On the Art of Building in Ten Books

 

On the Art of Building in Ten Books

Leon Battista Alberti

Translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor

MIT Press, 1999

ISBN: 0 262 51060 x

(Amazon)

Read by the author in 2023, purchased for $11.41

It is a little embarrassing that I am only now reading On the Art of Building in Ten Books by Leon Battista Alberti over twenty years since I started studying architecture. After Vitruvius, Alberti's book is the next oldest book in the canon of architectural theory. Still, I was apparently not missing much, as it was, to me, remarkably irrelevant and fairly boring. Yes, he takes a slightly different tact that Vitruvius, but his contemporary advice is six centuries outdated. I suppose if I was more interested in Italian Rishonim I might find him more interesting, in the same way that I find Vitruvius extraordinarily useful in studying the rabbinic literature of Late Antiquity. But I'm not, and I don't. 

Where I find Alberti the most interesting is when he is quoting ancient sources on various topics. He notably referenced Josephus quite a bit, sometimes picking out architectural tidbits that I have overlooked or forgotten.  But that is hardly a good enough reason for most people to read Alberti. At times he quotes Josephus' interpretation of the Torah as practical advice in - to give one example - purifying water.

Some other examples of topics I covered in ArchitecTorah, that Alberti mentions and quotes ancient sources:  

Eusebius on the assembly of building materials by David and Solomon. (p. 38)

Hesiod and Cato on when to harvest timber. (39) 

Varro and Plutarch on setting out city walls. (101, also 190) 

Josephus on preserving grain. (150) 

Plutarch on moving huge blocks of stone. (164)

Plato on city planning. (190) 

Letter of Aristeus on roads running through Jerusalem. (261) 

Plato on locating theaters and hippodromes.

Overall, a book with an important place in the history of the field of architecture, but not one that provides much insight, practical knowledge, of useful theory.