Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472): Tradition, Innovation and Interdisciplinarity in a Renaissance Polymath

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The aim is to fulfil the need for a comprehensive monograph on Alberti: the book's title is Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472): Tradition, Innovation and Interdisciplinarty in a Renaissance Polymath. The research context is one in which many initiatives have been undertaken in Alberti studies since 1990, leading up to the centenary in 2004. These have taken the form of interdisciplinary conferences and the published proceedings, and also two major editorial initiatives, one in Italy, one in France, to publish in the next ten years Alberti's complete works (the first three volumes appeared in 2002-03). Yet, no comprehensive monograph in any language has been published to offer a rounded picture of this multi-faceted writer. Cecil Grayson, who established the editions of Alberti's vernacular worth's (Bari, 1960-73), never wrote a definitive monograph, though his collected articles were published shortly before his death: Studi su Leon Battista Alberti (Olschki, 1996). In English, there have been only three recent books: by Joan Kelly Gadol (Chicago, 1969), ivlark Jarzombek (Cambridge, MA, 1989) and Anthony Grafton (Harmondsworth, 2000). None of the three books were by experts in Italian literature, and none of them cover the vast body of literary texts written by Alberti. Gadol's book was largely concerned with Alberti the art theorist, and only a few pages of her final chapter (pp. 213-40) were devoted to his literary works. Jarzombek's work has received little attention from scholars since his understanding of Renaissance Latin and Italian seems deeply flawed. Anthony Grafton is a distinguished historian: his Alberti book is largely concerned with the history of ideas and culture, devoting most space to the architectural treatise (hence its subtitle lyiaster Builder of the Italian Renaissance), and to Della famiglia, whereas the other three vernacular dialogues receive barely three pages. In private conversation, Grafton agrees that there is a strong case for a monograph on Alberti written from a literary perspective. Italian scholarship on Alberti shows a similar pattern. The enhanced understanding of the writer's importance has been underlined by the appearance of a new journal entirely devoted to his works, Albertiana (1998-), and by several major A conferences, but the only recent monographs are limited in scope: Ponte's Leon Battista Alberti. Umanista e scrittore (Genoa, 1981), deals with the literary not the technical works, and Contarino's L B Alberti moralista (Caltanissetta, 1991) treats ethical not literary issues. Among other single-authored worths, new light was shed on Atberti's Florentine years by Luca Boschetto, Leon Battista Alberti e Firenze (Olschki, 2000), paralleled by Stefano Borsi's work on Alberti the antiquarian in Rome in his Leon Battista Alberti e Roma {Florence, 2003). Rinaldo Rinaldi's 'Melancholia Christiana". Studi sulle fonti di Leon Battista Alberti (Olschki, 2002) is a collection of articles, the central ones concentrating on just one work (Momus), while Francesco Furlan's Studia Albertiana (Paris-Turin, 2003) is another collection of essays, providing insights into some of the philological and genre problems surrounding the texts. The rest of recent scholarship on the author is in the form of articles and conference proceedings. The Atti of three 1990s conferences appeared in 1999, 2000 and 2001 (see Case for Support), and the proceedings of the many centenary conferences of 2004 have just started to appear. Potential applications and benefits of the outcome: the completed monograph will be of use to students and researchers in the general area of Renaissance studies, and in the particular fields of Italian, Latin (and Greek) literary studies, reception of classical culture, art history, and architectural history.