LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI. -(1404-1472.)

Alberti did not contribute so much as Brunelleschi to this renovation of the arts, but, like all those who propagate the ideas of others by the pen, his influence was very considerable. Upon the one hand there are the silent and secluded artists, whose province it is to produce and to prove the reality of progress by marching in advance of their contemporaries, while, upon the other, there are the men of critical mind who, more closely identified with the movement of their time, while not idle themselves, draw conclusions from the works of others, and regulate the final laws of the new art in which they have been the forerunners. Alberti belonged to this second category, and while putting the principles of Brunelleschi into practice, he brought them within the understanding brought understanding of the whole world, and did much to propagate the new ideas. Leonardo da Vinci, Daniel Barbaro, Fra Giocondo, and Francesco Colonna carried on the same work, and to his well-known treatises, "De re dificatoria, "De Pictura," and "De Componenda Status," added "The Commentaries on Vitruvius," and that strange book entitled "The Dream of Polyphilus, or Hypnerotomachia," which is such a curious mixture of truth and fancy.

The effect produced by the construction of the Temple of the Malatestas " was very great, for it was no slight achievement at that date to regulate the laws and determine the tendency of architectural compositions, while it was an even more marked success, at a time when a man of genius like Brunelleschi had shaken off the fetters of ancient usage and struck out a line of his own, to confirm the value of these principles by erecting a marble temple, all the architectural elements in which, while borrowed from antiquity, were modified and rejuvenated by the modern spirit.

A natural son of Lorenzo Alberti and of Margherita di Messer Piero Benini, Leo Battista expiated from his birth the ardor with which his family had plunged into a struggle against the Albizzi during the bloody contests between the two factions of black and white in the fourteenth century. His father and mother were exiled to Genoa, where he was born in 1404, and it was only in 1428 that, at the special request of Pope Martin V., the interdict which had led to the dispersion of this powerful family throughout Europe was raised. There were several branches of the family, Leo Battista belonging to that of Bernardo di Nerozzo (1388), who married first a Pazzi, and afterwards a Gualterio dei Bardi. The French Dukes Albert de Luynes and Chaulnes are descended from Caroccio di Lapo (1347), through Tommaso, born in 1409. Between the years 1408 and 1417 four of the Alberti were interred at Paris in the Vieux Augustins Church, and before the close of the century more than seventy members of this family had died in exile at Bruges, Viviers, Paris, Montpellier, Avignon, Genoa, Brescia, Mantua, Padua, Venice, Frioul, the Romagna, London, Flanders, and even in Cyprus, to which they were banished by a decree of the Balia.

The original text of the decree, or the "Provisions," is to be found in Passerine, and the tenor of it shows how high party feeling ran. The first decree (1387) orders that two leaders of the family shall be exiled a hundred miles away from Florence, and debars all the other members of the family from the privilege of holding any magisterial office ; in. 1393 they are all made to suffer for a conspiracy which had been hatched by one of them ; and in 1400 three of their relatives are put to the question in order to extort from them a confession of the latter's guilt, and then executed, the Grand Council deciding that all the Alberti, including those not yet born, shall be deprived of civic rights. In 1412 a reward of two thousand gold florins ( 1800) is promised to the person who kills the four heads of the Alberti family at Florence, and half that sum to the slayer of any one Alberti, provided that he is not under eighteen years of age. If the slayer is himself in banishment he is to receive a full pardon, and if not, he is entitled to ask for the pardon of any two friends; while, for the remainder of his life, he is to enjoy the privilege of carrying arms. All the Alberti property was confiscated, and the chains which formed their blazon were removed from the walls of the churches, chapels, and palaces.

Such were the conditions. under which Leo Battista was born, far from the land of his ancestors and his father's home. We cannot wonder, therefore, at the tone of bitter suffering which pervades his letter to Brunelleschi when he speaks of his long exile, and his soul being fortified in the school of adversity. The Albizzi persecuted this family with unwearying hatred until the Medici began to get the upper hand, and it was not until 1428 that justice was done to one of them, this act of tardy clemency being completed in 1434 by Cosimo de' Medici, who reinstated all the Alberti in their property and ancient dignities.

