The Concept of Space in Antiquity and its Legacy in Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria

Abstract

This essay explores Leon Battista Alberti’s sources for the concepts of space and lineamenta. The first returns to Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy as well as Vitruvian architectural theory.
The latter is analyzed through the work of Cicero and Pliny. Analyzing these will allow us to better understand and interpret the theoretical problems that Alberti addressed in De re aedificatoria and De pictura based on his interest in geomtry, a discipline through which he articulated his theory of art.