Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/50

42 they obtain the credence of men, provided they be truthful and written in the spirit of candour. We are therefore not to be surprised if we find the renowned Leon Batista to be better known by his writings than by the works of his hand.

This master was born in Florence, of the most noble family of the Alberti, concerning which we have already spoken in another place. He gave his attention, not only to the acquirement of knowledge in the world of art generally, and to the examination of works of antiquity in their proportions, &c., but also, and much more fully, to writing on these subjects, to which he was by nature more inclined than to the practice of art. Leon Batista was well versed in arithmetic, and a very good geometrician; he wrote ten books respecting architecture in the Latin tongue, which were published in 1481; they may now be read in the Florentine language, having been translated by the Rev. Messer Cosimo Bartoli, provost of San Giovanni, in Florence. tie likewise wrote three books on painting, now translated into the Tuscan by Messer Ludovico Domenichi, and composed a dissertation on tractile forces, containing rules for measuring heights. Leon Batista was moreover the author of the Libri della vita civile, with some other works of an amatory character, in prose and verse: he was the first who attempted to apply Latin measures to Italian verse, as may be seen in his epistle.