Leon Battista Alberti

Italian architect, scholar and author. Leon Battista Alberti produced a revised version of Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture [De re aedificatoria] (1452, 1485) which included a section on country houses which discusses gardens. It drew upon what he could learn of Roman gardens and advised siting a villa on a hillside site for climatic reasons and to benefit from the view. This was in sharp contrast with the enclosed gardens of medieval Europe. Leon Battista Alberti can be regarded as the inventor of the High Renaissance style of garden design. The illustration is from Vasari's Lives and shows 'Florence commending the image of Leon Battista Alberti to Britannia'. [See Gothein on Alberti] Alberti's comments on garden design, from the Ten Books on Architecture, are on the CD.