Monument to Leon Battista Alberti (plaster model)

In the early 19th century the basilica of Santa Croce became the place where Florence honoured Italy's great names, whether or not they were buried there. The poet Ugo Foscolo had praised its tombs in 1807 in his poem On Sepulchres, and a cenotaph for Dante went up in 1830. This plaster is the model for another memorial without a body, to Leon Battista Alberti, the 15th-century architect and writer, who died in Rome. It was paid for by a namesake. A 19th-century gentleman also called Leon Battista Alberti, the last of his line, ordered it in his will, and the inscription on the marble says he wanted later generations to turn back with fresh love to the old wisdom of Italy. Bartolini had explained the design by February 1838. Alberti rises toward heaven in a gesture of thanks and is received by an angel with a lit torch, a sign of the bliss that awaits him, while his guardian angel holds the books of his earthly work. The marble was still in progress in 1848 and was set up in Santa Croce in 1851, a year after the sculptor's death.