Scholarship and Art: Leon Battista Alberti

Author Bio: Leon Battista Alberti’s ideas are present in the article. However, Giorgio Vasari actually wrote the article. He was an italian painter, architect, writer, and historian.

Context: Vasari shares Alberti's ideas on scholarship and art and then goes on to reflect back on how Alberti exemplified his ideas. Vasari lived from 1511-1572. Alberti lived from 1404-1472 and was a humanist, architect, and the principal initiator of Renaissance art theory. He is considered to have been the closest to being a "universal man" before Leonardo DaVinci for his deep involvement in both the arts and the sciences. In this excerpt, Vasari reflects Alberti's ideas that science and learning is essential for one to have advantages, especially for the artist. The unity and execution of science in art, he believed, was paramount to success. He used the concepts of science in order to better his artistic endeavors.

Summary: Vasari begins by using the words of Leon Battista Alberti. Alberti begins by explaining that the sciences and education are of great advantage to everyone, but especially artists. The sciences provide the knowledge needed in order to perfect creations of the painter, the sculptor, and the architect. Likewise, being a "learned man" or a man of science gives the artist far more credit than he would have on his own. By being educated, the scholar and the artist have much more influence in the community and when they put their knowledge to practice. Then Vassari begins to use his own language of personal speaking. He says that this idea of combining science/education and art is no better personified that in Alberti. Alberti studied Latin and science as well as architecture, perspective, and painting. He wrote several books that increased his fame and reputation.

Key Quote: "For the service, security, honor, and ornament of the public, we are exceedingly obliged to the architect; to whom, in time of leisure...in time of business...The whole of the human species, was most obliged to the architect, or rather, inventor of all conveniences."