• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.233-242
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• 2016

The painter Leon Battista Alberti insisted that mathematics was very important in painting in his famous book "Della Pittura(On Painting)" at 15th century. At the first part of the book, he explained about points, lines, and planes mathematically. And he emphasized that the proportion was very useful for accurate description of objects. This is the perspective that Alberti showed by using visual pyramid. In this paper, we investigate the Alberti' s method and the background of Alberti's perspective.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.55-63
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• 2014

This paper discusses Leon Battista Alberti's vision of the paradigmatic city. In his De re aedificatoria, Alberti proposes how the architecture of both individual buildings and cities should be ordered and embellished. Borrowing ideas from the ancient writers on one hand, and reflecting on actual urban reality on the other, Alberti proposes an ideal city where the sacred and the secular come together in hierarchical harmony, beautified under the principle of ornament. In Book VIII, dealing with secular public works of architecture, he writes about the composition of a new humanist city that transcends actual reality. Ornament, a central idea of his aesthetics, supports his conception of the paradigmatic city.

• Architectural research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2016

This thesis explores Vitruvius and his impact upon other Renaissance architects who compare a city to a building or a building to a city, who match the city and the building into a human body, and who develop their own works. The objective of this study is to furnish an interpretation of their theory and practice through their literature and designs. In this point of view, this article takes notice of Vitruvius's six concepts coined from venustas and divides them into two parts: i.e. aesthetic quality (ordinatio, dispositio, and distributio) and technical activity (eurythmia, symmetria, and $d{\acute{e}}cor$) each. This thesis indicates that Vitruvius's successive impacts from the concepts bring about concrete design principles through proportional measurements, placing together, and hierarchic values for the former, as well as appropriate use through beautiful look, symmetrical harmony, and appropriate uses for the latter, tracking notions between a city as a house and vice versa, and either the ideas of the house or the city in the synthesis of the human body, which follows the perfect number and module based on the human body. The thesis shows that the representations of architecture and the city take place with the form of a circle and a square that express the religious belief and the cosmos, substantiating the connection between the proportions of the human body and numbers, and ultimately satisfying a concept of centrality, which is slowly extended to the enclosed plaza at the urban level from chambers, atrium, and corridors at the residence level.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.9
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• pp.195-215
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• 2010

Alberti's De re aedificatoria is the earliest case in the history of Italian Renaissance architectural treatises dealing with recovery of antiquity through textual and archaeological pursuits. The key source of the Renaissance theoreticians was Vitruvius' De architectura. However, Alberti was keenly aware of inaccuracy and Hellenization of Latinity in this classical text, and tried to compensate them in his own treatise. Furthermore he claimed a reformed discipline of the architects as well as the patrons, and prescribed how future buildings and cities should be built, based on the proper authority of ancient architecture in proper and intelligible Latin. Such an adaptation of classical usage in order to reestablish a modern norm preceded in his earlier work Momus, a satire on the contemporary Italian society of his own by following the model of Lucian. Alberti's suggestion of proper government in Momus's phrase was expanded in De re aedificatoria, for he consider the buildings are subject to the rules of morality and public interests. He proclaimed that the nature of beauty is the reasoned harmony of every part within a body, and architectural beauty also lies on the harmonized arrangement of all the elements within an individual building and of all individual buildings and facilities within a city. For the architects to execute this task, he formulated the concept of lineanenta, the form derived from the mind in order to prescribe the proper place, numbers, scale, and orders for whole building structure. It is the future oriented city-plans and building designs to serve the public interest and the good of all the individual citizens who make up the City-State that Alberti pursued in his treatise.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.10 no.4 s.28
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• pp.57-75
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• 2001

The music has influenced on the aesthetics, structure and symbol of the architecture from the ancient to the present. and been to be like architecture. It is important part that through the study of musical proportion by number, which is method of architectural and musical composition, resemblance can be found, music is resemble to architecture and this recognition is general as well in renaissance as architect and musician after that time. Therefore, in this background and aesthetics, the purpose of this study is to research purpose and methodology of the proportion of musical consonance and dissonance used in L. B. Alberti's architecture. At first, for the background of aesthetics this study previewed characteristic of aesthetics arranged by subjectivism and objectivism, and this musical proportion which is applicable for Alberti's architecture was defined. secondly, Alberti's architectural aesthetics (concinnitas) of the higher concept was defined by methodology of the lower concept, and this study described the application of dissonance used by the method of canon in music. thirdly, after according to characteristic of aesthetics in chapter three, proportion system was researched by the more objective, applicable unit in renaissance: roman foot and local unit differs meter in the present, Alberti's architectures was researched by the method of cannon in music.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.14
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• pp.159-186
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• 2012

Julio Romano decorated the facade of his house in Mantua with a statue of Mercury to give expressions to his ideas on painting. Hereby the painter from Rome could show his home to the world as that of a painter. To be concrete, Mercury was the planet god to which visual artists belonged, and so was basically related to visual arts. In his role to deliver diverse features of art works Mercury could also convey concepts and emotions expressed in a picture to the viewer. The power of a painting to arouse certain emotions or move the mind of the viewer was further connected to the role of Mercury as the guide of the human soul. This function again related the Roman god to the characteristic of a portrait to present absent persons to the viewer. Above the statue of Mercury, a Lucian head of the god is seen, so that they together form the central axis of the facade. This seems to emphasize that the theme of the facade decoration was the powerful persuasive forces of eloquence. The two masks on the left could then refer to sources of eloquence, I.e. various beautiful expressions of a language and its generative process. On the other hand, the masks on the right could represent consequences of eloquence, for instance, prudence, evil effects which come about to imprudent listeners, and other influences on listeners. Finally, it would be useful to remind us of a line from On Architecture by Leon Battista Alberti. According to the humanist architect parts of a building which are seen from the outside, like a facade, should be appropriately designed, since the decoration of a house could play a significant role to enhance the fame and honor of the family and its fatherland. This theory of Alberti could have provided the foundation to the facade decoration of the Casa Pippi which proudly presented the profession of painting to the public in visual form.