Biographical and Autobiographical Writings

"Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) was one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance. His extraordinary range of abilities as a writer, architect, art theorist, and even athlete earned him the title of the first "Renaissance man." Alberti wasa prolific author, but only a few of his works are well known today: these are his vernacular dialogue on the family (De familia, 1433-43); his treatise on painting, which he wrote first in the vernacular and then in Latin (Della pittura/De pictura, 1435-36; 1439-41); and his Latin treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria (On the Art of Building), written 1443-72. Yet these represent only the tip of the huge iceberg of writings that he composed. Consequently, one of the first aims of this volume is to bring to the attention of a wider public five significant Latin compositions that have largely been neglected even though they tell us much about his literary aims and development, and contain a strongly biographical and/or autobiographical dimension. The pieces that make up this volume are: the early treatise/invective De commodis litterarum atque incommodis (On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literature, 1428-32), which partly reflects his experiences as a student in Bologna in the 1420s; the biography of an obscure Christian martyr, Vita S. Potiti (The Life of Saint Potitus, 1432-34), which also contains autobiographical projections; a mock funeral oration for his dead dog, Canis (My Dog, c. 1438), which however also has distinct autobiographical overtones; his own autobiography, entitled Vita (My Life, 1438-44), one of the first autobiographies of the early modern period; and a comic encomium of the fly, entitled Musca (The Fly, 1441-43), inspired by one of Lucian's works, but this too containsmany elements of his own self-portrait. These five Latin works, written over a space of fifteen years, provide an insight into a crucial phase of Alberti's growth as a writer, as he gradually finds his own voice in these biographical and autobiographicalwritings"--
A fresh English translation of five Alberti works that illuminate new aspects of the literary aims and development of the first “Renaissance man.”Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) was one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance. His extraordinary range of abilities as a writer, architect, art theorist, and even athlete earned him the controversial title of the first “Renaissance man.”The works collected in Biographical and Autobiographical Writings reflect Alberti’s lived experiences and his interests in the genre. This volume includes On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literature, which partly reflects his experiences as a student in Bologna; The Life of St. Potitus, the biography of a Christian martyr, which also contains autobiographical projections and was to have been the first in a series of lives of saints; My Dog, a mock funeral oration for his dead dog; My Life, one of the first autobiographies of the early modern period and the main source for Jacob Burckhardt’s portrait of Alberti; and a comic encomium, The Fly. In particular, the last three works—My Dog, My Life, and The Fly—constitute a kind of trilogy, as the humanist finds one of his main themes, the portrait of the ideal life, with a strong emphasis on humor.This edition presents the first collected English translations of these works alongside an authoritative Latin text.
Leon Battista Alberti was among the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance. Biographical and Autobiographical Writings includes On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literature, The Life of St. Potitus, My Dog, My Life, and The Fly. It presents the first collected English translations of these works and an authoritative Latin text.