On Painting 

Notes to the Introduction

Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. [First appeared 1435-36] Translated with 
Introduction and Notes by John R. Spencer. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
1970 [First printed 1956]. 

Leon Battista Alberti's Della pittura is the first modern treatise on the theory 
of painting. Although it appeared at a moment-1435-36-when the old and the new 
order in art were still existing side by side in Florence, it broke with the 
Middle Ages and pointed the way to the modern era. While Cennino Cennini's 
almost contemporary Libro dell' arte summed up preceding medieval practice, 
Della pittura prepared the way for the art, the artist, and the patron of the 
Renaissance. As a result the art of painting was given a new direction which 
made a return to the Middle Ages all but impossible. The practice of painting 
both within and outside Florence fell rapidly under the influence of concepts 
advanced in the treatise. Alberti's own Italian translation from his Latin 
original probably entered the shops as something of an 'inspirational handbook' 
and became so popular that it was read out of existence. By the sixteenth 
century the Italian version was unknown, [1] while today there are only two 
extant Italian manuscripts compared to six in Latin. Although the art Alberti 
advocates is based on training acquired under a master and apprentice system, it 
gives the artist and his art the means of breaking away from such a system to 
attain the individualism familiar since the High Renaissance. In this respect 
Della pittura is intimately bound up with the moment which produced it, a period 
of [p. 11] transition in Florentine art when the new was slowly making its way 
against the old. Alberti's overstatements and his sharp criticism of former 
practice reflect the tensions of his time, yet he never loses his assurance of 
final victory or his optimism for the future. 
As art theory Della pittura became one of the chief sources for later treatises 
on the art of painting. In the fifteenth century Filarete, Piero della Francesca 
and Leonardo drew from it many of the concepts which appear in their writing. 
From the editio princeps published in Basle in 1540 to the present time the work 
has gone through more translations and re-editions than Alberti's De re 
aedificatoria and only slightly fewer than his more generally popular Della 
famiglia. At each appearance of the text it has been taken up by art theorists 
of the moment and woven into their own concepts of the art of painting. The 
Basle edition in Latin was followed in 1547 by Lodovico Domenichi's Italian 
translation published in Venice. Vasari's emphasis on theory in the prefaces of 
his Lives reflects this reawakened interest in the treatise. The DuFresne 
translation of 1651 in Paris became the basis for much of Félibien's Entretiens 
in which Alberti is evoked as an 'authority' for French academic practice. Della 
pittura was not made generally available in England until Leoni brought out four 
English translations between 1726 and 1755; their effect on Hogarth, Reynolds 
and the Royal Academy is quite clear. 
Perhaps the academies were too strongly attracted to Alberti's treatise. 
Certainly their interpretation of it has damaged its current reputation. 
Academic painters from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries were 
searching for a rational art which allowed no place for fantasy. In such an art 
the solid virtues of diligence and application advocated by Alberti take on 
greater importance than the bravura of genius. The academics saw in Della 
pittura the means to fill their needs. In their hands Alberti's suggestions 
become rigid rules; his concepts of reason, verisimilitude, and dignity are 
exaggerated out of proportion. Unfortunately, many critics still regard Della 
pittura as the source of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century academic practice. 
Alberti's suggestions of drawing from sculpture do not necessarily refer to 
plaster casts of the antique, nor can his concept of istoria be limited strictly 
to narrative or historical painting. Della pittura must first be considered as a 
document of and for the art of fifteenth-century Florence, without the 
accretions of succeeding centuries. 
The surprise which Alberti expresses in his Italian dedication at seeing the new 
Florence on his return 'from the long exile in which we Alberti have grown old 
into this our city adorned above all others' [2] is only partly literary. 
Although he may have briefly visited Florence late in 1428 when the ban against 
the Alberti was partially raised, this statement is the first indication of his 
return to the city of his forbears. Beginning in 1387 with the exile of Leon 
Batista's grandfather, Benedetto, the head of the Alberti family, the Albizzi 
faction had succeeded by 1412 in expelling all but one Alberti from Florence. 
Leon Battista's father, Lorenzo, was banished from the city in 1401. Like other 
members of the family he transferred his activities to a city with an important 
branch of the Alberti banks. In Genoa a noble Bolognese widow bore him two sons, 