The education of Leo Battista was of course affected by these circumstances, and he was trained in the midst of difficulties and struggles. He was very proficient in all equestrian exercises, and Muratori, in his "Rerum. Italicarum. Scriptores," represents him as being a great athlete at the Olympian games. He completed his studies at Bologna, and before he was twenty years old had published a Latin comedy entitled " Philodoxeos," which he signed "Lepidus Coinicits."" This device was so successful that Alanuccio, a century and a half afterwards (1588), published it at Lucca as being by Plautus, under the title of "Lepidi Comics veteris Philodoxeos, fabula ex antiquitate eruta." It should be added, however, that a canon of Bamberg, Albert von Eyb, declared the comedy to be of modern origin, and to have been the work of Carlo Alarsuppini. Poggio Bracciolini was the confidant of Alberti in this matter, and many years afterwards he revealed the secret to Lionel of Este. When Leo Battista was allowed to return to Florence in 1428 he had already proved himself to be a man eager to ascertain and investigate every subject of human interest, of a generous disposition, endowed with the most varied gifts, and a worthy forerunner of Leonardo da Vinci. At first engrossed in the study of the law, he afterwards cultivated the exact sciences, physics, and the art of naval constructions, while with all this he practiced medicine, and it was only after haying given proof of his proficiency in each of these branches that he settled himself down to literature. He wrote in Latin, but his Italian poems are still extant, and they give a complete contradiction to those who, during his day, asserted that he wrote in Latin to conceal the imperfections of his style in Italian. He introduced the Latin metre into poetry, and it was considered very venturesome at that time to treat elevated subjects in that language. Alberti would have remained famous even if he had not written anything more, for he had already acquired great celebrity as a physicist and an astronomer. The Alberti bolide (perfected a long time afterwards by Cook), used for measuring the depth of the sea, was his invention, as also were the camera lucida and several instruments which facilitated an exact observation of the stars.

It was, however, to architecture, which during the Renaissance necessitated the knowledge and the practice of all the other arts, that he owed his greatest celebrity, though he only took to it thoroughly after he had gone through the multifold career described above. Deeply imbued with the love of antiquity, and well versed in the Latin and Greek manuscripts, with Vitruvius at his fingers' ends, and an enthusiastic admirer of the monuments discovered in Greece and Italy, he determined to familiarize himself with the remains of the grand imperial epoch. Biondo da Forli received him at Rome and presented him to Pope Nicholas V., and according to Palmieri and Vasari he played a very important part in execution of the ambitious projects of this pontiff, who did more for the imperial city than any of his predecessors. Up to that time Bernardo Rossellino, the Florentine architect, had been given the supreme control over the works, but he was glad to attach Alberti to him, and henceforward nothing was done in Rome without their being consulted. Alberti was created a prelate, and invested with benefices which made him independent, and in 1447 he received the dignity of canon and the title of prelate of Borgo San Lorenzo and of San Martino at Gangalandi. Pius II. retained him at the Vatican, and made him Secretary of the Apostolic Letters.

It was during this period, with the monuments of antiquity before his eyes, and in the companionship of Biondo da Forli, the author of "Roma Instaurata," and the real creator of archaeology, that it occurred to him that there was no reason why the classic forms should not be combined with those imposed by modern necessities. Alberti was thoroughly engrossed in this new architectural departure when Sigismund Malatesta asked him to conic to Rimini, and confer with him as to the building of a temple. He accepted the invitation with the assent of the Pope, who was indebted to Malatesta for the way in which he had led the pontifical troops to victory; but, as he could not remain long, he left as proto maestro, or overseer, Matteo da Pasti, of Verona, who was a pensioner of Malatesta, and to whom we owe the excellent medallions of Sigismund and Isotta. This shows how varied were the gifts of most great artists during the fifteenth century. There is nothing to show that Alberti returned to Rimini after the inauguration of the Temple in 1450, but he had made himself a very great favorite with Sigismund, who desired that his medallion should be placed opposite to his own above his tomb.

The greatest works of Alberti, those which have insured his celebrity, were executed after his first visit to Rome. To begin with, he built St. Pancras for Cosimo Rucellai, and he then designed the beautiful facade of Santa Maria Novella. In conjunction with Brunelleschi, who had been commissioned to build the Foundling Hospital in the Piazza dell' Annunziata, he decorated the interior of the church of that name, preparing the designs for the tribune, the chapel, and the cupolas. It was during this period that he made his longest stay at Florence, living in the intimacy of Lorenzo de' Medici, and making one in those celebrated gatherings in the Camaldoli woods with Ficino, Acciaiuoli, and Rinuccini. In addition to Malatesta, Rucellai, and Lorenzo de' Medici ; Louis Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua, furnished Alberti with an opportunity of displaying his views in regard to architecture, intrusting to him the erection in that city of a basilica dedicated to St. Andrew, where repose the remains of Andrea Alantegna. Alberti availed himself of it, and St. Andrew's, like the Temple of Rimini, offers one of the earliest instances of the revival of classic architecture.