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Leon Battista Alberti (1404¬–1472) was a highly prolific polymath of the fifteenth century. Although his contributions to architecture and the visual arts are well known and available in good English editions, as are many of his literary and social writings, his mathematical works are not well represented. This present volume was planned to fill that gap, with entirely new English translations and critical commentaries making the works easily accessible for a wide readership of specialists and non-specialists alike. Four texts are included here. Although Alberti’s Commentarii rerum mathematicarum appears to be lost, we have his Ludi matematici . In these “games” Alberti describes twenty practical applications of mathematics in an accessible style. The translation is accompanied by a new transcript of the recently identified manuscript held in the National Library in Florence upon which it was based. In Elementi di pittura, Alberti provides a catalogue of definitions and geometric constructions, using Euclidean references but drawing a distinction between theoria of mathematical entities and praxis of painterly applications. Alberti’s most original mathematical contribution is a late work, De compendis cifris, first discussing the frequency of vowels, consonants, and different groupings in Latin, and then introducing a method of polyalphabetic substitution. Even more original is his enciphered code which permutes four numerals in two-, three-, and four-digit groups. De lunularum quadratura rehearses the classical demonstration of squaring a lune by Hippocrates.

Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472 -- Influence. --- Alberti, Leon Battista, 1404-1472. --- Mathematics -- Early works to 1800. --- Mathematics --- Physical Sciences & Mathematics --- Mathematics - General --- Mathematics. --- History. --- History of Mathematical Sciences. --- Mathematics, general. --- Math --- Science --- Annals --- Auxiliary sciences of history --- Alberti, Leon Battista, --- Influence. --- Alberti, Leon Battista --- Albert, Leon Baptiste --- Alberti, Leo Baptista, --- Alberti, Leon Batista, --- Alberti, Leonis Baptiste, --- Alberti, Leone Battista, --- Alberti, L. B. --- Alberti, Battista, --- אלברטי, ליאון באטיסטה --- Lepidus,

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A philosophical exploration of the origin and limits of the modern world.Much postmodern rhetoric, suggests Karsten Harries, can be understood as a symptom of our civilization's discontent, born of regret that we are no longer able to experience our world as a cosmos that assigns us our place. But dissatisfaction with the modern world may also spring from a conviction that modernism has failed to confront the challenge of an inevitably open future. Such conviction has frequently led to a critique of modernity's founding heroes. Challenging that critique, Harries insists that modernity is supported by nothing other than human freedom. But more important to Harries is to show how modernist self-assertion is shadowed by nihilism and what it might mean to step out of that shadow. Looking at a small number of medieval and Renaissance texts, as well as some paintings, he uncovers the threshold that separates the modern from the premodern world. At the same time, he illuminates that other, more questionable threshold, between the modern and the postmodern.Two spirits preside over the book: Alberti, the Renaissance author on art and architecture, whose passionate interest in perspective and point of view offers a key to modernity; and Nicolaus Cusanus, the fifteenth-century cardinal, whose work shows that such interest cannot be divorced from speculations on the infinity of God. The title Infinity and Perspective connects the two to each other and to the shape of modernity.

Perspective (Philosophy) --- Infinite --- History. --- Nicholas, --- Alberti, Leon Battista, --- Infinity --- Chrypffs, Nicolaus, --- Cues, Nicolas de, --- Cues, Nikolaus von, --- Cusa, Nicolaus de, --- Cusano, Nicola, --- Cusano, Nicolò, --- Cusanus, Nicolaus, --- Khrypffs, Nicolaus, --- Krebs, Nicolaus, --- Kues, Nikolaus von, --- Kusánský, Mikuláš, --- Kuzańczyk, --- Kuzaneli, Nikoloz, --- Kuzanskiĭ, Nikolaĭ, --- Mikołaj, --- Mikuláš, --- Ni-ku-la Kʻu-sa, --- Nicholas de Cusa, --- Nicola, --- Nicolai, --- Nicolas, --- Nicolaus Cusanus, --- Nicolò, --- Nikolaĭ, --- Nikolaus, --- Nikolaus von Cusa, --- Nikoloz, --- Nikoloz Kuzanelis, --- Nikula Kʻu-sa, --- Николай, --- Кузанский, Николай, --- Cusano, Niccolò, --- Albert, Leon Baptiste --- Alberti, Leon Batista --- Alberti, Leon Battista --- Finite, The --- Ontology --- Philosophy --- Alberti, Leo Baptista, --- Alberti, Leon Batista, --- Alberti, Leonis Baptiste, --- Alberti, Leone Battista, --- Alberti, L. B. --- Alberti, Battista, --- אלברטי, ליאון באטיסטה --- Lepidus, --- HUMANITIES/History --- Cusa, Nicolaas van, --- Nicolaas,