The prodigy poet, playwright, architect, painter, and humanist savant Leon Battista Alberti emerged in 1435 with De pictura ['On Painting'], the modern era's earliest discourse on Western art, written in classical Latin by an ostensible practitioner of the craft. Alberti has captivated the art world from his own epoch to ours, and his dubious Florentine identity enables this allure. In this volume, Peter Weller challenges the popular notion that De pictura's compendium on lines, points, mathematics, composition, narrative, and portraiture is primarily the result of Alberti's return to Florence and his short exposure to its visual art. Weller argues that Rome, Padua, Bologna, and northern Europe – environs where Alberti studied, worked, and lived during exile – empowered his paramount intellectual-artistic gift. Scrutiny of Alberti's evolution before Florence illuminates how this original Renaissance man merged the two most conspicuous cultural developments of early modern Italy – visual art and humanism — to create De pictura, our first modern book on painting.
By:
Peter Weller Imprint: Cambridge University Press Country of Publication: United Kingdom Dimensions:
Height: 260mm,
Width: 187mm,
Spine: 26mm
Weight: 990g ISBN:9781009548663 ISBN 10: 1009548662 Pages: 400 Publication Date:06 March 2025 Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format:Hardback Publisher's Status: Active
Peter Weller is an independent scholar of Italian Renaissance art.
