Leon Battista
Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti (ital.Leon Battista Alberti, February 18, 1404, Genoa - April 25, 1472, Rome) - the largest architect of the Renaissance, also known as an art theorist, writer, humanist scientist, mathematician, cryptographer and cartographer, teacher and lawyer, in short, a true Renaissance L'uomo universale.

Features of the work of Leon Battista Alberti. In the fundamental work, Ten Books on Architecture, Alberti gave a detailed theory of Renaissance architecture. Alberti-designed buildings are considered the benchmark of Renaissance architecture. They marked an uncompromising break with medieval tradition and a creative rethinking of the architectural principles of antiquity. Alberti's ideas had a significant impact on the further development of European architecture.

Famous works of Leon-Battista Alberti: Palazzo Rucellai (Florence), facade design of the church of Santa Maria Novella (Florence), Tempio Malatestiano (Cathedral of San Francesco, Rimini), Basilica of Sant Andrea (Mantova).

As is the case with many other luminaries of the Renaissance, the biography of Leon Battista Alberti is closely connected with Florence. There are two of his most important architectural masterpieces - the Palazzo Rucellai and the church of Santa Maria Novella, for which Alberti designed the facade. But Alberti was born in Genoa.

Three years earlier, his father, Lorenzo Alberti, a representative of a wealthy Florentine family, was expelled from Florence by political opponents. In Genoa, he met with the local aristocrat Bianca Fieschi. They were not married and their son, to whom his parents gave the name of Battista, was thus illegitimate. As for the second part of the name - Leon - then Alberti will add it to his name on her own later.

The father cared for a decent upbringing for the young Alberti and at the age of 10 sent his son to the boarding house of the famous humanist, rhetoric and grammar Gasparino da Bartsitstsa in Padua. In the seven years spent there, Battista received a brilliant liberal arts education.

At the age of 17, he enters the Bologna University, the oldest in Europe, where he intends to study law, and at the same time listens to lectures on philosophy and theology. An interest in ancient literature and science encouraged Alberti to study Greek - in addition to compulsory Latin. After the death of his father, a young scientist travels to Padua to study physics and mathematics at a local university for some time. At the same time, Leon Battista makes her debut as a writer. He releases the comedy "Philodox" in Latin, composes fables in imitation of his beloved ancient writer Lucian, and also writes the dialogue "Deiphira" in the Volgar - a modern Tuscan dialect.

When Alberti receives a doctorate in canon law, ironically, his own legal and monetary affairs go badly. Being illegitimate, he does not have the right to the capital of his father, he has to endure serious financial difficulties and litigations with relatives due to inheritance.

But there were also bright events: at the age of 24 he was in Florence for the first time - representatives of his last name finally got the opportunity to return to their hometown. Florence is known to be the cradle of the Renaissance. Here Alberti makes acquaintance with many prominent people of his time - architects, artists, scientists, humanists. Among them - Donatello, Brunelleschi, Masaccio.

Abbreviation of the Roman Curia

At the same time, Alberti began his career in the church community. He becomes secretary to the influential Cardinal Nicolo Albergati, and this opens up new perspectives for him. As part of the Cardinal’s retinue, he travels to Europe, visits Germany and Burgundy, and in 1432, Pope Eugene IV even removed the status of illegitimate birth from 28-year-old Alberti.

The highest Roman clergy favors Alberti - he is not only erudite, smart, but also extremely diplomatic. Giorgio Vasari testifies: “Leon Battista was a man of disposition who was most courteous and meritorious, friendly and polite with all, without exception.”
These qualities and patronage of influential patrons provide Alberti with the position of abbreviation of the Roman Curia. He will devote this dust-free work for more than thirty years. All of his extensive scholarly activities during this time were de jure a kind of hobby for Alberti, while his main “job” was to endorse papal letters (breve) before being sent to the bishops in the field.

By the way, Alberti is sometimes reproached for the fact that he personally was not involved in the implementation of any of his architectural designs - neither the chapel of Rucellai, nor the facades of Santa Maria Novella, nor Tempio Malatestiano, nor Mantuan churches. Alberti was only developing innovative projects, and practicing architects had to fight against their objections and resistance to the material, lack of funds or unrealizability of completely adventurous ideas (like the dome of the ancient Pantheon above the temple in Rimini).

Obviously, the duties of the abbreviation were not too burdensome, because Alberti devoted the lion's share of his time to scientific and literary studies. The Latin treatise "On Law" and the dialogue "Pontiff" come out from under his pen. His Latin contemporaries recognize perfect and very refined, but, despite this, Alberti seeks to write literary works in the Tuscan dialect (Volgar). Moreover, Alberti succeeded both in linguistic theory and in practice: firstly, he prepared a treatise "On the Tuscan language", contributing to the formation of a modern literary language, and secondly, his own poems on the Volgar more than once won in poetry competitions and were very popular.

