Leon Battista Alberti
Videos
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymat
Presumed self-portrait of Alberti
A portrait of Alberti by Filippino Lippi is thought to exist in the Brancacci Chapel, as part of Lippi's completion of the Masaccio painting, the Raising of the Son of Theophilus and St. Peter Enthroned.
Palazzo Rucellai
English title page of the first edition of Giacomo Leoni's translation of Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria (1452); the book is bilingual, with the Italian version being printed on the left and the English version printed on the right.
Johannes Trithemius
Videos
Johannes Trithemius, born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and occultist. He is
Leon Battista Alberti
…cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of European cryptography, a claim he shares with Johannes Trithemius. He is often considered primarily an architect. However, according to James Beck, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow…
Detail of Tomb Relief of Johannes Trithemius by Tilman Riemenschneider
Polygraphiae (1518) – the first printed book on cryptography
Tomb relief of Johannes Trithemius by Tilman Riemenschneider
Catalogus illustrium virorum Germaniae, 1495