Alberti S On Painting

University of Glasgow
History of Art, Senior Honours
Humanism and the Rinascita:
What did Alberti intend to achieve with De Pictura/Della Pittura?

Most scholars acknowledge that in publishing On Painting in 1435, Leon Battista Alberti sought
to elevate painting to the status of a liberal art, and furthermore that one of his central concerns was the
idea of pictorial harmony of form and content. However, many fail to make the link between objective
1
and unity of form and content with regards to the text itself; instead, when ascertaining his intent, there is
a tendency to isolate certain aspects, such as his use of classical rhetoric and his discussion of linear
perspective, resulting in the overemphasis of what Alberti would have considered otherwise minor
components of its functioning whole. In reality, Alberti’s aims are closely mirrored by both the
2
information he conveys and his manner of presenting it, and are consequently best understood through the
analysis of the tripartite division of the text. The structure itself reveals its close relationship to humanist
3
thought, as it progresses from the theoretical basis and practical means of painting to the rewards yielded
by its mastery. However, this inductive and cumulative approach to instruction fulfills only one aspect of
Alberti’s objectives, as he understood that establishing painting as a liberal art entailed not only
addressing what a painter does, but also what exactly painting is. Accordingly, within each of On
Painting’s three books are compressed ideas about reason, nature, and virtue, which can be understood as
an attempt on Alberti’s part to emphasize the theoretical and rational qualities of painting, and thus its
relation to the other liberal studies, in order to encourage its intelligent discussion amongst humanist
circles. The end result is a text wherein both painters and humanist scholars are addressed simultaneously
and seamlessly with the ends of molding the painter into a liberal artist, and establishing the profession of
painting as a liberal art.
Alberti’s declaration that “the great work of the painter is the narrative,” or the historia, likely
seemed anachronistic at a time when the production of altarpieces and devotional paintings still
dominated artistic output. However, for Alberti, the production of an historia placed a number of special
4
demands on an artist that justified its exalted status. Consequently, On Painting is best understood as an
5
1
Nearly every scholar cited in the subsequent pages are in agreement regarding Alberti’s chief objective of elevating
painting to a liberal art; however, they differ in opinion in terms of how he sought to accomplish this.
2
For instance, as Samuel Edgerton notes, “out of the twenty thousand odd words in On Painting, Alberti devoted
hardly 1/20th to linear perspective, yet historians and critics still continue to link the two words ‘Albertian
perspective.’” (Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr., ‘Alberti’s Colour Theory: A Medieval Bottle without Renaissance Wine,’
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 32, p. 109).
3
As Carroll Westfall notes, “a liberal art was a theoretical and systematic method for acquiring and conveying
knowledge; in producing an historia a painter is not investigating a source of knowledge but is conveying the
knowledge he has discovered.” (Westfall, p. 495). However, just as investigation was only the preparation for the
practice of painting, so too was it in elevating the profession of painting. Accordingly, how Alberti presented his
information was just as important as to what he had investigated.
4
Keith Christiansen, ‘Early Renaissance Narrative Painting in Italy,’ The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
(1983), p. 3
5
Christiansen, ‘Renaissance Narrative Painting,’ p. 3
1

