Alberti and Piero della Francesca

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to two of the oldest written sources on perspective constructions — and the main sources for quattrocento — composed by Leon Battista Alberti and Piero della Francesca, respectively. These authors were universally gifted men with rather different approaches to perspective. Alberti was a theorist who took a strong interest in painting, architecture, and sculpture, and in the performance of these arts. He seems, however, to have been more attracted to the theory of painting than to the practice of perspective and its geometrical foundation. Piero, on the other hand, was an artist and a mathematician who wanted to connect these two disciplines. He presented many perspective constructions in great detail and speculated about how they were related to mathematics and optics.