Lorenzo Alberti, son of Benedetto, seems to have established himself for a time at Genoa where Leon Battista was born, probably in 1404 (some give 1398 as the date of his birth and others 1414). He was educated at Bologna and had a hard struggle after his father’s death in 1421, as the relations in whose charge he and his brother were left cheated them out of their patrimony. Brought up for the church, he was ordained a priest and at twenty became a Canon of the cathedral of Florence. But intense study brought on a disorder of the nerves which caused loss of memory, and he applied himself to mathematics and the physical sciences, and adopted architecture as his profession. He invented several mechanical instruments, the _Reticola de’ dipintori_, the _Bolide Albertiana_ and the _Camera optica_, a precursor of the Camera obscura.[4] His principal prose work is the _Trattato della Famiglia_, three books of which are said by the anonymous writer of his life to have been composed in Rome in ninety days. “Taken in its whole extent,” remarks J. A. Symonds, “this treatise is the most valuable document which remains to us from the times of the oligarchy.... From its pages a tolerably complete history of a great commercial family might be extracted; and this study would form a valuable commentary on the public annals of the commonwealth during the earlier portion of the XVth century.” Much discussion was aroused, and still continues, about the fourth book of the Trattato, published by D. M. Manni in 1734 as the work of Agnolo Pandolfini under the title of _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_. Pandolfini has champions like Signor Virginio Cortesi, who in his _Studio Critico_ ably pleads his cause. But the _Governo della Famiglia_ is now generally acknowledged to be by Alberti, in whose _Trattato_ it figures as the third book, under the name of the _Economico_, or the _Padre della Famiglia_. Professors Alessandro d’Ancona and Orazio Bacci, in their admirable manual of Italian literature[5] write: “It may be considered as definitely proved that the _Governo della Famiglia_” (as it is usually called) “is nothing more than a travestied and altered copy, often not to its advantage, of the third book of the _Famiglia_ written about 1460.”[6] Alberti was a strenuous advocate for writing in Italian; “I admit willingly,” he says, “that the ancient Latin tongue is very copious and of a beauty polished to perfection. Yet I do not see what our Tuscan contains so hateful, that worthy matter, when conveyed therein, should be displeasing to us.” In the dedication of his essay on painting to Filippo Brunelleschi the same note is struck with regard to the arts. After sorrowing over the loss of many arts and sciences and fearing that Nature is weary and worn out, he exclaims: “But when I returned from the long exile, in which we of the Alberti have grown old, to this our mother city which exceeds all others in the beauty of her