Pulchritudo and lineamenta. Leon Battista Alberti’s aesthetic reflection in De re aedificatoria: Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Cicero and Vitruvius
Abstract
The aim of this research is to delve into the philosophical foundations of Leon Battista Alberti’s architectural theory in the treatise De re aedificatoria, particularly in the Preface and Book I, where central aspects of the design process understood as intellectual and aesthetic creation are discussed through the concepts of pulchritudo and lineamenta. The starting point of the analysis is located in the relationship established between the principles of lineamenta and forma in Ciceronian rhetorical theory and in the concepts of space, place, forma, body and proportion that originate in the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical tradition, Euclidean geometry and Vitruvian architectural theory. It is argued that since Antiquity, architecture was linked to concepts of a philosophical nature from which its principles have been derived.
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