Carlo in 1403 and Battista in 1404. Lorenzo's childless marriage in 1408 to a 
Florentine woman has caused confusion as to the place and date of Alberti's 
birth until the recent discovery of a document which identifies his mother and 
the year of his birth. [3] By 1410 Lorenzo Alberti was established in Venice and 
Padua, and the young Battista was probably entered in the school of the humanist 
Gasparino Barzizza at Padua. In 1421 he had already enrolled in canon and civil 
law at the University of Bologna. Perhaps by 1424-5 new interests led him to the 
study of philosophy and the natural sciences. Although the decade preceding 
Alberti's appointment as abbreviatore apostolico in 1431 is probably the least 
documented [p. 13] period in his life, the nature of these formative years can 
be deduced from his writings. The increasing frequency of references to Greek 
and Roman authors, together with essays and a play based on Roman models, 
indicate his rapid assimilation of the newly discovered literature of antiquity. 
It is characteristic of Alberti that he was not merely a receptacle for 
knowledge. As his mind opened under the influence of the literature of the past, 
he felt a need to incorporate his own thinking with that of the ancients in the 
form of essays and letters. Alberti was apparently not so stimulated by his 
travels as he was by study and writing. References to the lime used in mortar in 
France and Bruges [4] are the only indications that he may have accompanied 
Cardinal Nicholas Albergati on the peace mission of 1431 that attempted to end 
the Hundred Years War. By 1434 Alberti's literary and philosophical knowledge 
probably compared well with that of any young humanist. His artistic knowledge 
may have been limited to a reasonable understanding of the art of northern 
Italy, an acquaintance with the art of France and the Low Countries, and a 
lively interest in Roman antiquity aroused by his attachment to the Curia in 
Rome from 1431. With such a background Alberti could not fail to be astounded on 
entering Florence with the suite of Pope Eugene IV in 1434. Brunelleschi was 
just closing the dome of the Cathedral, while the Sagrestia Vecchia of S. 
Lorenzo was finished and the nave of the church probably was well under 
construction. Donatello had completed much of his sculpture for the fa�ade of 
the cathedral and the niches of Or San Michele and had begun work on his 
Cantoria. Ghiberti's first doors for the Baptistry were already in place and the 
second doors were in progress. Both Masaccio and Nanni di Banco were dead but 
their works were still fresh and new in Florence. Alberti had stepped into an 
artistic revolution. Its powerful and instantaneous impact is felt throughout 
Della pittura and lingers on in the much later De re aedificatoria. [5] 
Alberti's enthusiasm and his optimism for the accomplishments [p. 14] of the new 
age continued throughout his life. His energies were rarely directed towards 
uncovering new knowledge for a restricted group of fellow humanists, but rather 
towards making the knowledge acquired by the humanists available to a wider 
audience. In the ameliorative sense of the word, he was a popularizer. Della 
pittura partakes of this tendency in Alberti's work. His aim in this treatise is 
one of making the new humanist art of Florence understandable and desirable for 
a larger group of artists and patrons. Like many of his other works, Della 
pittura is not based solely on citations drawn from antique texts. Greek and 
Roman authors are used to give variety to the subject matter and to establish 
precedents for the suggestions advanced. The real basis for all of Alberti's 
writings lies in practice. Della pittura is built on the means, the aims and the 
results of the art of Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio. At the same time 
Alberti was not wholly ignorant of the actual problems confronting the artist. 
Although we would perhaps call him a dilettante today, there is evidence that he 
painted, made drawings, sculpture and perhaps engravings. [6] His well-known 
treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria, is partly based on Vitruvius and 
other antique texts and partly on his own experience in building. Alberti's 
architecture need not be discussed here, yet his approach to theory and practice 
is as typical in the treatise on architecture as it is in any of his other works 
on the arts. The same approach characterized his writings in other fields. 
Although he died a celibate, he felt qualified by his knowledge of literary 
sources and by his participation in the closely knit gens to write a treatise on 
the governing of the family. This interest in a wide variety of subjects--from 
painting to the duties of a pontiff--and his competence in handling them support 
Burckhardt's characterization of Alberti as the first universal genius. [7] 
Although Alberti was certainly not the only man in Florence capable of writing a 
treatise on the new art of painting, he was  probably better equipped for 
the task than any other humanist of the time. He had the interest in art which 
many of his literary friends lacked, and a control of words which no artist of 
