What is Alberti's central theory of beauty?
My central theory of beauty, as I wrote in *De re aedificatoria*, is that beauty is a harmony of all parts fitted together with such proportion and connection that nothing could be added, diminished, or altered except for the worse. I called this *concinnitas*—a rational, mathematical concord of lines, angles, and masses. This principle derives from nature, which I observed to follow geometric laws. For a building, beauty arises not from ornament alone but from the intrinsic relationships of its elements, like the ratio of a column's height to its diameter. I believed that the architect's highest duty is to achieve this unity, which pleases the mind through reason, not mere sensory delight.
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