Biographical and autobiographical writings / Leon Battista Alberti ; translated by Martin McLaughlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472, author.

Contributor:

McLaughlin, M. L. (Martin L.), translator.

Series:

I Tatti Renaissance library ; 96.

The I Tatti Renaissance library; ITRL 96

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472.

Alberti, Leon Battista.

Italian literature--15th century--Early works to 1800.

Italian literature.

Genre:

Early works

Physical Description:

xxvii, 346 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : Harvard University Press, 2023.

Language Note:

Texts in Latin with English translation on facing pages; introduction and notes in English.

Summary:

"Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) was one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance. His extraordinary range of abilities as a writer, architect, art theorist, and even athlete earned him the title of the first "Renaissance man." Alberti was a prolific author, but only a few of his works are well known today: these are his vernacular dialogue on the family (De familia, 1433-43); his treatise on painting, which he wrote first in the vernacular and then in Latin (Della pittura/De pictura, 1435-36; 1439-41); and his Latin treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building), written 1443-72. Yet these represent only the tip of the huge iceberg of writings that he composed. Consequently, one of the first aims of this volume is to bring to the attention of a wider public five significant Latin compositions that have largely been neglected even though they tell us much about his literary aims and development, and contain a strongly biographical and/or autobiographical dimension. The pieces that make up this volume are: the early treatise/invective De commodis litterarum atque incommodis (On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literature, 1428-32), which partly reflects his experiences as a student in Bologna in the 1420s; the biography of an obscure Christian martyr, Vita S. Potiti (The Life of Saint Potitus, 1432-34), which also contains autobiographical projections; a mock funeral oration for his dead dog, Canis (My Dog, c. 1438), which however also has distinct autobiographical overtones; his own autobiography, entitled Vita (My Life, 1438-44), one of the first autobiographies of the early modern period; and a comic encomium of the fly, entitled Musca (The Fly, 1441-43), inspired by one of Lucian's works, but this too contains many elements of his own self-portrait. These five Latin works, written over a space of fifteen years, provide an insight into a crucial phase of Alberti's growth as a writer, as he gradually finds his own voice in these biographical and autobiographical writings"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literature

The Life of St. Potitus

My Dog

My Life

The Fly.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contains:

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. De commodis litterarum atque incommodis.

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. De commodis litterarum atque incommodis. English (McLaughlin)

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Vita S. Potiti.

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Vita S. Potiti. English

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Vita.

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Vita. English

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Canis.

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Canis. English (McLaughlin)

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Musca.

Container of: Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. Musca. English

ISBN:

9780674292680

0674292685

OCLC:

1369679695