attempt to elevate painting from its position as a craft- which it still had in Italy at the beginning of the
15th century- to the realm of the liberal arts. However, it is important to note that Alberti wrote not as an
6
art theorist, but as a humanist, and his text is first and foremost a product of that environment. The
humanist movement was closely involved in the reform of the curriculum of secondary schools; as many
of the humanists were professional tutors, it was natural that they would be concerned with issues
surrounding education. The humanist educators also laid particular emphasis upon the moral value
7
inherent in the study of ancient literature, history, and philosophy in order to eventually produce a ruling
class thoroughly inculcated with a cultural heritage of unquestioned intellectual importance. On Painting
8
locates itself within this humanist intertextual community, and should thus be considered a work of
humanist rhetoric with literary, pedagogical, and ethical aspirations, rather than a scientific treatise or
painter’s manual. However, Alberti’s text is outstanding in that the humanists were as a whole rather
9
unspeculative about painting as an intellectual activity, or its theoretical relationship with their own studia
humanitas. While a humanist book on the subject was not an urgent demand or requirement, there was at
10
least a vacancy for it in their system; it was this niche that On Painting filled, as Michael Baxandall notes,
“more expansively than any humanist except Alberti could have had in mind.”11
The content of On Painting is purposely simplified and presented piecemeal, and is graduated in
difficulty to accommodate the different stages of the intellectual and professional development of artists.12
This approach to instruction is rooted within Aristotle’s theory of mental development, whereby the
individual progressed from mere sense perception at infancy, to the appearance of memory in childhood,
and finally to intellectual maturity with the emergence of rational judgement. Accordingly, in Book I,
13
Alberti presents the young artist with very simple, easily memorized axioms and elements, which will
prepare him for the study of painting proper. He relays basic definitions of the geometrical properties
14
through which forms can be examined, which include: point, line, surface, edge, angle, flatness,
convexity, and concavity. He then proceeds with a lengthy description of the construction of one point
6
Robert Zwijnenberg, ‘Why Did Alberti Not Illustrate De Pictura?’ Medieval and Renaissance Humanism:
Rhetoric, Representation, and Form (Leiden, Brill, 2003), p. 167
7
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and the Arts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 44
8
Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 44
9
Christelle L. Baskins, ‘Echoing Narcissus in Alberti’s Della Pittura,’ Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1993), p.
25
10
Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Paintings in Italy and the Discovery of
Pictorial Composition 1350-1450 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 122
11
Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, p. 125
12
Edward Wright, ‘Alberti’s De Pictura: Its Literary Structure and Purpose,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes, vol. 47 (1984), p. 70
13
Wright, ‘Alberti’s De Pictura,’ p. 55
14
Wright, ‘Alberti’s De Pictura,’ p. 54
2

perspective, which an artist must learn, using the rules of optics and a particular set of geometric
techniques, to construct a convincingly three-dimensional picture space. Together, these elements make
15
up what Alberti deems the “rudiments” of painting, as “they lay the first foundations of the art for
unlearned painters.”16
In painting, Alberti contends, the artist combines mathematics and vision. The visual elements
themselves- lines, planes, and gradations lights and shades- are derived in part from mathematics. In
speaking to painters in Book II, he called these “circumscription” “composition” and “reception of light.”
For Alberti, composition is the second most important rule of art; it follows circumscription, the rule for
17
drawing outlines, and precedes the reception of light, the rule for applying colored pigment. Alberti’s
18
rule of composition thus invests depicted surfaces with both a visual and logical priority within painting,
and is a process through which sense and intellect comprehend the visual properties of things. As
19
different properties are comprehended through different cognitive processes, the internal organization of
visible qualities in painting determines the way in which paintings are perceived and understood. In
20
concerning himself with composed works, it can be surmised that Alberti is also expressing a preference
for paintings that advance the use of cognitive perception and thought. By building on the rudimentary
21
elements established in the first book, particularly those relating to optics, Alberti expands on his
previously simple ideas with increasing complexity, to the extent that one concept cannot be fully
understood without the more complex concept growing from it; in this manner, Alberti erects an
extremely rational yet multi-faceted structure based on his original definition of the point.22
In order for the painter to produce a successful historia, he must learn, using geometric
techniques and the rules of optics, how to construct a convincing pictorial space. Onto this picture plane
23
he must then bring three-dimensional, volumetric bodies, and he must pose these bodies in solid,
believable postures. Finally, he must direct them as they act out spatially and emotionally coherent
24
stories, which will, if “depicted as vividly as possible the motion of his soul” in turn automatically “move
15
Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance (London: Penguin Press, 2000)
p. 115
16
Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting (London: Phaidon Press, 1972) p. 58
17
Carroll W. Westfall, ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts: Alberti’s View,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 30, No.
4 (1969), p. 495
18
Jack Greenstein, ‘On Alberti’s Sign: Vision and Composition in Quattrocento Painting,’ The Art Bulletin, vol. 79,
no. 4 (1997), p. 669
19
Greenstein, ‘On Alberti’s Sign,’ p. 671
20
21
22
John R. Spencer, ‘Ut Rhetorica Pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting,’ Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1957), p. 32
23
Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti, p. 115
24
3

