marbles, in tlie year 1450. On one of these tombs is the portrait of Malalesta, that of Leon Batista himself being also to be seen in another part of the work.
In the year 1457, when the very useful method of printing books was invented by Giovanni Gutenberg,[1] a German, Leon Batista discovered something similar; the method of representing landscapes, and diminishing figures by means of an instrument, namely, by which small things could in like manner be presented in a larger form, and so enlarged at pleasure: all very extraordinary things, useful to art, and certainly very fine.
It happened about this time, that Giovanni di Paolo Rueellai resolved to adorn the principal Facade of Santa Maria Novella, entirely with marble, at his own cost; whereupon he consulted with Leon Batista, who was his intimate friend, and having received from him not advice only, but a design for the work also, he determined that it should by all means be put into execution, that so he might leave a memorial of himself. Rucellai, therefore, caused the work to be at once commenced, and in the year 1477, it was finished, to the great satisfaction of all the city; the whole work being much admired, but more particularly the door, for which it is obvious that Leon Batista took more than common pains. This architect also gave the design for a palace, which Cosimo Rucellai caused to be built in the street called La Vigne, with that for the Loggia which stands opposite to it. In constructing the latter, Alberti, having made the arches above the columns very narrow, because he wished to continue them, and not make one arch only, found he had a certain space left on each side, and was consequently compelled to add ressaults to the inner angles. When he afterwards proceeded to turn the arches of the internal vaulting, he perceived that he could not give it the form of the half-circle, the effect of
- ↑ Santander also gives the date here assigned, to the invention of Gutenberg, of which Vasari speaks with a coolness so amusing. The “instrument” which he is pleased to couple Avith the art of printing is by some writers supposed to be the camera optica, usually attributed to Batista Porta. Notices of the various inventions of Leon Batista, as also much besides respecting this remarkable man, whose versatility of genius and universality of acquirement have been rarely equalled, wall be found in Flavio Biondo, Italia Illustrata, in Tiraboschi, Storia, &c., and many other writers.
