The rhetorical constructions of perspective in Alberti and da Vinci

Abstract

In this article we propose an interpretation of the cultural significance of Quattrocento pictorial perspective, based on rhetorical assumptions about the ways in which persuasive communication is established. Through painting treaties by Leonardo and Alberti, we will explore some rhetorical features (the staging, the ethos, the discursive disposition and the art of memory) involved in Renaissance pictorial perspective. Although some approaches have interpreted it as a symbolic form that expressed a certain worldview, we conclude that Renaissance pictorial perspective basically provided a rhetoric scenography for modern memory.