the eighteenth century and is now the na-
tional scientific institute of Italy. The Re-
naissance academy also has survived in
France with the Academie Francaise and
in England with the Royal Society, both
founded in the seventeenth century.
SEEALSO: education; Ficino, Marsilio; hu-
manism; Medici, Cosimo de’
Agricola, Rudolf ................................
(1444–1485)
A Dutch scholar and humanist, Rudolf Ag-
ricola was born in the town of Bafflo, in
the Low Countries (comprising present-
day Belgium, Luxembourg, and the
Netherlands), as Rudolf Huysmann. He
studied the works of Cicero and Quintil-
ian at the universities of Erfurt in Ger-
many and Louvain in Belgium, where he
became a skilled critic and debater. In
1468, he began study at the University of
Pavia, in northern Italy, and in 1475 joined
the court of Duke Ercole of Ferrara, who
also employed him as a musician. Agricola
befriended the leading humanists of Italy,
studying and disputing the works of an-
cient Latin and Greek authors. His first al-
legiance was to Germany and the Low
Countries, however, and he left the duke’s
court in 1479 to spread his enthusiasm for
classical authors to northern Europe.
Agricola’s restless life was typical of Re-
naissance scholars and humanists, many of
whom wandered from one state, princely
court, and university to the next in search
of patrons and appointments.
Agricola is best known for his treatise
De inventione dialectica (On Dialectical
Invention), a manual for teachers of logic
and rhetoric. After his death, this work
grew popular with scholars and students
throughout northern Europe. At the invi-
tation of John of Dahlberg, the Bishop of
Worms, in 1482 he became a lecturer at
the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
Over the years Agricola added Hebrew to
his knowledge of Greek and Latin, and
took up the study of the Old Testament in
its original language. He traveled to Rome
in 1485 to accompany the embassy of John
of Dahlberg to Innocent VIII, the newly
elected pope. On this journey Agricola was
struck with an illness and died soon after
returning to Germany.Alberti, Leon Battista ........................
(1404–1472)
An Italian painter, essayist, poet, philoso-
pher, mathematician, musician, and archi-
tect, Alberti was one of the universal schol-
ars of the early Renaissance. Born in
Genoa, he was the illegitimate son of
Lorenzo Alberti, a merchant of Florence
who had been placed under a ban by the
city. After moving from Genoa to Venice,
Lorenzo Alberti established a bank. He
soon entered a well-known academy in
Padua run by Gasparino Barzizza, then
studied law at the University of Bologna.
He earned his doctorate in canon (church)
law in 1428. Skilled in Latin, he wrote
Philodoxius in Latin verse and fooled a
publisher into claiming it to be the work
of the ancient poet Lepidus.
In 1429 the Alberti family returned to
Florence, where Leon began a study of ar-
chitecture. He joined the Florentine court
of Pope Eugenius IV, who had been driven
out of Rome, and became canon of the
cathedral of Florence. At some time in the
1430s he moved to Rome where, in 1432
he became an abbreviator, whose job was
to prepare documents for the pope and
his administration. Alberti wrote treatises
on a variety of subjects. His works from
this early period includeOn the Advan-
tages and Disadvantages of Letters, biogra-
phies of the saints, andDescriptio urbisAgricola, Rudolf