"Universal man"

The experiences of Alberti the artist and Alberti the sculptor are modest; he is more interested in the theoretical side of the matter. His treatise "On Painting" deals with the issues of light, composition and perspective. The impression is sometimes such that no matter what sphere Leon Battista Alberti touches, as a result of the study, he certainly left a treatise for posterity. The work "Mathematical Fun" testifies to his mathematical experiments, the Domostroy treatise, his interest in cryptology is supported by the treatise On Composing Ciphers, about his interest in moral issues.

In general, if you collect everything Albert wrote, it is hard to believe that one person is capable of this. The volume and variety of topics are impressive even by the standards of its abundant universal scientists of the era. The famous Italian literary critic of the 19th century Francesco de Sanctis wrote about Alberti: “Undoubtedly, he was the most educated person of his time and most fully expressed his age in his main tendencies.”

The autobiography of the great architect has also reached us, but its authenticity is being questioned by some scholars. Thanks to this text, you can learn that Alberti loved to play music and sing, was an excellent rider and fencer, architect and sculptor. And also - that he was handsome and stately, elegantly dressed and had extremely impeccable manners.

Alberti's “On the Family”, recently translated into Russian, is a textbook in Italy; it is taught in high school in literature classes.

“All of his universalism,” wrote the Soviet art historian Aleksey Dzhivelegov about Alberti, “is nothing less than a grandiose attempt to know the world and man, to understand them and to interpret them by means of the disciplines that human knowledge possessed in his time.”

Leon Battista Alberti - Theorist of Architecture

With all the diversity of interests of the famous humanist and Vatican functionary, in history he remained primarily as the largest architect-reformer and author of the fundamental Ten Books on Architecture.

Most of Alberti’s life, in connection with his chosen type of activity, was spent in Rome (about this, as usual, he also left the essay “Description of the City of Rome”). Here, archeology was added to his hobbies. Zealous and thorough study of Roman architecture became the foundation of Alberti's own architectural concepts. He wrote: “There was not a single place of any glorification of the work of the ancients anywhere in which I would not immediately seek out whether it is possible to learn anything. I never missed a chance to experience, examine, measure, sketch, so that everything that someone brought with the mind or art, to embrace and comprehend. In this way I facilitated the work of writing with passion and the pleasure of learning. ”

The Ten Books of Architecture by Leon Battista Alberti is a detailed theory of Renaissance architecture, which is based on the creative processing of the ideas of ancient architecture. Alberti's concept is based on the principles of harmony, proportions, proportionality of parts and the whole, functionality and rationality of the location of objects in urban space.

The main architectural masterpieces of Leon Battista Alberti

The first work of Alberti the architect, who glorified him as an innovator, was the project of the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence. This is a three-story building with a flat facade, each floor of which consists of rhythmically alternating windows and pilasters (half-columns). Alberti created it by order of his friend - the Florentine merchant and philanthropist Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai. The Palazzo is a kind of Albertian "encyclopedia" of antique orders: on the lower floor, half-columns with a Dorian order are used, on the middle - with an ionic, on the upper - with Corinthian. To facilitate the architectural appearance of the building, Alberti came up with the idea of making each subsequent floor in height lower than the previous one.

Adjacent to the palazzo is the church of San Pancrazio, in which is located the burial chapel of Ruchelai with a replica (that is, a “creative copy”) of the Holy Sepulcher, the authorship of which is also attributed to Alberti, but not all researchers agree with this.

Another indisputable masterpiece of Alberti, commissioned by Rucellai, is the new look of the facade of the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella. For the first time, Alberti used giant decorative volutes (curls) on the sides of the facade to decorate the cult object and faced it with white and green marble rhombuses and squares.

Several other important sites in Alberti's legacy are located in the cities of Rimini and Mantova. He carried out a project to rebuild the Church of San Francesco for the tyrant Rimini Sigismondo Malatesta (the so-called Tempio Malatestiano - “Temple of Malatesta”), conceived as a giant tomb for him and his lover. And in Mantua, by order of Lodovico Gonzaga, Alberti worked on the reconstruction of the churches of San Sebastiano and Sant Andrea. And if the grandiose project in Rimini, conceived in the image of the Roman Pantheon, remained incomplete and disharmonious, then the Mantua Church of Sant Andrea is considered the embodiment of Albertian impeccable harmony and expressiveness.

Leon Battista Alberti died in Rome on April 20, 1472 at the age of 68. His burial is considered lost.

Anna Yesterday