Alberti wrote De Pictura in Latin in 1435 and in true Renaissance spirit made an Italian translation the following year.

He unfolds his theories step by step. In Book One he explains the process of vision, in Book Two he sets out ‘to instruct the painter how he can present with his hand what he has understood with his mind’. Book Three stipulates the moral and artistic prerequisites of the painter.

The genius of De Pictura surfaced almost immediately – signs are there in Ghiberti’s Baptistery Doors in Florence, in the paintings of Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano – and it remains a living classic of art theory.

This edition at last makes widely available Cecil Grayson’s translation from the Latin, the best English version of Alberti’s text. It contains diagrams integrated into the text and an introduction by Martin Kemp which discusses De Pictura in the light of Alberti’s life and philosophy.