2. Humanist philosopher, writer, Renaissance architect and artistic theorist, Leon Battista Alberti is considered by many scholars to be the quintessential Renaissance "universal man" of learning.

3. Leon Battista Alberti wrote the first book on Italian grammar and a groundbreaking work on cryptography. He is credited with inventing the cypher wheel.

4. Alberti never received a formal architectural education. His architectural ideas were the product of his own studies and research.

6. Leon Battista attended the famous school of the humanist Gasparino Barzizza in Padua

7. By 1421 Leon Battista was at the University of Bologna; while there he wrote a Latin comedy.

8. after earning his degree in Bologna he went to Rome.

9. A master of Latin and Italian, Alberti also rewrote in Latin traditional lives of saints and martyrs.

10. After taking holy orders, he was deemed to hold the priorate of San Martino a Gangalandi at Lastra a Signa

11. In 1448 he was appointed rector of the parish of San Lorenzo in Mugello.

12. Alberti served also as a papal inspector of monuments (1447-55), and advised Pope Nicholas V, a former fellow student from Bologna, on the ambitious building projects in the city of Rome.

13. In the mid-1430s, Alberti moved to Florence with Pope Eugenius IV

14. In 1431 and early 1432 he accompanied Cardinal Albergati on a tour of northern Europe.

17. The facade of Santa Maria Novella (1458-71) is considered his greatest achievement

18. The only buildings Alberti designed entirely him, were S. Sebastiano (1460)

19. Palazzo Rucellai is a fifteenth-century palace in the Piazza de' Rucellai, Florence, Italy, designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451.

21. TempioMalatestiano, the façade of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is considered to be a landmark in the formation of Renaissance architecture

25. Detail of a neoclassical pediment made of wood with a window, University of Virginia Colonnade, Charlottesville, VA, USA

26. Frontal view of the Renaissance pediment with scrolls, Santa Maria Nouvella, Florence, Italy

27. Neoclassical pediment made of marble and brick

28. Pediment on the front elevation of Santa Trinita, Florence, Italy

29. Compound Baroque pediment on SantiVincenzo e Anastasio, Rome, Italy

30. Detail of the neoclassical pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, showing the acroteria, Philadelphia, PA, USA

32. Baroque split pediment with a volute, France

33. Detail at the corner of the east pediment, Parthenon, Athens, Greece

34. Neoclassical double pediment over a door, Paris, France

35. Side view into the east pediment, Parthenon, Athens, Greece

37. Foot on a tomb in Rome, Italy

38. Elaborate keystone over a door in Paris, France

40. Decorative shell, Rome, Italy

41. Hanging swag, Paris, France

43. Rossette in a coffer, Sant'Andrea, Mantova, Italy

44. Decorative cornucopia in bas-relief, Rome, Italy

45. Scroll, Fountain Saint Michel, Paris, France

46. Scroll detail with putti, IL Gesu, Rome, Italy

47. Scroll, Paris, France

49. But the 15th century was marked by the more than a dispersal of influence; it was based on contradiction. It served as a link between two concepts of the world.

50. we consider the 15th century in the light of what it ended or in the light of what it began, it was realism which dominated it, a realism which adapted it to the various trends which kept this era in a state of flux. The sign of its advent had apparent from the 13th century. Never were the lines of de Vigny more completely apt: Evil and Doubt … there’s the accusation Which weights o’er all of the creation. With this double malediction the 15th century began.

51. The Disintegration of the Gothic style the 15th century Gothic art entered a late phase, a phase in which, as often happened, the disintegration of the style was accompanied by a concentration of its extreme forms. A style expressed a unified concept of the world, to which its methods of expression corresponds. However, at the end of the Middle Ages France had ceased to be the focal point for Gothic art, and national tendencies had a free rein. From Abstraction to Materialism The stern rationality of the scholastic theologians was gradually modified by the warmth of feeling and emotion. St Bernard [12], like St Francis, taught men to approach God not only through the mind but through the emotions; this new attitude gave rise to the need for a physical and material representation. In art both human beings and things were portrayed with increasing realism and materialism. In the 13th century art, lovers seem to be engrossed in reasoning. In 14th century representations, they have become far more intimate. Increasingly the artist places lovers in a setting of nature- of gardens and flowers- which he delights in painting with precision.

52. Death and the Devil The transition from Gothic to Renaissance Art The desire for clarity can bring about excessive simplification; it is tempting to contrast the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to see in the latter period a reaction- especially in Italy- against the former with its French affinities. In reality there was no break, only a transition and it was the example of French statuary which influenced the Italy sculptors (the Lombard sculptors in the 13th century and the Pisan sculptors in the 14th century, who were the first craftsmen of the new art). The attempt to reproduce forms from the real world was inspired originally by the first Gothic artists. The Italian renaissance brought the quest to a successful completion by drawing directly on the examples of antiquity, that is, by going back to the very sources of sculptural art.

53. Work of Albert Through our perception Alberti as in renaissance thinking was a universal man. His work is not just limited to Architecture. He is a painter, writer and a philosopher. Most of his work is dedicated to humanism. Alberti’sinterest related to art and proportion shown into its designs of architecturs elements. Proportion, harmony and geometry can be seen very clearly.