De+Pictura

//**De Pictura**// (English: "On Painting") is a treatise on painting written in 1435 by Italian architect and art theorist [|Leon Battista Alberti]. It was first published in Italian in 1436. Alberti was the first to write down a theoretical analysis of the artistic innovations in Florence at the time. //De Pictura// aimed to describe systematically the figurative arts through "geometry". Alberti divided painting into three parts: //circumscriptio//, or drawing the bodies' contour, //compositio//, or tracing the body's lines and //receptio luminum//, or taking into consideration colors and lighting.