Tuesday, January 21, 2020
607 - The Age of the Medici, Part 3, Italy, 1972. Dir. Roberto Rossellini.
Part 3: Leon Battista Alberti: Humanism.
It is only in God that the ultimate science is realized.
So says Leon Battista Alberti, the Christian humanist of Renaissance Florence.
Alberti meditates on great ideas. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers from antiquity to today. The greatest spiritual ideas. Philosophical ideas. Aesthetic ideas. Mathematical ideas. Scientific ideas. Etc. And he fuses those thoughts together.
Alberti and Ciraco enter the Cathedral as the choir sings.
They see the painting of Masaccio. The crucified Christ. The Trinity.
A woman speaks to them. She does not understand the painting. Why does Masaccio give God the same dimensions as humans. Ciraco argues that Masaccio has liberated himself into new forms. Alberti states that he has applied the new science of perspective--principles of geometry.
In this time period it is scandalous to represent certain things artistically in certain ways. But change is coming. The application of science to art.
Science.
Toscanelli has found a way to calculate the circumference of the Earth. According to his calculations, the Earth has a circumference of 28,000 miles. Today we understand it to be 24,901. Toscanelli had to work it out with far less technology. He came close.
Literature.
Niccoli Cusano has acquired a Codex of Sappho's verses from Crete. How? Manuscripts such as this one are rare, hard to come by, and expensive.
Yet Niccoli has a library filled with them. We know, because we are standing in his library.
Niccoli reads.
Some say the most wondrous thing on this black earth,
is an army of horsemen.
Others, instead, of troops.
Yet others, of ships.
But I say, that which one loves.
Cosimo de Medici appears. Niccolo takes him aside to speak in private.
Niccolo wants to borrow 50 florins. Cosimo wants to know why. After all, Niccolo already owes Cosimo so much money. Niccolo says that comforts him. Because 50 more florins is immaterial to what he already owes. Cosimo presses him. Why? Niccolo tells Cosimo about a manuscript he wishes to buy.
Cosimo presses him further. He extracts from Niccolo a list of all the manuscripts he currently wishes to acquire. By the end of it, Cosimo has talked Niccolo into borrowing 620 florins rather than merely 50. For if that is what it takes to acquire all the manuscripts, then that is what he should borrow.
Niccolo thanks Cosimo as Cosimo smiles and leaves. We infer that the debt will never be paid, nor that Cosimo wishes it to be. Through the feigning of credit, he expresses his largesse.
Cosimo is really a Benefactor. A Patron of the Arts.
Cosimo de Medici is the Godfather of 15th-century Florence. He is kind to you, and exceedingly generous, as long as you are loyal to him.
Political Intrigue
The men discuss the Pope. The current Pope. The one to be. The other one. They watch a procession. They discuss the possible outcomes of the next vote. No worries. We will ensure that the right one is elected.
Engineering
Alberti has developed a way to take measurements of the depths of the seas. There is no sounding yet. Alberti describes it. He is given leave to build it right away.
They are motivated because the great ships of Rome lie sunken off the coast, and they wish to retrieve them, to study them, to reverse engineer them. They want to understand everything that made Rome great. To achieve it as well. And to surpass it.
Alberti demonstrates various machines at work For example, a machine for cutting groves in metal to make a file.
Later he shows off his collection of mirrors. Mirrors of all shapes and curvatures, which distort the human face in many different ways.
Architecture
Alberti has written two works on architecture, yet they arise from mathematical theory rather than practical experience. But as much as he has his detractors, which we saw in the previous episode, he has more so supporters, and he is talked into embracing his talent and pursuing his craft to practical advantage.
As Alberti reaches his mature years, he shares his wisdom with Cosmio's grandson, Lorenzo de Medici. It is up to him to continue the tradition begun by his predecessors. Always have money. Always provide for your family. Never leave your offspring in a condition where they have to beg. With money comes opportunity, the opportunity to focus on what is really important. The advancement of civilization built on the acquiring of knowledge.
* * * * *
Do you think that drawing, painting, sculpting statues is possible without assiduous study? I say it is indispensible for every artisan, every sculptor--Donatello for instance--for every painter to try to discover the universal model of reality, which is to say, the model that lives in nature.
The different parts that make up a body have fixed and symmetrical proportional relationships. Discovering the mathematic and geometric rules that govern these relationships means capturing the very essence of the archetype, of the universal model on which nature is based.
How long will you have to work to discover this archetype?
I shall begin immediately to write that which is clear to me about painting and about the sculpture of statues. And then I will seek some more.
Perspective, you say? I do not understand you, but I do not see the magnificence of Christ. I do not see divine power. The artisans have always depicted a glorious, immense, and infinite God in accordance with a holy tradition. But Masaccio has painted the body of Christ like that of a man. There is nothing divine about it. It does not inspire devotion.
But Christ made himself man, and Masaccio looked at his humanity.
He looked at men as the center of human becoming.
What is important to me in looking at that painting is that art and science have met.
Today one cannot be a good artist if one is not also a good scientist.
It is only in God that the ultimate science is realized. Because its infinite simplicity contains within it the multiplicity of things. He is the eternal form in all things, which is the potential that wondrously gives each thing its essence.
God is supremely simple and eternal unity, intelligence, and mysterious perfection, a whole and not a part. He is the cause of everything. He is present in everything that is in the universe. And we can say that man, in his fashion, is a God, but not in absolute terms. Man is a microcosm, and in him lives the world.
The ancient builders, of course, were truly great. But this century has had men so superb and numerous in such a diverse array of arts and doctrines that they can be compared to the ancient masters.
In architecture, in devising devices to transport large weights, in building war machines, I believe that our men have even surpassed the ancients.
I am glad to know that I have been useful to him. That is why I wrote them, why I studied the arts and became an architect.
Rome is great, despite the destruction.
Gold is useless unless you transform it into works for the city, works for men.
I have seen that good must be built up like a building, stone upon stone, just as a city must be built family upon family.
All that we have we owe to the family into which we are born. That is what protects us in spite of the evils of men. And there is no place in the world where care and diligence toward things can be shown than inside a family. It is no small thing to leave one's children riches and knowledge enough so that they will never be obliged to pronounce that bitter phrase: I beg of you.
I have seen that if the world asks men to be slaves, many will do so. But when the world honors genius, then many, many men become geniuses.
When one is intelligent, one can build.
When one is mad, one destroys.
Have you ever wondered why we live in a time of such great innovations, so fervid with ideas, so rich with intelligence? It is because today we honor intelligence.
Acting is only the extension of knowing.
The existence of an immense multitude of men has a reason. Their number is necessary so as to increase a million fold man's ability to understand, his knowledge.
The proper function of the human race, taken in the aggregate, is to actualize continually the entire capacity of the possible intellect.
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