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The architectural program outlined by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) in De re aedificatoria (1452) has been described by Richard Krautheimer as an effort ‘to create dignified surroundings for the dignified actions of dignified people.’ The contribution of sculptural ornamentation to this vision of a ‘dignified’ humanist paradise has escaped adequate critical attention. Sculpture, I believe, is an essential formal and iconographic element in Alberti's conception of the city as an ideal of order, of peace, and of unity. Discussion of Alberti's ideas on sculpture has heretofore dealt almost exclusively with De statua. Such emphasis has led to the rather widespread assumption that his work as a theorist on sculpture was limited to an interest in the achievement of naturalism and ideal proportion in the representation of the free-standing human figure.

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