Leon Battista Alberti was a painter, architect, poet, scholar, philosopher and writer

worked as an architect from the 1450s onward, principally in Florence, Rimini, and Mantua. As a trained humanist and true Renaissance man, Alberti was as accomplished as an architect as he was a humanist, musician, and art theorist. Alberti’s many treatises on art include Della Pittura (On Painting), De Sculptura (On Sculpture), and De re Aedificatoria (On Architecture)

For Alberti, architecture was not merely a means of constructing buildings; it was a way to create meaning. His facades of the Tempio Malatestiano (Rimini, 1450) and the Church of Santa Maria Novella (Florence, 1470) are based on Roman temple fronts. His deep understanding of the principles of classical architecture are also seen in the Church of Sant’Andrea (Mantua, 1470). The columns here are not used decoratively, but retain their classical function as load-bearing supports