DE RE AEDIFICATORIA

(c. 1443)

   A treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti in which he expounded his architectural theories. In this, he was inspired by the first-century engineer Vitruvius who provided the only text on architecture to have survived from antiquity. De re aedificatoria, like Vitruvius' treatise, comprises 10 books and the headings in both are almost completely alike. In his text, Alberti provided the first proper modern account of the classical orders and advocated the use of a fixed module or its fraction as the basis for devising a building. He equated the harmony of a structure to musical harmony, achieved through the use of numerical proportions as they relate to the intervals of music. Alberti's intellectualization of architecture elevated the field to the scientific and humanistic realms.