Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting: A New Translation and Critical EditionLeon Battista Alberti was one of the most important humanist scholars of the Italian Renaissance. Active in mid-fifteenth-century Florence, he was an architect, theorist, and author of texts on perspective and painting. Leon Battista Alberti: On Painting is a cardinal work that revolutionized Western art. In this volume Rocco Sinisgalli presents a new English translation and critical examination of Alberti's seminal text. Dr Sinisgalli reverses the received understanding of the relationship between the Italian and Latin versions of Alberti's treatise by demonstrating that Alberti wrote it first in Italian and then translated it into a polished Latin over the course of several decades. This volume is richly illustrated to help demonstrate how Alberti understood optics and art. |
Contents
| iv | |
| iv | |
Letter to Giovanni Francesco | iv |
The Picture | iv |
The Painter | iv |
Appendixes | iv |
Illustrations | 13 |
Selected Bibliography | 111 |
Common terms and phrases
according adjacent angles Albrecht Dürer Alhazen ancient painters Apelles appear artist base line Basel edition beauty body Book Brunelleschi called Cecil Grayson centric line centric point centric ray certainly circle composition concave surface dedicated depicted diligence distance dorsal extension doubt drawing of profiles Dürer edge equal angles excellent extreme rays face Facsimile drawing fact Florence Gallerie dell'Accademia Grayson correction hand historia imitate intersection Italian Johannes Regiomontanus Latin Latin text learned Leon Battista Alberti Leonardo light source Mallè Masaccio mathematicians Mazzucchelli means measure median rays mind Movements of Inanimate Nature objects observe omits words painter parallels pavement perspective Phidias Pictura Pliny Plutarch praise Protagoras quadrangle Quintilian reception of light rectangular Regiomontanus right angles Rome Scipione Maffei shadows side single smaller speak straight line subdivided Timanthes translation treatise Tuscan Tuscan language veil vernacular vernacular text visual pyramid visual rays Visual Triangle XXXV Zeuxis