About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 24. Chapters: Leon Battista Alberti, Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy, Basilios Bessarion, Shin Sawbu, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Nezahualcoyotl, Jean Mielot, Afanasy Nikitin, Charles de Valois, Duc de Berry, Gregory of Heimburg, Balthasar of aga, Michelozzo, Janos Vitez, Luca Pitti, Infante John, Duke of Viseu, Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, Nicholas Jacquier, Janus Pannonius, Margaret of York, Gaston IV, Count of Foix, Charles, Count of Maine, Hans Pleydenwurff, Walter Hart, Eleanor Percy, Countess of Northumberland, Charles of Artois, Count of Eu, Kebek Sultan, Takatsukasa Fusahira, Liu Jue, Peter Luder. Excerpt: Leon Battista Alberti (February 18, 1404 - April 20, 1472) was an Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer, and general Renaissance humanist polymath: though he is often characterized as "architect" James Beck observes, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts." Alberti's life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori or 'Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects'. An Italian humanist, Alberti is often seen as a model of the Renaissance "universal man." He was born in Genoa, one of two illegitimate sons of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Lorenzo Alberti. Leon Battista's mother, Bianca Fieschi, was a Bolognese widow who died during an outbreak of bubonic plague. Like many other families, the Albertis had been expelled from their native city, Florence, by the republican government, run by the Albizzis. At the time of Leon Battista's birth, his father Lorenzo lived in Genoa, but the family soon moved to Venice, where Lorenzo ran the...