that moment could equal. The literary and philosophical baggage he brought to 
his task was essential for giving utterance to the principles governing this new 
art and for convincing both patrons and painter that it was an art worth 
adopting. 
Alberti's academic training was not particularly unusual among humanists. At 
Barzizza's school he was introduced to a body of learning based on the medieval 
curriculum and on newly discovered antique manuscripts. At the University of 
Bologna he heightened his critical and synthetic faculties. In Della pittura he 
is well prepared to argue the case for the new art with a crisp Ciceronian 
logic, illustrated with citations from ancient authors and demonstrated with 
mathematical proofs. Yet these are only the means employed in the composition of 
the first modern treatise on the theory of painting; the philosophic bases on 
which Alberti's thesis rests are no less important. 
It would be an exaggeration to dignify Alberti with the title of philosopher; 
certainly he had no system. Although he probably drifted towards the systemized 
thought of the Florentine Neo-platonic academy, his relation to this group has 
been greatly exaggerated by Cristoforo Landino. At the time of the composition 
of Della pittura it is difficult to assign Alberti's thought to any philosophic 
niche. The influence of the anti-Aristotelian atmosphere at the University of 
Padua undoubtedly extended to Barzizza's school, where the young Alberti would 
have acquired a negative view towards Aristotle and the Christianized Aristotle 
of St. Thomas. The Nominalism of William of Ockham had spread into Italy and was 
so well established that Nicholas of Cusa, educated in the Ockhamite houses of 
the Rhine valley, could find a congenial atmosphere at the University of Padua. 
Della pittura certainly reflects the Nominalist approach to knowledge and its 
acquisition. At the [p. 16] same time the influence of Cicero extends beyond the 
rhetoric and organization of the treatise. It seems quite probable that 
Alberti's thought at the time of the composition of Della pittura --as well as 
the contemporary Della famiglia and Della tranquillità dell' animo --could be 
characterized as a Christianized Ciceronian stoicism. From Cicero he drew a 
method of analysis and synthesis, with man and his rational processes at its 
centre. The logic of Ciceronian rhetoric is applied to nature and to art with 
results that lead Alberti to a buoyant optimism reflected in almost every page 
of Della pittura. 
Alberti's thought in this treatise and his other writings of the same period can 
be briefly summarized. Knowledge comes first from sensory perceptions. These 
perceptions are compared with each other and related to man in order to derive 
general conclusions. The conclusions are tested and made applicable by means of 
mathematics. Alberti is completely self-assured and confident of his method. In 
his own examination of knowledge, man becomes the point of departure and the 
centre of the investigation. Because man's knowledge is based on sensory data 
Alberti is concerned with visual appearances. Hence his preoccupation with the 
extreme limits of things, with the concept of orlo or outline, and with the 
superficie or plane defined as the 'certain external part of a body which is 
known not by its depth but only by its length and breadth and by its quality.' 
[8] Solid bodies are frequently referred to as having a skin. [9] It is for this 
reason that Alberti is concerned with the play of light and shade across the 
surface of an object, for thus the object is known. 
Once the sensory observations are made conclusions must be drawn. In Alberti's 
epistemology this would be done on a comparative basis, for 'comparision 
contains within itself a power which immediately demonstrates in objects which 
is more, less or equal'. [10] De statua includes a canon of proportions arrived 
at by this very means. In the same way all Alberti's findings are ultimately 
related to man, who is the standard by which we know. 'Perhaps Protagoras, by 
saying that man is [p. 17] the mode and measure of all things, meant that all 
the accidents of things are known through comparison to the accidents of man.' 
[11] This is not a system based on a priori absolutes; it is rather a flexible 
knowledge which depends upon the point of view. 
Although the treatise may appear at first glance to rest on rather unstable 
grounds, Alberti reassures the reader and buttresses his theory with the logic 
of mathematics. For Alberti and many of his contemporaries Nature, defined as 
all that outside the individual and of which he is also a part, is homogenous 
and amorphous. If Nature is homogenous, the whole is knowable from its 
observable part. Since man, nature, and mathematics are all parts of the same 
whole, man has only to use mathematics to understand and to control nature. This 
is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in Alberti's perspective construction. 
Here mathematics, although based first on the relative and unknowable man, is 
used to construct and to control the space which man is to inhabit both as actor 
and observer. 

