Humanism and the Urban World: Leon Battista Alberti and the Renaissance City

Notes

Regarding translations from the Latin and Italian, I have quoted from published English translations when they were available, noting any instances in which I have modified them. Unless otherwise specified, all other English translations are my own. Introduction 1. Alberti, On the Art of Building 4.2, 95 (references are to book, chapter, and page numbers in Rykwert, Leach, and Tavernor’s translation). 2. On the rise of the notary, see Waley, Italian City-Republics, 29–30. 3. It was, of course, a central contention of Burckhardt’s Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy that rulers and governing bodies of Italian city-states, lacking the kind of legitimacy enjoyed by the rulers of other European states, were compelled to think in a more conscious and reflective manner about the nature of the state and its governance. Burckhardt saw this as leading to a new approach to the state as a “work of art.” 4. On this, see Choay, The Rule and the Model, 6. 5. Garin, Umanesimo Italiano, 86: “L’occhio dell’Alberti vagheggia una città terrena armoniosa come uno dei suoi palazzi, ove la natura si piega all’intenzione dell’arte come la obbediente pietra serena dei colli fiorentini.” Garin’s view of Alberti would later change considerably. 6. Eden, “Studies in Urban Theory”; G. Simoncini, Città e società, 1:28–29; and Westfall, In This Most Perfect Paradise. 7. Holmes, Florentine Enlightenment, 169. 8. Westfall, In This Most Perfect Paradise, 58. 9. Shirwood probably purchased his copy in Florence and seems to have regarded it as a highly prized possession. The book was passed on to his successor at Durham, Richard Fox, and went on to form part of Fox’s Corpus Christi foundation library. This information is derived from Jonathan Foyle’s “Italian Architectural Treatises in England Prior to 1520” (lecture, Renaissance Architecture and Theory Scholars’ Day, Courtauld Institute, London, May 4, 2002). I am grateful to Jonathan Foyle for subsequently clarifying some points of the story further for me. 10. This elaborately illustrated edition followed the (short-lived) success of Leoni’s earlier publication of Palladio. It included parallel Italian and English texts and also incorporated Alberti’s shorter treatises on painting and sculpture. Leoni’s edition was reprinted in 1739 and again in 1755 without the Italian text. It was reprinted a third time in 1955, in London, edited by Joseph Rykwert. For details of editions of Alberti’s treatise, see Rykwert’s introduction to Alberti, On the Art of Building, xviii–xxii. 11. Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 1:86. Notes 198 NOTES TO PAGES 5–9 12. Ibid., 1:88. Roscoe follows Vasari in judging Alberti to have been primarily a theorist who was found somewhat wanting in artistic and architectural practice. 13. Burckhardt, Civilization, 103. 14. Eliot, Romola, 295. 15. Gadol, Leon Battista Alberti, xiii. 16. This may owe to the particular difficulties of finding an Italian term for master builder that would adequately describe Alberti. Capomaestro would be entirely wrong. 17. Quoted in Celenza, Renaissance Humanism, 156–57: “Et aequalem meum Baptistam Albertum, cuius ingenium ita laudo ut hac laude cum eo neminem comparem, ita admiror ut magnum mihi nescio quid portendere inposterum videatur. Est enim eiusmodi ut ad quancumque se animo conferat facultatem, in ea facile ac brevi ceteris antecellat.” 18. For Alberti’s biography, see Mancini, Vita; Grayson, “Leon Battista Alberti: Vita e opera”; and more recently Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti. For a discussion regarding the current state of biographical studies, see Boschetto, “Tra biografia e autobiografia.” 19. This is not to say, of course, that the Alberti accepted exile. On the contrary, they made repeated attempts to be readmitted, sometimes having recourse to arms. 20. On Alberti’s illegitimacy, see Kuehn, “Reading Between the Patrilines” and “Leon Battista Alberti come illegittimo.” Kuehn emphasizes that at various stages of his life, Alberti suffered profoundly negative consequences as a result of his illegitimacy. 21. Watkins, “Leon Battista Alberti in the Mirror,” 8. 22. This is the title given to them by their modern translator, David Marsh. 23. Marsh, “Aesop and the Humanist Apologue.” 24. Boschetto, “Tra biografia e autobiografia,” 101–3, explores how Alberti’s account of his switch from law to mathematics relates to a literary tradition regarding the conduct of students and teachers. 25. The source is Johannes Regiomontanus, quoted in Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti, 245. 26. Alberti, Treatise on Ciphers, 4. 27. For a thorough analysis of Alberti’s architectural career that examines how, when, and...