the souls of the beholder.” Having thus laid down a rigorous agenda for the making of art, Alberti
25
proceeds in Book III to review some of the moral stipulations required for the painter who wished to live
up to the ideals of his profession. Alberti notes that his ideal painter is one who is first and foremost a
good man, and who is well versed in the visual arts. He should also be familiar with the liberal arts,
particularly geometry, and should maintain close friendships with poets and orators, with whom painters
share much in common. Additionally, an artist should not limit his ambitions to the field of painting, as
26
Alberti considers it “a tremendous gift for a man to be but even moderately learned in everything.”27
However, perhaps most importantly, true liberal artists understood that the intention of painting was to
move men from vice to virtue; if successful in these regards, the painter was rewarded with praise,
admiration, and fame.28
While the central thesis of On Painting- that through the sure methods of geometry and optics,
and through the sure source of nature, a painter can fill the souls of men with piety, and can earn for
himself virtue and fame, and therefore be deemed a liberal artist- reflects typical humanist concerns, it is
unique among humanist writings on painting. Moreover, it is also exceptional in that it is the first known
29
book devoted to the intellectual rationale for painting. However, for all its originality, it is also fairly
typical amongst Alberti’s other writings, particularly with respect to its language, form, and underlying
message. As Martin Kemp has aptly noted, “one is unlikely to find another writer who more consistently
30
aspired to shape his life and work into a coherent whole.” One of Alberti’s predominant concerns
31
throughout his writings is the cultivation of the virtú- the power of individual talent sustained by moral
worth and strength of will. As a constant theme of Alberti’s literary output, it is possible to look to one
32
of his later works to further elucidate the ideas and aims underlying the structure of On Painting.
In Book III of Refuge from Mental Anguish, written during the 1440s, Alberti digresses from a
discussion of human suffering to describe a Greek temple as a metaphor for the organization of learned
discourse in totality. Of the temple’s three major components, the walls represent rational discourse, and
33
25
Jules Lubbock, Storytelling in Christian Art from Giotto to Donatello (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006),
p. 290
26
David Summers, The Judgement of Sense: Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aesthetics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 10
27
Martin Kemp, ‘Introduction to On Painting’, On Painting (London: Phaidon Press, 1972) p. 27
28
Westfall, ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts’ p. 502.
29
Westfall, ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts,’ p. 506
30
Kemp, ‘On Painting,’ p. 2
31
Kemp, ‘On Painting,’ p. 2.
32
Kemp further notes that “at the heart of Alberti’s beliefs lies a conviction that it is our human duty to cultivate
our individual virtue in those praiseworthy and improving pursuits that stand apart from fortuna; all these depend on
our diligence, our interest.”
33
Mark Jarzombek, ‘The Structural Problematic of Leon Battista Alberti’s De Pictura,’ Renaissance Studies, Vol. 4,
No., 3 (1990), p. 275
4

