Humanism and the Urban World: Leon Battista Alberti and the Renaissance City [Hardcover]

Caspar Pearson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2011

In Humanism and the Urban World, Caspar Pearson offers a profoundly revisionist account of Leon Battista Alberti's approach to the urban environment as exemplified in the extensive theoretical treatise De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building in Ten Books), brought mostly to completion in the 1450s, as well as in his larger body of written work. Past scholars have generally characterized the Italian Renaissance architect and theorist as an enthusiast of the city who envisioned it as a rational, Renaissance ideal. Pearson argues, however, that Alberti's approach to urbanism was far more complex - that he was even 'essentially hostile' to the city at times. Rather than proposing the ideal city, Pearson maintains, Alberti presents a variety of possible cities, each one different from another. This book explores the ways in which Alberti sought to remedy urban problems, tracing key themes that manifest in De re aedificatoria. Chapters address Alberti's consideration of the city's possible destruction and the city's capacity to provide order despite its intrinsic instability; his assessment of a variety of political solutions to that instability; his affinity for the countryside and discussions of the virtues of the active versus the contemplative life; and his theories of aesthetics and beauty, in particular the belief that beauty may affect the soul of an enemy and thus preserve buildings from attack.

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About the Author

Caspar Pearson is Lecturer at the University of Essex.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Penn State Press (August 31, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271048557
• ISBN-13: 978-0271048550
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,276,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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