to artive in Rome at the time when Nicholas V.' by his 

manner of 

building had turned the city upside down, and by the offices of his close friend, 

Biondo da 

Forli, he became intimate with the Pope, who had hitherto been advised in 

architectural matters 

by Bernardo Rossellino, sculptor aiid architect of Florence, as will be said in 

the life of his 

brother Antonio. 

This man having begun to restore the Pope's palace and to do some things in 

S. Maria Maggiore 

in conformity with the Pope's wishes, always previously took the advice of Leon 

Battista. Thus 

the Pope, by following the advice of one of them and the execution of the other, 

arried out many 

useful and praiseworthy things, such as the rebuilding of the rvined acqueduct of 

the Virgin, making 

the fountain on the piazza de' Trevi with the marble ornamentation which is still 

there, containing

the arms of that pontiff and of the Roman people. 

After this Leon went to Sigismondo Malatesti, lord of Rimini, and desigiied for 

him the church of 

S. Francesco, and especially its inarble fa~de, as well as an arcade of large arches 

on the south side 

and the tombs for illustrious men of the city.3 In short, he so transformed the 

building that from being 

quite an ordinary work it became one of the most famous temples in Italy. 

The interior contains six fine chapels. One of them dedicated to St. Jerome is 

very ornate, many relics 

from Jerusalem being preserved there. In the same church are the tombs of 

Sigismondo 

and his wife, 

richly constructed of marble in the year 1450, and above one is the effigy of that 

lord, and in another 

part of the work is the portrait of Leon Battista. In the ycar following, 1457, in which 

John Gutemberg, 

a German, discovered the most useful art of printing books, Leon Battista likewise

 made a discovery 

for representing landscapes and for diminishing‚ and enlarging figures by means 

of an instrument, all 

good inventions, useful to art. It happened that when Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai 

wished to build the 

facade of S. Maria Novella in marble at his own cost, he consulted Leon Battista, 

his close friend, who 

not only gave him advice, but the design, so that he decided to execute the work 

as a memorial of himself. 

Accordingly it was begun and finished in 1477, to the general satisfaction, the 

whole work giving pleasure, 

but especially the door, upon which Leon Battista clearly bestowed more than 

ordinary pains. 

For Cosimo Rucellai he made the design of the palace which he erected in the 

street called Ia Vigua, and 

that of the loggia opposite. In this he formed his arches over the narrow columns 

on the forward face, but 

as he wished to continue these and not make a single arch, he found he had too 

much space in every direction. 

Accordingly he was obliged to make brackets on the inside. When he came to 

the vaulting of the interior he 

found that to give it the sixth of a half-circle would result in cramped and 

awkward appearance, and so he 

decided to form small arches from one hracket to another. This lack of judgment 

and design proves tliat 

practice is necessary as well as theory, because the judgment can never be 

perfected unless knowledge is put 

into practice. 

It is said that he also made the design for the house and garden of these same 

Rucellai in the via della Scala, 

a work of great judgment and very convenient, for beside many other things 

lie introduced two loggias, one 

facing south and another west, both very beautiful, and erected upon columns 

without arches. 

This method is the true one, and was observed by the ancients, because the 

architraves which are laid upon the 

capitals of the columns make things level, whereas a square thing such as 

arches are, which turn, cannot rest upon

a round column, without throwing the corners out; the true method of construction 

herefore requires that the 

architraves shall be placed upon the colunins, and that when arches are made 

they should be borne by pilasters 

and not by co!umns.

For the same the same style, Leon Battista made a chapel in S. Brancazio, 

which is borne upon large architraves 

laid upon two columns and two pilasters made in the wall of the church, a 

difficult but safe method, so that this is 

one of the best works of our architect. In the middle of the chapel is a fine

marble tomb of an elongated ovals form, 

like the sepulchre of Christ at Jerusalem, as an inscnption indicates. 

At this same time, Ludovico Gonzago, Marquis 

of Mantua, wished to make the tribune and principal cliapel in the Nunziata of the 

Servites at Florence, from designs 

by Leon Battista. 

Accordingly he pulled down an old square chapel there of no great size, painted in 

he old style, and made the beautiful 

and difficult tribune in the shape of a round temple, surrounded by nine chapels 

forming an arc and constructed like 

niches ‚1 The arches of the chapel being borne by the pilasters in front, the stone 

ornamentation of the arches inclining 

towards the wall, tends to lean backward in order to meet the wall, thus turning 

away from the tribune. Accordingly, 

when the arches of the chapels are looked at from the side, they have an ugly 

appearance, as they fall backwards, 

although the measurements are correct and the mcthod of construction difficult. 

Indeed, it would have been better had Leon Battista avoided this method, because, 

besides being awkward to carry out, 

it cannot be done successfully, being ugly as a whole and in the details. 

Thus we see that, though the great front arch is very fine when looked at from 

the outside at the entrance of the tribune,

it is extremely ugly on the inside, because it has to be turned in conformity with 

the round chapel, and this gives it the 

appearance of falling backwards. 

Possibly Leon Battista would not have done this if he had possessed practical 

knowledge and experience in addition to 

his learning and theories, for any otficr man would have avoided such difficulties, 

and striven rather to render the 

building ‚` as graceful and beautiful as possible In other respects this work is entirely 

beautiful, ingenious and difficult, 

and the courage of Leon Battista must have been great to make the vaulting of the 

tribune in such a manner in that age.

Being invited to Mantua afterwards by the same Marquis Ludovico, Leon Battista 

made the model of the church of S. 

Andrea 9 and some other things for him, and on the road from Mantua to Padua 

some churches built in his style may be 

seen. Salvestro 3 I~ancclli carried out the designs and models of Leon Battista. 

lie was an architect and sculptor of 

Florence of some ability, and executed for Leon Battista all the works which he 

had done in Florence with extraordinary

 judgment and diligence. 

Those at Mantua were done by one Luca,4 a Florentine, who subsequently came to 

live in the city and died there. 

According to Filarete he left his name to the family of the Luchi, which still Gourishes 

there. 

Leon Battista was not a little fortunate, therefore, in having friends who understood 

him, knew liis methods and were 

willing to serve him for as architects cannot always be at their woik, a faithful 

and' loving executor is a great boon to 

them, as I know very well by my own experience. 

In painting Leon Battista produced no great or remarkable work, his things being 

small without great perfection. 

This is not remarkable, because he paid more attention to his studies than to design. 

Yet he was able to show liis meaning 

in his drawings, as we see by some sheets of his in our book, containing a drawing 

of the Ponte S. Agnolo, and of the 

roof made there from his design for the loggia, as a shelter from the sun in summer 

and from the wind and the rain in 

winter. This work was given to him by Pope Nicholas V., who intended to make 

many similar ones all oyer Rome, had 

not death interposed. Another work of Leon Battista on the side of the ponte alla 

Carraia at Florence, in a small chapel

of Our Lady, is a small altar-slab eontalning three scenes with perspectives, much 

better described by his Pen than they

were painted by his brush. In Florence also there Is a portrait of himself in the 

house of Palla Rucellai, done with a 

mirror, and a picture of somewhat large figures in chiaroscuro. 

He further painted a Venice in perspective, and S. Marco, but the figures were 

done by other masters, and this is one of 

his best paintings. He was a person of the most courteous and praise- worthy 

manners, a friend of distinguished men, 

generous and kind to all. He lived honourably like a nobleman all his days, 

and after having attained a somewhat 

advanced age, passed quietly and contentedly to a better life, leaving an 

honoured name behind him.