Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although he is often characterized as an architect exclusively, as James Beck has observed, to single out one of Leon Battistas fields over others as somehow functionally independent and selfsufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Albertis extensive explorations in the fine arts. Albertis life was described in Giorgio Vasaris Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.

Leon Battista Alberti was born in 1404 in Genoa to a wealthy Florentine father who had been exiled from his own city, but who was allowed to return in 1428. Alberti, whose mother is unknown, and who was probably illegitimate, was sent to boarding school in Padua, then studied Law at Bologna. He lived for a time in Florence, then travelled to Rome in 1431, where he took holy orders and entered the service of the papal court. At this time he studied the ancient ruins, which excited his interest in architecture and strongly influenced the form of the buildings that he designed.

Source: Wikipedia