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The Authorship of the Vita Anonyma of Leon Battista Alberti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Renée Watkins
Renée Watkins*
Affiliation:
Radcliffe College
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Extract

The Vita anonyma of Leon Battista Alberti published in 1751 by Lorenzo Mehus is undoubtedly the finest source for the character as well as the life of this versatile thinker of the early Renaissance. It is a document of individualism, pride, and hope—so much so that Burckhardt merely had to restate its contents to make of Alberti's life a veritable paradeigma of Renaissance character as he saw it.

Students of Alberti have long discussed the question, who wrote this remarkable biography? Bonucci, in 1844, publishing it again as part of the Opere volgari of Alberti, claimed that the Vita was actually an autobiography, disguised, of course, by the use of the third person.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 4 , 1957 , pp. 101 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1957

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References

1 Alberti, Leonis Baptistae Vita anonyma, ed. Mehus, Laurentius (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores xxv, Milan, 1751), pp. 295–303 Google Scholar. Quotations and references in this paper are made without page references because the Vita is so brief.

2 Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (New York, 1950), pp. 86–87 Google Scholar.

3 Alberti, Leon Battista, Opere volgari, ed. Bonucci, Anicio (Florence, 1844-49), I. LXXXIX Google Scholar.

4 Mancini, Girolamo, Vita di Leon Battista Alberti (Florence, 1882), p. 557 Google Scholar. This question is not discussed in the revised edition of 1911.

5 Janitschek, Hubert, ‘Alberti-Studien’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft VI (1883), 38 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 Alberti, Leonis Baptistae, Opera, ed. Massainus, Hieronymus (Paris, 1511)Google Scholar.

7 Alberti, Leon Battista, Della famiglia, ed. Pellegrini, F. C. (Florence, 1911), v-viGoogle Scholar.

8 Michel, Henri, Un ideal humain au XVe siecle—La pensée de L. B. Alberti (1404-1472) (Paris, 1930), pp. 57–58 Google Scholar.

9 Fueter, Eduard, Geschichte der neueren Historiographie (Below-Meineke's Handbuch der mittelalt. und neueren Gesch., Munich, 1911), pp. 50–51, 105-106Google Scholar.

10 Cyrnaeus, Petrus, De rebus Corsicis (RIS XXIV), pp. 505–506 Google Scholar.

11 Opere volgari, I, CXX, and discussion in Mancini, Vita (1911), p. 139.

12 Mancini, , Vita (1882), p. 233 Google Scholar, n. 1, cites a note ‘Versi di Leon Bap. Alberti recitati nel primo certame coronario anno Xpi MCCCCXXXXI die quando e’ donò questo quarto libro de famiglia al Se. e po. fiorentino'. In the 1911 edition, he cites a note in another manuscript containing the poem De amicitia and Book IV: ‘d'amicitia versi exametri per la scena facti et recitati publice. Et diè, et presentò un volumetto che tratta d'amicitia vulgarmente’ (p. 202).

13 Mainly Alberti's opening remark in De iure (Opera, sig. d ivv) that he had not read a legal work since coming to Rome, almost six years before. De iure is dated 30 Sept. 1437.

14 Mancini, Vita (1911), p. 255.

15 Alberti, Leon Battista, Della pittura, ed. Malle, Luigi (Florence, 1950), p. 9 Google Scholar.

16 See Della famiglia IV (Opere volgari II), p. 394.

17 Megastomo saved the life of Ladislas of Naples (1376-1414) shortly before John XXII became pope, in 1410.

18 See above, n. 12.

19 Published in Alberti, Leon Battista, Opera inedita et pauca separatim impressa, ed. Mancini, Girolamo (Florence, 1890), p. 236 Google Scholar

20 Mancini, Vita (1911), p. 139.

21 Opere volgari v, 233-252. For date see Mancini, loc. cit.

22 Opere volgari I, 229-236.

23 Opera inedita, Epistolae V, VIII, and X; Mancini, , Vita (1911), p. 201 Google Scholar

24 Opere volgari III, 8.

25 Mancini, , Vita (1911), p. 139 Google Scholar.

26 Cian, Vittorio, La satira 1, 339–341 Google Scholar.

27 Letter of presentation in Opere volgari v, 159-160.

28 Opere volgari, I, 7-130.

29 Ibid., III, 101.

30 Alberti, Leon Battista, Opuscoli Inediti—Musca—Vita S. Potiti (Florence, 1954)Google Scholar.

31 Opere volgari I, 7-130. References to Della famiglia IV are also to Bonucci's edition, Opere volgari II.

32 Alberti, Leon Battista, Momus o il principe, ed. Martini, Giuseppe (Bologna, 1942)Google Scholar.

33 Opere volgari III, 7-151.

34 Burckhardt (loc. cit.) indicates that the Vita is a fragment. Janitschek (loc. cit.) believes that it is an extract from a letter. The latter idea does not explain the care with which the early life of Alberti is described and the complete omission of the rest: certainly the Vita is not a casual digression but an elaborate discussion. The idea that it is a fragment is important, for one might suppose that the second part of Alberti's life was taken up or was to be taken up in the lost or unwritten second part of the Vita. Closer examination of the work, however, suggests a rough draft rather than a fragment, for, though the transitions throughout are abrupt, the structure of the whole work, except for some appended additional ‘sayings’ of Alberti which clearly belong either in the body of the work or altogether out of it, is coherent and cogent. Narrative treatment of Alberti's life is definitely dropped after the achievements in Rome and the work in the realm of painting are dealt with. The work does not break offin the midst of narrative; it ends, if one ignores the appended ‘sayings', with an eloquent passage on Alberti's relation to nature.“

35 For examples of Alberti's condemnation of slanderers and concern with the problem, see: Scriptor (Opera inedita, p. 122); Vaticinium (ibid., p. 161); Pontifex (ibid., pp. 96-97); Pupillus (ibid., p. 127); Della famiglia IV (Opere volgari, pp. 452-470); Tranquilità del'animo (ibid., I, 71-81). For his feeling that the general public does not appreciate or understand the scholar, see Cotnmoditas atque incommoditas literarum (throughout). For his belief in the brotherhood of those who love wisdom, a belief stressed in the Vita and closely related to the negative views expressed in the passages cited above, see: Anuli (Opera inedita, p. 235); DellafamigliaIV(Opere volgari, p.436); Iciarchia(ibid.,III,63); Tranquilità del'animo(ibid.,I,71).