ABSTRACT
In the middle of the fifteenth century Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), a leading figure in the second generation of the Italians’ recovery of all things antique, wrote the second comprehensive treatment of the theory of classical architecture. 1 For good reason in 1860 Jacob Burckhardt, in the book that defined the Renaissance for us, identified Alberti as the universal Renaissance man in the period in which he found the first born of modern men. 2 The Renaissance rejection of medieval Christianity and its return to pagan antiquity was the overture to the modern era. But overlooking its Christian content is as egregious an error as ignoring the continued role of imitation in making things from God's creation.
