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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The Vita S. Potiti presents us with a rather strange situation. We have one of the greatest humanists writing a life of a saint, in which he narrates events which he obviously disbelieves. Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) had been asked to write a series of lives of the saints, and the one we are discussing was the first. It was also the last, for Alberti abandoned the project. He never gave a reason. It seems that he must have found this type of work too foreign to his way of thought and humanistic ideals. There is an indication of this in his letter to Leonardo Dati, in which he expressed the fear that learned men would find his work not to their taste since it could not be documented and was too much like a fable.
1 Leon Battista Alberti, Opuscoli Inediti, Musca, Vita S. Potiti, ed. Grayson, Cecil (Nuova Collezione di Testi Umanistici Inediti O Rari, ed. A. Mancini and P. O. Kristeller, vol. x), Firenze, 1954, p. 86.Google Scholar
2 Alberti, pp. 27-28.
3 Mancini, Cf. G., Vita di Leon Battista Alberti, Firenze, 1911, p. 91.Google Scholar
4 Alberti, p. 33.
5 Alberti, p. 34.
6 Alberti, p . 78.
7 Alberti, p . 39.