ABSTRACT
The middle of the quattrocento consolidated the foundations laid earlier in the century. Leon Battista Alberti's theories continued to influence artists; his ideas informed the first example of Renaissance urban planning, undertaken by Bernardo Rossellino for the humanist pope Pius II. In 1427 Leonardo Bruni, the republican-minded historian who had coined the term humanism and hailed Florence as the new Athens, became chancellor of the city. One of the most intriguing aspects of the Ideal City is the series of contrasts and juxtapositions that are essentially humanist in nature. In 1436 the headquarters of the reform Observant Dominican Order was transferred from Fiesole, the hill-town overlooking Florence, to the run-down convent of San Marco. The Dominicans and Franciscans comprised the two great Orders of mendicant friars, who preached the ideals of poverty and the simple life. The influence of Alberti permeates the work of Piero della Francesca, the most important painter from central Italy in the mid-fifteenth century.
