Which Italian Renaissance architect wrote the treatise 'De re aedificatoria'?

The Italian Renaissance architect who wrote “De re aedificatoria” was Leon Battista Alberti. Written in Latin between about 1443 and 1452, the treatise is usually translated as “On the Art of Building” or “On Building.” It became one of the Renaissance’s most influential theoretical works on architecture.

Alberti deliberately modeled the book on Vitruvius’s ancient Roman treatise “De architectura,” but he did more than summarize classical ideas. His ten books discuss materials, construction, proportion, beauty, civic buildings, religious architecture, and the relationship between architecture and society. For Alberti, a successful building depended on both practical craft and intellectual design.

The work is especially important because it was the first major architectural treatise written in the Italian Renaissance rather than antiquity. Its first printed edition appeared in Florence in 1485, making it the first printed book devoted to architecture. Alberti also wrote influential works on painting and sculpture, including “De pictura,” and is remembered as a humanist whose architectural ideas shaped Renaissance classicism.