Notes 61-84 (Book Two)

62. Pliny, XXXV, xxxvi, 96-100.

63. Kolotes is referred to in the Italian version as Colorcentrio, in the Latin as Colloteicum. Alberti probably formed one word from Coloten Teium as it appears in Quintilian. Pliny mentions that the story was praised by orators; these orators, Cicero and Quintilian, are more probably Alberti's source than Pliny's brief description of the painting. Quintilian, II, xiii, 13. Cicero, Orator , xxii, 74. Pliny, XXXV, xxxvi, 73-4.

64. Giotto's mosaic, 'the Navicella', over the entrance to Old St. Peter's, where Alberti knew it. The mosaic has since been moved several times and much restored. See Introduction, p. 25.

65. Quintilian, XI, iii, 105, discusses seven significant motions similar to these.

66. zenith: quando vega in mezza il cielo. Horizontally: in lato. waist: ove ti cigni.

67. Free translation derived from both Italian and Latin. I movimenti delle gambe et delle braccie sono molto liberi ma non vorrai io caprisero alcuna degnia et honesta parte del corpo [MI, 131v.]. Tibiarum et brachi [orum] motus liberiores sunt. Modo caeteras corporis honestas partes non impediant [O, 19r.].

68. schermidori et istrioni.

69. Quintilian, XII, x, 5. Not in Pliny, XXXV, 64, as cited by Mallé.

70. This difficult sentence in the Italian is translated with the [p. 127] help of the Latin: All movements in the old are sluggish and they are supported in their posture as if the body is not held up by both feet but they even cling with their hands [O, 19v.].

71. MI originally read Niobe, which has been rasured and Io substituted above it. The Latin text assumes greater classical knowledge on the part of the reader, for it refers to Io solely as celebrem illam Inachi filiam [O, 19v.].

72. This discussion of inanimate movement grows logically out of the passage on animate movement; one cannot exist without the other. Sir Kenneth Clark [Alberti on Painting, p. 18] and John Pope-Hennessy [Paolo Uccello, London and New York, 1950. p. 17] have already indicated Uccello's Flood as one of the best examples of Alberti's inanimate movement. In this fresco hair, branches and draperies move in the wind issuing from a wind god in the upper right corner of the painting. Many of the poses, gestures and the presence of nudes and half-nudes advocated by Alberti appear here. At the same time, Uccello's failure to use correctly the simplest part of Alberti's theory, the perspective construction, casts some doubt on the influence of the treatise on this painter. Botticelli's Birth of Venus is perhaps the best known Quattrocento painting to include wind gods to agitate draperies. Many of these inanimate movements, either single or in groups, appear frequently in fifteenth-century Florentine painting.

73. Cicero, De Brute, xviii, 70, names Zeuxis, Polygnotus and Timantes as painters who used four colours. Quintilian, XII, x, 3, praises Polygnotus and Aglaophon for their simple colouring. Pliny, XXXV, xxxii, 50, cites Apelles, Aetion, Melanthius and Nicomachus as painters employing four colours.

74. Nicias: Pliny, XXXV, x1, 131. Zeuxis: Quintilian, XII, x, 4.

75. Probably from Quintilian, XII, x, 3.

76. This discussion has its basis in the opening pages of the treatise where Alberti treats of the construction of planes from [p. 128] lines. This almost geometric construction of points, lines, and planes is accepted into the practice of painting in a way that distinguishes much Renaissance underpainting from that of the Middle Ages. Although Cennino advocates the use of washes in drawing and, to a certain extent, in underpainting, Trecento practice seems to have preferred hatching to obtain modelling. Instead of the complex hatching with colour, the painter is now to use subtle gradations from white to black in the underpainting to obtain a greater feeling of relief. In effect this method brings the pen and ink drawing on the prepared ground up into the paint film.

We have already seen the importance of the plane as the basic unit of all forms in Alberti's aesthetic. The effect of light on colour and in making things visible is of an equal importance. Logic demands that these two be combined; light as it strikes the plane makes the plane visible and also affects the colour on the plane. Black and white have already been established as the painter's means of representing greater of lesser degrees of light; therefore, these black and white washes represent the effects of light, thus giving relief to the plane and to the body or which the plane is a part.

This concept was probably derived from the practice of Masaccio. Such modeling can be clearly seen in the Christ child of his Madonna at the National Gallery, London.

77. In this case the Latin is clearer than the Italian derived from it. Thus in painting white clothing it is useful to use one of the four genera of colours, so that it will be open and clear. And the contrary, in painting a black robe we take up the other extreme which is not far from the shadow, for example, the colour of the deep and dark sea [O, 20r.].

78. senza molto modo. Cf. Latin: indiligenter.

79. massai: manager of country house and/or farm tools. By extension any manager. Masseritia, translated here as frugality, is derived from massai. [p. 129]

80. The Latin continues, Here Zeuxis, the painter, usually criticized those who did not know what was extreme [O, 20v.].

81. Vitruvius, VII, vi-xiv. Euphranor: Pliny, XXXV, x1, 129.

82. genera et spetie.

83. In this section Alberti is no longer considering colour abstractly or empirically as he did in Book One [pp. 49-50]. Nor is he concerned with the mineral sources of the artist's colours and their preparation. His interest is now turned to the affective value of colours in combination. In this he is the first to treat of the psychological effects of colour both to arouse emotions in the observer and to create a sense of vivacity and movement. Colour now goes hand in hand with gesture, the commentator and the perspective construction to create a sense of identification between the observer and the painting.

The colour chords themselves seem rather unusual. There is no precedent for them in Trecento painting, and Masaccio's Carmine frescoes are so covered with soot that it is impossible to know what his palette may have been. It is clear, however, that both Domenico Veneziano in his 'St. Lucy altarpiece' and Piero della Francesca in his Arezzo frescoes are strong advocates of the Albertian colour system.

84. Read by Janitschek una piana tavola ove sia loro; corrected by Mallé to ove sia lÍoro. Correction verified by Latin text in plana tabula auro [O, 211.].