Providing a fresh evaluation of Alberti's text On Painting (1435), along with comparisons to various works of Nicholas Cusanus this study reveals a hitherto unsuspected shared epistemology of vision. Analyzing a range of artworks in light of Alberti's and Cusanus's ideals of vision, the author attributes a more deeply Christian Neoplatonic ideal than is typically accorded to Alberti, and adds a new dimension to our understanding of theories of vision in the Italian Renaissance.

Providing a fresh evaluation of Alberti's text On Painting (1435), along with comparisons to various works of Nicholas Cusanus - particularly his Vision of God (1450) - this study reveals a shared epistemology of vision. And, the author argues, it is one that reflects a more deeply Christian Neoplatonic ideal than is typically accorded Alberti. Whether regarding his purpose in teaching the use of a geometric single point perspective system, or more broadly in rendering forms naturalistically, the emphasis leans toward the ideal of Renaissance art as highly rational. There remains the impression that the principle aim of the painter is to create objective, even illusionistic images. A close reading of Alberti's text, however, including some adjustments in translation, points rather towards an emphasis on discerning the spiritual in the material. Alberti's use of the tropes Minerva and Narcissus, for example, indicates the opposing characteristics of wisdom and sense certainty that function dialectically to foster the traditional importance of seeing with the eye of the intellect rather than merely with physical eyes. In this sense these figures also set the context for his, and, as the author explains, Brunelleschi's earlier invention of this perspective system that posits not so much an objective seeing as an opposition of finite and infinite seeing, which, moreover, approximates Cusanus's famous notion of a coincidence of opposites. Together with Alberti's and Cusanus's ideals of vision, extensive analysis of art works discloses a ubiquitous commitment to stimulating an intellectual perception of divine, essential, and unseen realities that enliven the visible material world.

A new account of the sui generis Renaissance writer and architect Leon Battista Alberti. One of the most brilliant and original authors and architects of the entire Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti had an output encompassing engineering, surveying, cryptography, poetry, humor, political commentary, and more. He employed irony, satire, and playful allusion in his written works, and developed a sophisticated approach to architecture that combined the ancient and modern. Born into the Florentine elite, Alberti was nonetheless disadvantaged due to exile and illegitimacy. As a result, he became an acute analyst of the social institutions of his time, as well as a profoundly existential writer who was intensely preoccupied with the human condition. This new account explores Alberti’s life and works, examining how his personal and intellectual preoccupations continually pushed him to engage with an ever-broader spectrum of Renaissance culture.

A critical-theoretical reading of the strange, dreamlike work of Leon Battista Alberti.

In 1450, Leon Battista Alberti was hired by the condottiere Sigismondo Malatesta to redesign the church of San Francesco in Rimini, now known as the Tempio Malatestiano. Alberti's design has been recognized as the first classically-inspired church façade of the Renaissance. For the other decorative facets of this project Sigismondo employed accomplished, high profile personalities: Piero della Francesca, Matteo de' Pasti, Agostino di Duccio. Yet Alberti had a notable absence of architectural training or experience. This dissertation explains why Alberti was selected for this high-profile commission, despite his lack of architectural résumé. Therefore I approach the Tempio Malatestiano not as an exemplar of Italian Renaissance architecture, but rather as the starting point of an effort to understand the various forces at work in the process of artistic patronage in fifteenth-century Italy. This study investigates how and why Sigisimondo and Alberti came together to produce the monument of the Tempio Malatestiano. The analysis addresses the complex issue of the definition of the architect in the transitional period of the mid-fifteenth century -- a development in which Alberti himself was a key player -- and explores the backgrounds of both protagonists in an effort to determine why Alberti was chosen over the many established architects of the period. I show that Alberti had many other qualifications in his myriad intellectual activities; in this regard he was no exception to Sigismondo's rule of hiring accomplished courtiers. Furthermore, Sigismondo's patronage agenda had as much to do with his personal and political aims and circumstances as it did artistic ones, and I show how only Alberti could satisfy these goals. In the process a new view of Alberti's important and controversial time in Rome is proposed. Finally, this study contributes to the wider field of Alberti studies in its discussion of the ways in which Alberti's other intellectual activities contributed to his career as architect and how these played out in the design of the Tempio Malatestiano.