correspond to mankind’s investigations into truth and falsehood; the columns stand as a metaphor for his
need and ability to investigate nature; and finally, the roof, which protects the temple as a whole,
corresponds to the avoidance of vice and the desire for virtue. While this metaphor post-dates the
34
publication of On Painting, it is nonetheless useful when considering the purpose of the compressed ideas
within each of its books. Superficially, On Painting as a whole is designed to instill in the young painter
an awareness of the systematic means and elevated ends of painting. However, the supplementary ideas
35
within each also serve to convey that the theory of painting is a much broader subject than its practice; in
other words, although the historia was the painter’s highest aim, painting itself was more than producing
one. In order to prove that the profession of painting was a liberal art, Alberti had to simultaneously
36
convey that a painting is supported by a sound theory based on intellectual principles, and that its aims,
intentions, and methods are clearly related to that of any other liberal art. Consequently, Alberti not only
37
provided a theory of painting, but through his mode of presentation also turned painting into a subject for
civilized humanist thought and discussion.38
If one were to reconsider, however loosely, the content and structure of On Painting according to
this metaphor, the temple itself would represent painting as a liberal art, with each of its structural
components corresponding to an integral criteria that makes up its definition. Accordingly, Book I
39
represents its walls, which corresponds to the intellectual capacity of reason; in this case, the ratio
underlying the mathematical construction of perspective. For the sake of the painter, Alberti stressed
40
perspective rules in order to provide him with a proper stage for the noble figure arrangements of an
historia. However, its principle function was to persuade the humanist scholar that painting is rooted
41
within a mathematical theory, which is underscored by the language Alberti uses as well as his decision to
forgo illustrations. In describing Book I to Brunelleschi, Alberti characterized it as being “entirely taken
up with mathematics,” yet in the text itself he notes from the outset that he writes “not as a
mathematician, but as a painter.” By playing both the outside observer and the initiated participant in the
42
34
Jarzombek, ‘Structural Problematic of De Pictura,’ p. 275
35
Kemp, On Painting, p. 17
36
Westfall, ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts,’p. 492
37
38
Zwijnenberg, ‘Why Did Alberti Not Illustrate?’ p. 172
39
Westfall, ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts’ p. 502
40
Jarzombek, ‘Structural Problematic of De Pictura,’ p. 278. It is important to briefly clarify misconceptions
surrounding Alberti’s discussion of linear perspective: in 1435, the use of one point perspective was still in its
infancy, as Florentine artists had just begun to explore the avenues opened up to them by Brunelleschi’s discoveries,
and Alberti himself was a painter with limited experience. Consequently, the thought of publishing an untested
system of perspective rules probably never occurred to him; nonetheless, scholars have continued to retrospectively
ascribe this a focal point of Alberti’s objectives (Wright, ‘Alberti’s De Pictura,’ p. 70).
41
Edgerton ‘Alberti’s Colour Theory,’p. 109
42
Alberti, On Painting, p. 37
5

painter’s craft, Alberti himself reconciles the continual fissure between what a painter does and what
painting is. The absence of illustrations or graphics further strengthens this notion, as it served as a
43
rhetorical strategy to convince the render of the purely theoretical nature of his exposition; rather than
allowing readers to fall back on explanatory illustrations, they are instead challenged to rely on their
intellectual capacities to grasp the issue. In doing so, it is clear that he sought to demonstrate that
44
painting is a liberal art on the basis of a mathematical theory, and furthermore that he wanted this theory
to be accepted in the circle to which he himself belonged: that of humanist scholars.45
Having established painting as being founded on a rational, mathematical theory in Book I, Book
II corresponds to the columns of the temple, and represents man’s inquest into nature. Alberti references
46
nature regularly throughout all three books, and explains its relevance for the treatment of contours, light,
and color, as well as for that of movement, proportions, and beauty. As diverse as these aspects may
appear, their relationship with nature is underpinned by a single notion put forth in the second book: that
of place. Imitating nature is for Alberti a case of correctly “putting things in their places”; however, his
47
idea was not so much concerned with direct observation of a scene in its entirety, but rather composing a
scene using a certain number of selected observed things according to principles learnt from nature. It is
48
in this approach to the marshalling of parts of the finished work that it becomes clear that to Alberti, the
means of finding and of organizing the parts of a finished work of art were essentially the same for both
the painter and the orator. Just as Cicero urged the orator in De inventione to draw his proofs from every
49
available source in order to create a more perfect unified whole, Alberti’s painter was meant to adopt the
same practice when creating an historia, whose power of persuasion would be akin to the effect produced
by a well-composed speech.50
The material presented within the second book illustrates the second way in which Alberti sought
to raise painting to the level of a liberal art: by having painting emulate the aims, intentions, and methods
of oratory and poetry, whose position as liberal studies went unquestioned. Throughout Book II, he
51
aimed to show that painting can move the beholder just as powerfully as speech can, and that its silent
43
44
45
46
Jarzombek, ‘Structural Problematic of De Pictura,’ p. 278.
47
Anna Little, ‘Image and Nature in Alberti’s De Pictura: A Case for Model Inversion?’ Albertiana (2013), p. 48
48
Little, ‘Image and Nature,’ p. 48
49
Spencer, ‘Ut Rhetorica Pictura,’ p. 36
50
Luba Freedman, Classical Myths in Italian Renaissance Painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
p. 59
51
6

