Alberti, Leon Battista

Alberti, Leon Battista

(born Feb. 14, 1404, Genoa—died April 25, 1472, Rome) Italian architect, art theorist, and humanist. After pursuing a literary career as papal secretary, in 1438 Alberti was encouraged to direct his talents toward the field of architecture. His designs for the Palazzo Rucellai (c. 1445–51) and the facade of Santa Maria Novella (1456–70), both in Florence, are noted for their harmonic proportions. His central-plan church of Sant'Andrea, Mantua (begun 1472), with its triumphal-arch motif, is an early Renaissance masterpiece. Alberti was one of the foremost theorists on Renaissance architecture and art, known for codifying the principles of linear perspective (in On Painting, 1436). A prototype of the Renaissance man, he also made contributions to moral philosophy, cartography, and cryptography.