DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62783#0087
CHAPTER III.
LEON BATISTA ALBERTI.
Leon Batista Alberti appears, as Mr. Eastlake observes in the First
Report, the connecting link between ancient and revived art; and
D’Agincourt does not hesitate to attribute the Renaissance of archi-
tecture, in a great measure, to his exertions, and those of his country-
man and contemporary Brunelleschi, the constructor of the Duomo
of Florence. Fie was eminent in all the arts, but attached himself
principally to architecture, and applied himself with much assiduity
to the study and explanation of the work of Vitruvius, the only one
of the ancients whose express treatise on this subject has reached us.
His principal work, De Re ^Rdificatoria, from which the following
pages are extracted, was completed, and a manuscript copv presented
to Pope Nicholas V. in 1452; and was printed at Florence, at the
early period of 1485. It contains, observes D’Agincourt, all that
could be known, at that time, relative to the art; and, if we confess
the truth, almost all that has since been written in the best works
on the same subject.
DIRECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS.
Alberti treats concerning the coats of plaster which should be
laid on walls, of the various kinds of intonachi, and how the mortar
with which they are made is to be prepared, of statues in basso-
rilievo, and of the pictures with which the walls are adorned.
He observes (Lib. vi. ch. 9.), “ that in all plasterings three kinds,
at least, of intonachi are required. The first is called rinzaffato, and
its use is to adhere very closely to the wall, and to hold firmly the
other two intonachi which are laid upon it. The use of the last
intonaco is to receive the polish, and the colors, and lineaments,
which make the work pleasing. The use of the middle intonaco,
which is now called arricciato, is to obviate any defects both in the
first and in the last intonaco. The defects are as follows :—if the
two last coats, namely, the arricciato and the intonaco, are caustic,
LEON BATISTA ALBERTI.
Leon Batista Alberti appears, as Mr. Eastlake observes in the First
Report, the connecting link between ancient and revived art; and
D’Agincourt does not hesitate to attribute the Renaissance of archi-
tecture, in a great measure, to his exertions, and those of his country-
man and contemporary Brunelleschi, the constructor of the Duomo
of Florence. Fie was eminent in all the arts, but attached himself
principally to architecture, and applied himself with much assiduity
to the study and explanation of the work of Vitruvius, the only one
of the ancients whose express treatise on this subject has reached us.
His principal work, De Re ^Rdificatoria, from which the following
pages are extracted, was completed, and a manuscript copv presented
to Pope Nicholas V. in 1452; and was printed at Florence, at the
early period of 1485. It contains, observes D’Agincourt, all that
could be known, at that time, relative to the art; and, if we confess
the truth, almost all that has since been written in the best works
on the same subject.
DIRECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS.
Alberti treats concerning the coats of plaster which should be
laid on walls, of the various kinds of intonachi, and how the mortar
with which they are made is to be prepared, of statues in basso-
rilievo, and of the pictures with which the walls are adorned.
He observes (Lib. vi. ch. 9.), “ that in all plasterings three kinds,
at least, of intonachi are required. The first is called rinzaffato, and
its use is to adhere very closely to the wall, and to hold firmly the
other two intonachi which are laid upon it. The use of the last
intonaco is to receive the polish, and the colors, and lineaments,
which make the work pleasing. The use of the middle intonaco,
which is now called arricciato, is to obviate any defects both in the
first and in the last intonaco. The defects are as follows :—if the
two last coats, namely, the arricciato and the intonaco, are caustic,