De Re Aedificatora

Leon Battista Albertis theoretical treatise on architecture, titled De Re Aedificatoria About Buildings, was dedicated in 1452 but not published until 1485. What qualifies it as an architectural feat? It changed the understanding and practice of architecture in much of Europe and continued to influence developments there and in the New World for about 400 years. Although he was gathering the ideas for the book, Alberti 1404 1472 was not an architect but a Catholic priest. Alberti was born in Genoa, the illegitimate child of Lorenzo, an exiled Florentine from a family of bankers. When he was about ten years old, Battista he addedLeon later entered a boarding school in Padua to receive a basic classical education. Several years of legal studies at the University of Bologna led to a doctorate in church law in 1428, after which he went to Florence. He soon began writing. His first published anthology of poems, Il cavallo The Horse of 1431, was quickly followed by Della famiglia About the Familythe first of many philosophical dialoguesand La tranquillit