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 presented 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.
#2418593 in eBooks 2015-12-08 2015-12-08File Name: B0175P5N8Q
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