Which 1485 book by Leon Battista Alberti discussed the ideal Renaissance city?

De re aedificatoria was Leon Battista Alberti’s 1485 book discussing architecture and the ideal Renaissance city. Its Latin title means On the Art of Building.

Alberti completed the treatise in the mid-fifteenth century, and it was first printed in Florence in 1485. The work drew heavily on the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius while developing Alberti’s own ideas about design, structure, beauty, and civic life.

The treatise covered more than individual buildings. Alberti considered streets, fortifications, public spaces, temples, houses, and the relationship between architecture and the community. His approach helped make architecture an intellectual discipline as well as a practical craft.

The book is sometimes confused with Alberti’s De pictura, written in 1435 and concerned with painting. Both works shaped Renaissance theory, but De re aedificatoria is the architectural treatise.