Leon Alberti was considered a veritable “Renaissance” man in the sense that he mastered many things, including poetry, plays, moral and philosophical essays and treatises on art. He was also an accomplished theorist on sculpture and architectural designer. One of his most well-known essays is his social philosophy and portrait of sound family life and living in On The Family. In this treatise considered his masterpiece, Alberti adopts the dialogue form with members of his family as they discuss various aspects of life in 15th century Florence. However, even though the dialogues are with his family members and even though they are geared toward personal and family development, they are also geared toward community and serve to veil Alberti’s larger concerns with what represents sound government and leadership. Even though Alberti’s treatise is on the family and its management, this analysis will explore four aspects of family management that he discusses that are also applicable to government management and leadership.
Before looking at four aspects of family management discussed by Alberti which fit as lessons for good government as well, we need to keep in mind that Alberti’s theories and concepts are geared toward the ideal. While they stop short of utopia, we must keep in mind that Alberti’s concepts seek for individuals to strive toward perfection since no humans are perfect always. Nonetheless, the ideal virtue to Alberti is nature properly developed and perfected, “And virtue is nothing else than nature, properly produced and perfect in itself” (80). Alberti’s humanism is evident as he believes men are born inherently good and that only bad habits or corrupted reason lead to deficiencies. However, Alberti is similar to Socrates in that he believes an acorn must be necessarily propelled to become an oak and not a maple or an evergreen. We see his idea of human nature is that each individual is born t...