monuments, I perceived that many living men, but first of all you, Filippo, and our dearest friend Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Luca della Robbia and Masaccio, were not of less account for genius and noble work than any ancient artist of great fame.” Leon Battista Alberti died in Rome in 1472, and no stone marks the spot where one of the greatest Florentines lies, though one of his descendants put up a monument to him in Florence. “He indeed might serve,” writes Symonds, “as the very type of those many-sided, precocious and comprehensive men of genius who only existed in the Renaissance. Physical strength and dexterity were given to him at birth in measure equal to his mental faculties. It is recorded that he could jump standing over an upright man, pierce the strongest armour with his arrows, and so deftly fling a coin that it touched the highest point of a church or palace roof. The wildest horses are said to have trembled under him, as though brutes felt, like men, the magnetism of his personality. His insight into every branch of art was innate. At the age of twenty he composed the comedy of “Philodoxius” which passed for an antique, and was published by the Aldi in 1588 as the work of Lepidus Comicus. Of music, though he had not made it a special study he was a thorough master, composing melodies that gave delight to scientific judges. He painted pictures, and wrote three books on painting; practised architecture and compiled ten books on building. Of his books nothing remains; but the church of S. Andrea at Mantua, the Palazzo Rucellai at Florence, and the remodelled Church of S. Francesco at Rimini attest his greatness as an architect.”[7] The palaces of the Alberti were numerous, and they built or decorated chapels in the churches of Sta. Croce, the Carmine, S. Miniato al Monte, degl’Angeli and others. Their villas were superb, especially the Paradiso degl’Alberti, described in one of Giovanni da Prato’s tales.[8] Under the dynasty of Lorraine eight of the family attained the dignity of Senator, and in 1758 Giovan-Vincenzio Alberti was created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Francis. His son, named Leon Battista after his illustrious ancestor, died in 1836 the last of his race, leaving his name and his property to Cav. Mario Moriubaldini. PALAZZO ALBIZZI _Borgo degl’Albizzi. No. 12._