La Roma di Leon Battista Alberti

The exhibition is included in the VI centenary celebrations of the birth of Leon Battisti Alberti and is organized by the Comitato Nazionale VI Centenario della Nascita di Leon Battisti Alberti (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. Direzione generale per i Beni librari e gli Istituti Culturali) and by the Assessorato alle Politiche Culturali del Comune di Roma-Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali, in conclusion of the series of conferences dedicated to the study of albertinian works held during 2002 2004.

By the mid XV century Rome is a city in search of a new form and functionality. Its own monuments seem isolated and distant, immersed in areas abandoned to nature and the action of time that has left these ruins of antiquity in a state of degradation, becoming more and more unidentifiable as their strewn fragments are left object of pillage and reuse.
The representations of Rome during this period indicate visible traces of the principal monuments in this city not as yet transformed by the popes.

Alberti (1404 - 1472) joins the Papal Court of Eugenio IV in 1432 and for the next forty years will be a dedicated and expert observer of architectonic ruins, works of art, inscriptions and ancient coins, competing with other humanists and artists present in Rome.
In 1471 the year prior to his death, Alberti, whose competence is by now fully established and undisputed, will accompany Lorenzo il Magnifico, Bernardo Rucellai and other florentines who have come to Rome to pay homage to the new pope Sisto IV, on a guided tour of the city's monuments.
His direct knowledge of the ruins and ancient manuscripts was fully confirmed in his treatise De re aedificatoria presented to pope Nicolò in 1452, though previous to this date he had already given proof of his scientific and innovative expertise in the realization of an unprecedented geometric relief map of the city. With his text he rivalled Vitruvio in outlining the forms of a new architecture for the 15th century.