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HOW NOT TO TAKE SIDES: Leon Battista Alberti--Renaissance Man?

HOW NOT TO TAKE SIDES: Leon Battista Alberti--Renaissance Man? My subject here is assertion or assertiveness — or rather, which assertions might be worth disputing and how to treat the others philosophically. Disputes become seminal because, once begun, no one knows how to stop the conception of progeny. Pursuing peace, I will take up the case of Leon Battista Alberti (c. 1404–72), the Florentine Renaissance Man. That Alberti was the predecessor of Leonardo da Vinci as Universal Man is not a subject of interesting dispute. The dispute that counts is over whether that truism means something more or other than that Alberti and Leonardo were dilettantes. The founding opponents in this dispute are Jacob Burckhardt (whose Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien of 1860 established Alberti as the prototype of the Renaissance Man) and Julius von Schlosser (whose Die Kunstliteratur of 1924 expresses discontent with Burckhardt’s assessments on several counts).1 These preeminent art historians, by virtue of their contrasting opinions, opened a vast space for further scholarly intrusions, and even the most recent eruditions on Alberti mediate in the space between Burckhardt and Schlosser. 1. Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien: Ein Versuch, ed. Ludwig Geiger, 2 vols, 11th ed. (Leipzig: A. Kröner, 1913), 1:154 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

HOW NOT TO TAKE SIDES: Leon Battista Alberti--Renaissance Man?

Andersen, Wayne
Common Knowledge , Volume 10 (2) – Apr 1, 2004
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2004 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-10-2-198
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Abstract

My subject here is assertion or assertiveness — or rather, which assertions might be worth disputing and how to treat the others philosophically. Disputes become seminal because, once begun, no one knows how to stop the conception of progeny. Pursuing peace, I will take up the case of Leon Battista Alberti (c. 1404–72), the Florentine Renaissance Man. That Alberti was the predecessor of Leonardo da Vinci as Universal Man is not a subject of interesting dispute. The dispute that counts is over whether that truism means something more or other than that Alberti and Leonardo were dilettantes. The founding opponents in this dispute are Jacob Burckhardt (whose Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien of 1860 established Alberti as the prototype of the Renaissance Man) and Julius von Schlosser (whose Die Kunstliteratur of 1924 expresses discontent with Burckhardt’s assessments on several counts).1 These preeminent art historians, by virtue of their contrasting opinions, opened a vast space for further scholarly intrusions, and even the most recent eruditions on Alberti mediate in the space between Burckhardt and Schlosser. 1. Jacob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien: Ein Versuch, ed. Ludwig Geiger, 2 vols, 11th ed. (Leipzig: A. Kröner, 1913), 1:154

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Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2004

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