De pictura

De pictura (English: "On Painting") is a treatise or commentarii written by the Italian humanist and artist Leon Battista Alberti.

On Painting had an immediate and profound influence on Italian Renaissance artists including Ghiberti, Fra Angelico and Veneziano and on later figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, and remains a compelling theory of art.

De pictura also includes the first description of linear geometric perspective around 1416; Alberti credited the discovery to Brunelleschi, and dedicated the 1435 edition to him.

[3][4] De pictura relied heavily on references to art in classical literature; in fact Giotto's huge Navicella in mosaic at Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (now effectively lost) was the only[citation needed] modern (post-classical) work described in it.

Similarly, he encouraged artists to add black when modelling shapes, rather than only adding white as Cennino Cennini had advised in his c. 1390 Il Libro dell'Arte.

Figure from the 1804 edition of Della picture showing the vanishing point
Rendition of Alberti's description of how a circle projected as an ellipse
Figure showing pillars in perspective on a grid
The accurate perspective in Leonardo da Vinci 's paintings such as his Annunciation (1475–1480) epitomizes the construction described in Alberti's De pictura .