The Retrieval of Classical Architecture in the Quattrocento: The Role of Rhetoric in the Formulation of Alberti’s Theory of Architecture

Abstract

Memory is not only a central part of the activity of the art historian, but also of the daily practice of the artist and the theorist. This was never more evident than in the humanist culture of the Italian Renaissance, engaged in retrieving from oblivion the heritage from Greece and Rome. Usually, the study of the rescue from oblivion of the principles of classical art and architecture in the Italian Renaissance concentrates on the ways in which architects like Brunelleschi, or authors like Alberti, tried to retrieve the principles and vocabulary of classical architecture and put it to new uses. Another aspect of the retrieval of classical architecture and theory has hardly been studied until now: the part played by Byzantine scholars such as Manuel Chrysoloras and humanist writers like Alberti or Giannozzo Manetti in applying the principles and concepts of rhetoric to architecture. As a result, Italian humanists were able to discuss architecture in new ways by means of a conceptual apparatus that was already familiar to educated readers, that of rhetoric. However, a detailed study of their role in the form and content of Alberti’s De re aedificatoria is still lacking. As a first step towards filling this gap, I will discuss the interpretation of concinnitas, one of Alberti’s key concepts, and argue that a number of the innovatory aspects of De re aedificatoria can only be understood as the results of a typically rhetorical attitude towards architecture, learning and classical antiquity.