The essence of Alberti's aesthetics, as well as its relations to his thought, 
can perhaps be best apprehended through an investigation of three topics basic 
in the treatise; his approach to visible reality, la più grassa Minerva, his use 
of the mathematical sciences as a means of controlling this reality, 
mathematica, and the means and aim of humanist painting, istoria. 
La più grassa Minerva 
The application of Alberti's epistemology to observable reality and to painting 
becomes his striking term: la più grassa Minerva. As a term it contains two 
levels of meaning. The first, derived from Cicero, refers to a more popular sort 
of knowledge or the propagandizing nature of the treatise. [12] Considered out 
of context the term is practically meaningless, except on the level of Cicero, 
but the whole phrase, taken with what we already know of Alberti's thought, 
elucidates his completely new approach to the art of painting. He says 
mathematicians examine the form of things separated from matter, but 'since we 
wish the object to be seen, we will use a more sensate wisdom'. [13] His 
interest, then, is in form not separated from matter and in form as it is 
visible. This implies matter which, in turn, must be located in space and light 
to be visible. Ultimately all this will refer back to its basis in man by whom 
these things are known. 
There can be no doubt that Alberti is deeply concerned with vision and 
visibility throughout Della pittura. He states clearly the aim of his 
investigation: 'No one would deny that the painter has nothing to do with things 
that are not visible The painter is concerned solely with representing what can 
be seen.' [14] He defines the point as a figure which cannot be divided into 
parts; a figure is anything located on a surface so the eye can see it. [15] 
This definition puts the emphasis on vision while denying the strictly 
mathematical definition which he retains later in the Elementi di pittura. 'They 
say a point is that which cannot be divided into parts.' [16] The superficie, in 
the same way, is considered primarily as a visible quantity without reference to 
the matter which lies beneath it. The whole perspective construction is based on 
monocular vision and is approached by an analysis of vision in which Alberti 
examines the way bodies seem to change their appearance. Light, though not 
visible itself, is essential to the whole problem, for the philosophers say that 
nothing can be seen which is not illuminated and coloured.' [17] 
A concern with this matter which natural light makes visible pervades the whole 
of Della pittura, rather than the abstractions and geometry that have been 
called the ruling factors of Alberti's aesthetic. He has a feeling for the 
materials of the artist--the washes of the underpaint, the pigments of the 
painting, the gold and jewels of the frame--that could only have come from a man 
so interested in the problems posed by matter  that he has investigated 
them personally. The value of the material is separated from the artistic value 
of the object; 'If figures were made by the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles from 
lead itself--the lowest of metals--they would be valued more highly than 
silver.' [18] Yet beyond the matter of his painting the painter must be 
concerned with the matter of the observable world which exists in space and 
light. He must find a means of controlling the matter of the macrocosm if he is 
to represent it in his microcosm. 
A large portion of the treatise, especially in Books I and II, is devoted to an 
investigation of this problem. Early in the first book Alberti briefly shows the 
painter the method to use for his own personal analysis of observable light 
phenomena: 'We see green fronds lose their greenness little by little until they 
finally become pale. Similarly, it is not unusual to see a whitish vapour in the 
air around the horizon which fades out little by little [as one looks towards 
the zenith]. We see some roses which are quite purple, others are like the 
cheeks of young girls, others ivory.' [19] This is the fist and empirical 
approach to matter in space and light, but the painter must represent that which 
he sees with a different matter and with simulated rather than real lights. 
In Book I Alberti 'puts the art in the hand of the artist'. and shows him how to 
represent light and shade in the underpainting. When the local colour of the 
object is applied over the underpaint, it will appear to be seen under light 
with deeper colours in the shadows gradually fading out as they approach the 
highlights. This matter, however, exists in space, and for this reason Alberti 
presents the painter with his mathematical derived perspective construction to 
control and to locate matter in space. By using a reticulated net the painter 
can locate objects in space and not their reference to each other in planar 
terms. These observations transferred to the perspective construction will 
relocate the objects in an apparent space. 

