The British Academy
10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1

Thursday 26 March 2009

Leon Battista Alberti and the redirection of Renaissance humanism

Italian Lecture

Professor Martin McLaughlin

5.30–6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception.
Registration is not required for this event. Seats will be allocated on arrival.

If Petrarch (1304–74) was the founder of Renaissance humanism, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) was the one successor who sought to redirect the movement. Petrarchan humanism had been a blend of the medieval trivium (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) with history and ethics, but Alberti reorientated it towards a wider range of disciplines drawing on the more mathematical quadrivium, as well as underlining the importance of humour, and embracing the fine arts and architecture. In the light of recent scholarship, this lecture will compare the notions of humanism held by Petrarch and Alberti, and considers the latter’s motivations and objectives in opening up the humanities to a new, pluridisciplinary perspective.

About the speaker

Martin MacLaughlin is Fiat-Serena Professor of Italian Studies in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His research interests include Italian Renaissance literature and the humanism, literary theory, and biography of that period, as well as Alberti and translation studies. He was the editor, with Letizia Panizza, of Petrarch in Britain. Interpreters, Imitators and Translators over 700 Years, (Proceedings of the British Academy, 146, 2007)

Italian Lecture

In 1916 Mrs Angela Mond provided funds for a lecture series on subjects relating to Italian literature, history, art, history of Italian science, Italy's part in the Renaissance, Italian influences on other countries, or any other theme which the Council may consider as coming within the scope of such a Lecture.

Lecture

5.30–6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception.
Registration is not required for this event. Seats will be allocated on arrival.