1404-1472 Italian Architect and Writer Like many key figures in the history of mathematics during the Middle Ages, Leon Battista Alberti was not a professional mathematician, and the advances he made in that discipline were in service to...

(born Feb. 14, 1404, Genoa—died April 25, 1472, Rome) Italian architect, art theorist, and humanist. After pursuing a literary career as papal secretary, in 1438 Alberti was encouraged to direct his talents toward the field of architecture. His...

1404-1472 Italian architect and mathematician whose Della Pittura (1435), which contains the first general account of the laws of perspective, initiated the classical Renaissance style in art. Known as the Florentine Vitruvius, his De re aedificatoria...

1404-1472 Italian architect and writer who, in addition to his work in mathematics, wrote on geology. In about 1450 Alberti discussed the erosive effect of the atmosphere, and in so doing served as a forerunner for the modern science of hydrogeology....

An Italian humanist, Alberti is often seen as a model of the Renaissance "universal man." He was born in Genoa, one of two illegitimate sons of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Lorenzo Alberti. Leon's mother, Bianca Fieschi, was a Bolognese widow who died...