I libri della famiglia di Leon Battista Alberti

by Leon Battista Alberti

I libri della famiglia di Leon Battista Alberti

255 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Influential treatises on painting, architecture, and sculpture of Italian writer Leon Battista Alberti introduced classical ideas into Renaissance art.

This author, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer, and general humanist polymath, often characterized exclusively, as James Beck observed, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts." Giorgio Vasari described life of Alberti in Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori or "Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Ba...

Reviews

[Esperança · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a valuable primary source and it is such fun to read! It's written not as a simple treatise but as a dialogue between younger and older men, who speak of how to best choose a wife, build a family and keep a happy home in 15th century Florence. The characters advise each other on how children are likely to grow up wholesome if they often look at beautiful things, and they discuss wether it can be advantageous to marry a girl from an impoverished nobel family. The attitudes preserved in these books are incredibly conservative and sexist - they helped me understand the portrayal of the ideal woman in the arts at the time and I learned a lot!