De pictura is a treatise on painting written in 1435 by Italian architect and art theorist Leon Battista Alberti. It was first published in Italian in 1436. It is the first in a trilogy of treatise on the "Major arts" which had a widespread circulation during the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

, the others being De re aedificatoria

De Re Aedificatoria

De re aedificatoria is a classic architectural treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti between 1443 and 1452. Although largely dependent on Vitruvius' De architectura, it was the first theoretical book on the subject written in the Italian Renaissance and in 1485 became the first printed book on...

("On Architecture", 1454) and De statua ("On Sculpture", 1462)

Alberti was a member of Florentine

History of Florence

Florence is a major historical city in Italy, distinguished as one of the most outstanding economical, cultural, political and artistic centres in the peninsula from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance.-Prehistoric evidence:...

 family exiled in the 14th century, who was able to return in Florence only from 1434, in the following of the Papal court during the Council of Florence

Council of Florence

The Council of Florence was an Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It began in 1431 in Basel, Switzerland, and became known as the Council of Ferrara after its transfer to Ferrara was decreed by Pope Eugene IV, to convene in 1438...

. Here he knew contemporary art innovators such as Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...

, Donatello

Donatello

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...

 and Masaccio, with whom he shared an interest for humanism

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 and the Classic art. Alberti was thus the first to write down a theoretical resume of the art innovation in Florence at the time.

Work

De pictura aimed to describe systematically the figurative arts through "geometry". Alberti divided painting into three parts:

• Circumscriptio (Italian: disegno), consisting in drawing the bodies' contour
• Compositio (commensuratio in the Italian version of the treatise), including tracing the lines joining the bodies
• Receptio luminum (color), taking into consideration colors and light.

The treatise contained an analysis of all the techniques and painting theories knew at the time, in this surpassing medieval works such as The book of Art by Cennino Cennini (1390). De pictura also includes the first description of linear geometric perspective devised by Brunelleschi around 1416; the invention was explicitly credited by Alberti to the Florentine architect, to whom was dedicated the 1436 edition.