Alberti 'On Painting'
Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. [First appeared 1435-36] Translated with 
Introduction and Notes by John R. Spencer. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
1970 [First printed 1956]. 
S  o  u  r  c  e  s

This translation is based solely on manuscript sources. Of these the Italian 
manuscript, MI, is the most important. All the other known Italian and Latin 
manuscripts have been collated with MI in order to obtain clearer readings, 
variants and emendations for this text. The known extant manuscripts can be 
described briefly in order of importance. [Professors Paul O. Kristeller and 
Cecil Grayson have brought to my attention eight additional manuscripts of Della 
pittura that I have not been able to consult.] 

Italian Manuscripts 
MI Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Magl. II, IV, 38. Fifteenth century, paper 
[21.5 x 29.5 cm.]. Folios 120r-136v. 
P Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale. Fonds italien 1692. Fifteenth century, paper 
[14 x 20 cm.]. Folios 1r-31r. Corrupt. 

Latin Manuscripts 
O Vatican, Codex Ottoboniani Latini 1424. Fifteenth century, paper [27 x 39 
cm.]. Folios 1r-25v. 
OF Vatican, Cod. Ottobon. Lat. 2274. Fifteenth century, paper [14.5 x 20.5 cm.]. 
Folios 1r-42v. Fragmentary. 
RL Vatican, Codex Reginenses Latini 1549. Fifteenth century, parchment [13.5 x 
20 cm.]. Folios 1r-32v. 
NC University of North Carolina. Uncatalogued. Fifteenth century, paper [20 x 30 
cm.]. Folios 1r-23v. [p. 33] 
R Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, 767. Fifteenth century, paper [21 x 28 cm.]. 
Folios 65r-103v. 
ML Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale. Magl. II, VIII, 58. Fifteenth century, paper 
[21 x 28 cm.]. Folios 1r-26v. 

A comparison of attributed holograph material with the extant manuscripts proves 
that none of the known versions of the text is in Alberti's own hand. For this 
reason we must postulate lost holograph Latin and Italian versions, XL and XI 
respectively, as sources of the present texts. Their genealogy can be 
illustrated graphically with the addition of a lost Latin manuscript [YL] to 
explain the variants of R and ML and a lost Italian version YI as a source for 
P. 
    LATIN             ITALIAN
     [XL]                  [XI]
  ______________        _______________

     O OF   [YL]       MI   [YI]

	
     RL NC	          P

        R

        ML

Until the nineteenth century translators and editors of Della pittura made no 
mention of their manuscript source. In 1847 Bonucci published for the first time 
what he thought was the holograph Italian version, MI. Janitschek based his 
Italian-German version on O, R, and MI, although he also knew OF and RL. Papini 
uses only MI. Mallé has used only MI, O, and the first printed edition of the 
text. Former editors have consulted manuscripts OF and RL to a limited extent; 
ML, NC, and P have never before been used. 
The printed editions of Della pittura are as follows: [After P.-H. Michel, La 
Pensée de L. B. Ablerti (Paris 1930), with additions.] 
1. 1540 Basle. Thomas Ventorium. Latin Text. 
2. 1547 Venice. Lodovico Domenichi Italian translation from Latin. 
3. 1565 Monte Regale. Bartoli edition of 2. 
4. 1568 Florence. Re-edition of 2. 
5. 1568 Venice. Bartoli Italian translation. Opere morali di Leon Battista 
Alberti. 

6. 1649 Amsterdam. [Printed in Leyden]. Elzevir. Latin text. 
7. 1651 Paris. DuFresne translation from Bartoli [5]. 
8. 1726 London. Leoni translation based on Bartoli. 
9. 1733 Naples. Rispoli re-edition of DuFresne. 
10. 1739 London. Re-edition of 8. 
11. 1751 London. Leoni translation based on Elzevir [6]. 
12. 1755 London. Leoni translation based on DuFresne [7]. 
13. 1782 Bologna. Re-edition of Bartoli. 
14. 1782 Bologna. Re-edition of DuFresne. 
15. 1784 Madrid D. Diego Antonio Rejon de Silva translation. 
16. 1786 Bologna. Re-edition of DuFresne. 
17. 1803 Milan. Re-edition of 13. 
18. 1804 Perugia Re-edition of 13. 
19. 1804 Milan Re-edition of 13. 
20. 1827 Madrid Re-edition of 15. 
21. 1843-44-45-47-49. Florence. Bonucci, Opere volgare in five volumes. 
22. 1868 Paris. Popelin translation. 
23. 1877 Vienna. Janitschek translation with Italian text. Part of 
Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte series. 

24. 1913 Lanciano. Papini re-edition and correction of 23. 
25. 1950 Florence. Mallé edition. 

Ideally the translation which follows should be read in conjunction with 
Alberti's Italian or Latin. Since it was not considered practical at the present 
time to bring out a definitive edition of the text along with the translation, 
the serious student is recommended to Luigi Mallé's edition [Sansoni, Florence, 
1950] as by far the best published Italian version of the text. The major Latin 
variants are inserted in italics in this translation at the point where they 
would normally occur in the text. [pp. 33-35]