Leon Battista Alberti - The Books on the Family

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Italian Literature - Einaudi

"...but I severely blame all stinginess, just as all excessive display Original: superchia pompa. Alberti reflects the humanist ideal of moderation, or the "Golden Mean," which avoids both miserliness and wasteful luxury. has always displeased me. Let the elders, then, stand as common fathers to all the youth—indeed, as the mind and soul of the entire body of the family. And just as having a neglected and bare foot would be a dishonor and a shame to the face and to the whole man, so the elders and every senior member should know they deserve great blame if they are negligent toward even the lowest member of the household, or if they allow the family to become dishonorable or dishonest in any part.

Let them keep in mind that the first business of the elders is to take responsibility for every member of the house, like those good Lacedemonians The Lacedemonians are the Spartans. Renaissance thinkers frequently cited Sparta as a model of austere discipline, civic virtue, and communal responsibility for the education of the young. of the past who considered themselves fathers and guardians of every minor. They corrected every transgression in any of their young citizens, whoever they might be, and they held those closest and most related to them most dear and welcome when they had been made better by anyone else. It was a matter of praise for fathers to give thanks and rewards to whoever it might be for making the youth more moderate and more civilized, should they have undertaken such work. With this good and most useful discipline of character, they made their land glorious and honored it with immortal and well-deserved fame. For there was no enmity among them, where angers and hostilities were uprooted and cast out as soon as they were born; instead, there was a single will, common and active among all, to have a land that was truly virtuous and well-mannered. Toward these things everyone labored with all their study, strength, and wit—the elders by admonishing, reminding, and offering themselves as a most praised example, and the young by obeying and imitating."

If these and many more things, which Messer Benedetto Benedetto Alberti (d. 1388) was a real-life relative of the author and a prominent Florentine political figure. In this dialogue, he serves as the voice of traditional wisdom and family experience. used to recite, are all necessary to the fathers of families; if the care of guiding the youth is recognized as most praiseworthy not only in fathers but in others as well, then let no one think it is not my duty—as it is of other fathers—to ensure with every argument, ingenuity, and art that those who are my children and most dear to me remain, as much as possible, in the faith and piety In this context, pietà (piety) refers to "filial piety"—the classical virtue of duty, respect, and loyalty owed to one’s parents, family, and ancestors. of their kinsmen and of everyone...