Editing Leon Battista Alberti (section)

==Painting==
[[Giorgio Vasari]], who argued that historical progress in art reached its peak in [[Michelangelo]], emphasized Alberti's scholarly achievements, not his artistic talents: "He spent his time finding out about the world and studying the proportions of antiquities; but above all, following his natural genius, he concentrated on writing rather than on applied work."<ref name=Vasari/> In ''On Painting'', Alberti uses the expression "We Painters", but as a painter, or sculptor, he was a dilettante. "In painting Alberti achieved nothing of any great importance or beauty", wrote Vasari.<ref name="Vasari" /> "The very few paintings of his that are extant are far from perfect, but this is not surprising since he devoted himself more to his studies than to draughtsmanship." [[Jacob Burckhardt]] portrayed Alberti in ''The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy'' as a truly universal genius. "And Leonardo Da Vinci was to Alberti as the finisher to the beginner, as the master to the dilettante. Would only that Vasari's work were here supplemented by a description like that of Alberti! The colossal outlines of Leonardo's nature can never be more than dimly and distantly conceived."<ref name="Renaissance Italy 1860">Jacob Burckhardt in [[s:The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy#Personality|''The Civilization of the Renaissance Italy'', 2.1]], 1860.</ref>

Alberti is said to appear in Mantegna's great frescoes in the [[Camera degli Sposi]], as the older man dressed in dark red clothes, who whispers in the ear of [[Ludovico III Gonzaga|Ludovico Gonzaga]], the ruler of Mantua.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Johnson|first=Eugene J.|date=1975|title=A Portrait of Leon Battista Alberti in the Camera degli Sposi?|journal=Arte Lombarda, Nuova Serie|volume=42/43|issue=42/43|pages=67–69|jstor=43104980}}</ref> In Alberti's self-portrait, a large [[plaquette]], he is clothed as a Roman. To the left of his profile is a winged eye. On the reverse side is the question, ''Quid tum?'' (what then), taken from [[Virgil]]'s ''Eclogues'': "So what, if Amyntas is dark? (''quid tum si fuscus Amyntas?'') Violets are black, and hyacinths are black."<ref>Virgil, Bucolica, Chapter X.</ref>