Alberti – The Virtues of a Renaissance Man

Marsilio Ficino set out on an explicit mission to educate his city in the truths of Christian theology. He wished, with the help of the powerful and wealthy Medici family, to teach Florence about the Christly virtues of charity and compassion, courage and dignity of spirit. But he also understood that any such lessons would be largely ineffective i

Pacioli later called Leonardo the “most worthy of painters, perspectivists, architects and musicians, one endowed with every perfection,” and he recalled “that happy time when we were both in the employ of the most illustrious Duke of Milan, Ludovico Maria Sforza Anglo, in the years of Our Lord 1496 to 1499.”

The Italian Renaissance was producing artist-engineer-architects who straddled disciplines, in the tradition of Brunelleschi and Alberti, and the tiburio project gave Leonardo the opportunity to work with two of the best: Donato Bramante and Francesco di Giorgio. They became his close friends, and their collaboration produced some interesting churc

In most of his studies of nature, Leonardo theorized by making analogies. His quest for knowledge across all the disciplines of arts and sciences helped him see patterns. Occasionally this mode of thinking misled him, and it sometimes substituted for reaching more profound scientific theories. But this cross-disciplinary thinking and pattern-seekin