rhetoric of gesture and expression can signify a whole inner world of thoughts and feelings. Moreover,
52
for an historia to be truly effective, an artist, like the poet or orator, had to carefully consider the most
important aspects of the event he wished to depict in order to most effectively enhance his representation.
The historia also acted as grammar, in that it conveyed relationships between things. In his definition of
53
composition, for instance, Alberti gave surfaces the same primacy in paintings that words have in speech;
surfaces are the prime parts of painting for the same reason that words are the prime parts of speech. By
54
appropriating classical sources, notably Cicero and Quintilian, and tailoring their messages to suit an
intellectual discussion of painting, Alberti has subtly demonstrated the fluidity of and similarities between
rhetoric and painting, and thus conveys that there is no reason to subordinate the latter to the other liberal
arts.
Painting has the literal significance of historia when it presents “something seen and done” to
corporeal sense; it has the moral significance when it moves the inner sense- the soul. In this regard, the
55
historia served as a strict moral philosophy in that it spoke of vice and virtue, as well as the goodness of
men and of God. Accordingly, Book III corresponds to the roof of the temple: ethics. In outlining the
56
various moral and ethical attributes the painter must possess to become a liberal artist, Alberti also
emphasized the societal function of painting itself, which brought it from the realm of the painter to that
of a more universal audience. The liberal arts in general were the defenders of virtue, and in that class
Alberti included painting, sculpture, and perspective. Alberti accordingly repeatedly argues for the
57
beneficial aspects of painting on mankind. Overall, the painting he desires has more or less the same end
58
as the education he advocates in his Della famiglia and the same end that Cicero advocates in all his
known works- the acquisition of virtue. Moreover, in characterizing his ideal painter, Alberti explicitly
59
adopted what Cicero had required of the orator- that he should combine moral stature and a sound
education with the technical competence necessary for his vocation.60
As Alberti’s painter is to be as educated and morally sound as Cicero’s orator, he is also meant to
fill an important role in society, which he can achieve by producing paintings that move the souls of both
52
James A.W. Heffernan, ‘Alberti on Apelles: Word and Image in De Pictura,’ International Journal of the
Classical Tradition, vol. 3, no. 2 (1996), p. 359
53
Christiansen, ‘ Renaissance Narrative Painting,’ p. 3
54
55
56
57
58
Rensselaer W. Lee, ‘Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,’ The Art Bulletin, Vol. 22, No. 4
(1940), p. 229.
59
60
Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 50
7

the learned and unlearned alike. This aspect of the universality of its appeal is further underscored by
61
Alberti’s comment that “the painter’s work is intended to please the public… so he will not despise the
public’s criticism and judgment when he is still in a position to meet their opinion.” This remark derives
62
from De Officiis, wherein Cicero explains that the critical judgement of the public could aid in improving
their work. At the same time, however, he cautioned that they should attend to those critics who are truly
63
competent to make judgements. Similarly, Alberti tells painters to be open to criticism, but advises them
to take seriously only those uttered by humanists and fellow practitioners of the liberal studies. Thus, at
64
the same time that Alberti encourages painters to create works that will touch learned and unlearned alike
by the universality of its appeal, he emphasizes the sophisticated nature of painting by implying that only
those who belong to a more limited audience- the humanist scholar who is able to discuss and understand
painting intellectually- are capable of providing constructive critiques.
Overall, the aims and means of the new type of painting posited by Alberti are similar to those of
the rhetoric advanced by Cicero: in both Albertian painting and in Ciceronian oratory the aim is to please,
to move, and to convince. However, with regards to Alberti, these objectives, and consequently the
65
means, are twofold; it is the role of the painter, with Alberti’s guidance, to construct an historia that will
please, move, and convince the audience. However, Alberti himself was responsible for On Painting as a
whole to persuade and convince the humanist scholar that the profession of painting, on account of its
theoretical foundation and similarities rhetoric and poetry, may be appropriately deemed a liberal art.
Accordingly, the main purpose of Book I is to concurrently describe the construction of theoretical
perspective for painters, and to elucidate its artistic and intellectual consequences for the art of painting
itself. In comparing the working elements of a successful historia to the components and effects of a
66
well articulated speech in Book II, Alberti also illustrates the fluidity between rhetoric and painting; in
doing so, he conveys that there is no reason for subordinating painting to the other liberal arts with which
it has so much in common. Finally, in stressing the ethical and moral attributes necessary for a painter to
become a liberal artist, Alberti emphasizes the societal and virtuous function of painting.
61
62
Luba Freedman, ‘St. Sebastian in Veneto Painting: The Signals Addressed to Learned Spectators,’ Venezia
Cinquecento, vol. 8, no. 15 (1998), p. 6
63
Freedman, ‘St. Sebastian’ p. 6
64
Alberti, On Painting, p. 95
65
66
8

Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting. Introduction by Martin Kemp. London: Phaidon Press, 1972.
Baskins, Christelle L. ‘Echoing Narcissus in Alberti’s Della Pittura,’ Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1
(1993): pp. 25-33. www.jstor.org/stable/1260534.
Baxandall, Michael. Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Paintings in Italy and the Discovery
of Pictorial Composition 1350-1450. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Christiansen, Keith. ‘Early Renaissance Narrative Painting in Italy,’ The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bulletin (1983): pp. 3-48. https://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3259419.pdf.bannered.pdf.
Edgerton, Samuel Y. Jr., ‘Alberti’s Colour Theory: A Medieval Bottle without Renaissance Wine,’
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 32 (1969): pp. 109-135.
www.jstor.org/stable/750609.
Freedman, Luba. Classical Myths in Italian Renaissance Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2015.
Freedman, Luba. ‘St. Sebastian in Veneto Painting: The Signals Addressed to Learned Spectators,’
Venezia Cinquecento, vol. 8, no. 15 (1998): pp. 5-20.
Grafton, Anthony. Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance. London: Penguin
Press, 2000.
Greenstein, Jack. ‘On Alberti’s Sign: Vision and Composition in Quattrocento Painting,’ The Art Bulletin,
vol. 79, no. 4 (1997): pp. 669-698. www.jstor.org/stable/3046281.
Heffernan, James A.W. ‘Alberti on Apelles: Word and Image in De Pictura,’ International Journal of the
Classical Tradition, vol. 3, no. 2 (1996): pp. 345-359. www.jstor.org/stable/30222219.
Jarzombek, Mark. ‘The Structural Problematic of Leon Battista Alberti’s De Pictura,’ Renaissance
Studies, Vol. 4, No., 3 (1990): pp. 273-286.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Thought and the Arts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.
Lee, Rensselaer W. ‘Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,’ The Art Bulletin, Vol. 22,
No. 4 (1940): pp. 197-269. www.jstor.org/stable/3046716.
Little, Anna. ‘Image and Nature in Alberti’s De Pictura: A Case for Model Inversion?’ Albertiana (2013):
pp. 47-74.
Lubbock, Jules. Storytelling in Christian Art from Giotto to Donatello. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2006.
Spencer, John R. ‘Ut Rhetorica Pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting,’ Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1957): pp. 26-44. www.jstor.org/stable/750149.
9

Summers, David. The Judgement of Sense: Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aesthetics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Westfall, Carroll W. ‘Painting and the Liberal Arts: Alberti’s View,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol.
30, No. 4 (1969): pp. 487-506. www.jstor.org/stable/2708607.
Wright, Edward. ‘Alberti’s De Pictura: Its Literary Structure and Purpose,’ Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, vol. 47 (1984): pp. 52-71. www.jstor.org/stable/751438.
Zwijnenberg, Robert. ‘Why Did Alberti Not Illustrate De Pictura?’ Medieval and Renaissance
Humanism: Rhetoric, Representation, and Form. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
10

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