Leon Battista Alberti

Introduction
Childhood and education
Contribution to philosophy, science, and the arts
Legacy

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

Marble facade of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, by Leon Battista Alberti, 1456–70. In the foreground is one of two marble obelisks by the Flemish sculptor best known as Giambologna (Jean de Boulogne).

Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti, c. 1445–70.

Facade of Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, designed by Leon Battista Alberti, featuring three stories of symmetrical arched windows and geometric stonework in Early Renaissance style.

The marble facade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, designed by Leon Battista Alberti, features geometric patterns, a large rose window, and three arched doorways.

At a Glance

Leon Battista Alberti summary

Quizzes

Close-up of a palette held by a man. Mixing paint, painting, color mixing.

Artists, Painters, & Architects

Hagia Sophia. Istanbul, Turkey. Constantinople. Church of the Holy Wisdom. Church of the Divine Wisdom. Mosque.

Architecture: The Built World

Related Questions

How did Leon Battista Alberti contribute to the development of cryptography?
How did Leon Battista Alberti explain the relationship between a painting and a window?
How did Leon Battista Alberti use Classical Roman architecture in his building designs?
How did Leon Battista Alberti’s moral philosophy reflect urban life in Renaissance Italy?
How did Leon Battista Alberti’s perspective theories influence Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci?
How did Renaissance humanism shape Leon Battista Alberti’s ideas?
How did Vitruvius influence Leon Battista Alberti’s Ten Books on Architecture?
How did the Alberti family’s exile from Florence affect Leon Battista Alberti’s early life?
How did the Catholic Church provide financial support for Leon Battista Alberti’s work?
How did the Colosseum influence the facade of Palazzo Rucellai?
What design features of Palazzo Rucellai show Leon Battista Alberti’s interest in proportion?
What ideas about public service appear in Leon Battista Alberti’s De iciarchia?
What ideas about work and virtue appear in Leon Battista Alberti’s Della famiglia?
What subjects did Leon Battista Alberti discuss in Della famiglia?
What subjects did Leon Battista Alberti study at the University of Bologna?
What was Leon Battista Alberti’s contribution to surveying and mapping Rome?
What was important about Leon Battista Alberti’s cipher wheel?
When and where did Leon Battista Alberti die?
When and where was Leon Battista Alberti born?
When did Leon Battista Alberti complete Ten Books on Architecture?
When did Leon Battista Alberti receive his doctorate in canon law?
When did Leon Battista Alberti write On Painting?
Where did Leon Battista Alberti receive his early humanist education?
Where did Leon Battista Alberti spend much of his childhood?
Where is the Church of Sant’Andrea designed by Leon Battista Alberti?
Which Renaissance building projects did Leon Battista Alberti advise Pope Nicholas V about in Rome?
Which fields of knowledge did Leon Battista Alberti study and practice?
Who commissioned Leon Battista Alberti’s Church of Sant’Andrea in Mantua?
Who was Leon Battista Alberti’s father?
Who were the ancient Roman writers that influenced Leon Battista Alberti’s moral dialogues?
Why did Leon Battista Alberti choose a secretarial career instead of becoming a lawyer?
Why did Leon Battista Alberti write some of his works in the Tuscan vernacular?
Why did Renaissance painters use linear perspective?
Why did Ten Books on Architecture become so influential during the Renaissance?
Why was proportion important in Leon Battista Alberti’s architectural theory?
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How was Sandro Botticelli educated?
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What is Masaccio best known for?
What does the name Masaccio mean?
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Visual Arts Architecture

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External Websites

Art Encyclopedia - Biography of Leon Battista Alberti

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Leon Battista Alberti - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Leon Battista Alberti

Italian architect and author

Written by

Joan Kelly-Gadol

Professor of History, City College, City University of New York, 1972–82. Author of Leon Battista Alberti.

Joan Kelly-Gadol

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

Leon Battista Alberti (born Feb. 14, 1404, Genoa—died April 25, 1472, Rome) was an Italian humanist, architect, and principal initiator of Renaissance art theory. In his personality, works, and breadth of learning, he is considered the prototype of the Renaissance “universal man.” The society and class into which Alberti was born endowed him with the intellectual and moral tendencies he was to articulate and develop over a lifetime. He belonged to one of the wealthy...

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