L. B. Alberti's ‘Costruzione Legittima’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16474106 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cecil Grayson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1964 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 14-27 |
| Publication date | 1964-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Italian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0075-1634 • E-ISSN: 1748-6181 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1179/its.1964.19.1.14 |
| OpenAlex | W2061934804 |
| Language | IT |
| Citations received | 3 |
Alberti's De Pictura contains the first theoretical formulation of the system of artificial perspective, and it is generally recognised that, whatever its debt to Brunelleschi, this treatise is the starting point of much of later Renaissance artistic theory and practice. There has been in the past, however, and still persists some difference of opinion as to the precise details of the process of perspectival construction described by Alberti. This is partly due to some differences of interpretation, and partly to difficulties in the text of his work as it is at present known. Alberti prepared two versions of his treatise, one in Latin, which he dedicated to Giovan Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua, the other in Italian addressed to Filippo Brunelleschi. A Latin text was printed in Basle in 1540, and re-edited in Amsterdam in 1649. Alberti's Italian text was published for the first time by Bonucci in 1847, and has since been republished several times from the same manuscript source, the most recent presentation being Mallè's supposedly critical edition of 1950. Scholars have tended to rely primarily on this Italian text (in the main probably for reasons of availability), with some reference to the Basle edition of the Latin version. The most recent English translation by J. R. Spencer is based mainly on the principal Italian MS (Bibl. Naz. Florence, cod. II.IV.38), and purports also to have examined the Latin version extant in six manuscripts. Yet Spencer's inquiries have failed to clarify Alberti's description of his 'costruzione legittima,' and Parronchi especially has rightly expressed concern that at this point in De Pictura something is wrong with the transmission of the text
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| Citations per year | 0.75 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |