Alberti – The Virtues of a Renaissance Man

At this time he wrote for his brother On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Letters,

His mind was never free from meditation and deliberation. He rarely stayed at home out of the public eye without deliberating upon something, and also pondered at dinner between courses.

He learned music without teachers, and his compositions were approved by learned musicians.

By these very books, many uneducated and even crude fellow citizens of his became devoted to letters. ALBERTI He counted them as brothers, and all others eager for learning, and whatever he came to know, he voluntarily communicated to them. ALBERTI He turned over those discoveries of his which were worthy and important to any who could use them.

When he heard that a learned man of any kind had arrived, he would at once work his way into a position of familiarity with him and thus from any source whatsoever he began to learn what he was ignorant of. ALBERTI From craftsmen, architects, shipbuilders, and even from cobblers he sought information to see if by chance they preserved anything rare