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De re aedificatoria is a classic architectural treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti between 1443 and 1452. Although largely dependent on Vitruvius
Vitruvius

File:Vitruvius.jpgMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Ancient Rome writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices....
' De architectura
De architectura

File:De Architectura027.jpg is a treatise on architecture written by the Ancient Rome architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus as a guide for Caesar Augustus#Building projects....
, it was the first theoretical book on the subject written in the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe....
 and in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture. It was followed in 1486 with the first printed edition of Vitruvius.

Alberti’s Ten Books consciously echoes Vitruvius' writing, but he also adopts a critical attitude toward his predecessor.






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De re aedificatoria is a classic architectural treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti between 1443 and 1452. Although largely dependent on Vitruvius
Vitruvius

File:Vitruvius.jpgMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Ancient Rome writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices....
' De architectura
De architectura

File:De Architectura027.jpg is a treatise on architecture written by the Ancient Rome architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus as a guide for Caesar Augustus#Building projects....
, it was the first theoretical book on the subject written in the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe....
 and in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture. It was followed in 1486 with the first printed edition of Vitruvius.

Alberti’s Ten Books consciously echoes Vitruvius' writing, but he also adopts a critical attitude toward his predecessor. In his discussion, Alberti includes a wide variety of literary sources, including Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 and Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
, presenting concise version of sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
 of architecture
Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
. Unlike Vitruvius's book, Alberti's tells architects how buildings should be built, not how they were built. De re aedificatoria is subdivided into ten books and includes:

  • Book One: Lineaments
  • Book Two: Materials
  • Book Three: Construction
  • Book Four: Public Works
  • Book Five: Works of Individuals
  • Book Six: Ornament
  • Book Seven: Ornament to Sacred Buildings
  • Book Eight: Ornament to Public Secular Buildings
  • Book Nine: Ornament to Private Buildings
  • Book Ten: Restoration of Buildings


In his survey of desirable floor plans for sacred buildings— "temples" in his phrase— Alberti begins with the ideal form of the circle, which is expressed in numerous examples of Nature. Nine ideal centrally-planned geometrical shapes are recommended for churches; besides the circle he lists the square, the hexagon, octagon, decagon and dodecagon, all derived from the circle, and, derived from the square, rectangles that exhibit the square and a half, square and a third and double square, all of which have enharmonic parallels in music. Chapels add small geometric figures to the basic circles and polygons to give a great variety of floor plans, in which each geometrical figure retains its clear unity and simple ratios that bind all elements of the plans and elevations into a harmonic unity.

De Re Aedificatoria remained the classic treatise on architecture from the 16th until the 18th century.

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