Leon Battista Alberti - by Martin McLaughlin (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A fresh, accessible, and rounded synthesis of the life and literary work of an important Renaissance figure"--

Book Synopsis

The first book in English to examine Leon Battista Alberti's major literary works in Latin and Italian, which are often overshadowed by his achievements in architecture

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) was one of the most prolific and original writers of the Italian Renaissance--a fact often eclipsed by his more celebrated achievements as an art theorist and architect, and by Jacob Burckhardt's mythologizing of Alberti as a "Renaissance or Universal Man." In this book, Martin McLaughlin counters this partial perspective on Alberti, considering him more broadly as a writer dedicated to literature and humanism, a major protagonist and experimentalist in the literary scene of early Renaissance Italy. McLaughlin, a noted authority on Alberti, examines all of Alberti's major works in Latin and the Italian vernacular and analyzes his vast knowledge of classical texts and culture.

McLaughlin begins with what we know of Alberti's life, comparing the facts laid out in Alberti's autobiography with the myth created in the nineteenth century by Burckhardt, before moving on to his extraordinarily wide knowledge of classical texts. He then turns to Alberti's works, tracing his development as a writer through texts that range from an early comedy in Latin successfully passed off as the work of a fictitious ancient author to later philosophical dialogues written in the Italian vernacular (a revolutionary choice at the time); humorous works in Latin, including the first novel in that language since antiquity; and the famous treatises on painting and architecture. McLaughlin also examines the astonishing range of Alberti's ancient sources and how this reading influenced his writing; what the humanist read, he argues, often explains what he wrote, and what he wrote reflected his relentless industry and pursuit of originality.

Review Quotes

"Thorough and clearly authoritative, [this book] traverses all that is already known about [Alberti's] literary works, but perhaps more importantly, it also addresses the writer's wide knowledge of classical texts, as well as his later philosophical dialogue."-- "David Marx Book Reviews"

"Martin McLaughlin's. . . . scholarly yet lucid writing makes plain just how original and individual a figure [Alberti] was, and how so much of his work deserves to be rescued from obscurity. In many ways he comes closer than most scholars to Alberti, who, one feels, would have gratefully recognized in him a fellow spirit."---Peter Hainsworth, Times Literary Supplement

"[A] learned, lucid book. . . . McLaughlin has set out to show what sort of writer Alberti was, and the results are impressive."---Anthony Grafton, London Review of Books

"A genuinely awe-inspiring piece of scholarship and research."---Terry Potter, The Letterpress Project

"A comprehensive view of the humanist's literary output."---Suzanna Murawski, New Criterion

"A fascinating and fitting monument to one of the Renaissance's most formidable literary minds."---Alexander Lee, Literary Review

"[A] scholarly study. . . . McLaughlin knows his subject inside and out."-- "Publishers Weekly"

About the Author

Martin McLaughlin (1950-2025) was the Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian at the University of Oxford from 2001 to 2017 and an emeritus fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He was the author of Literary Imitation in the Italian Renaissance and Italo Calvino. He translated Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985 (Princeton), Calvino's Why Read the Classics? and Leon Battista Alberti's Biographical and Autobiographical Writings.