On Alberti's "sign": vision and composition in quattrocento painting - Leon Battista Alberti's commentary 'On Painting'

47. See Kenny, 1980 (as in n. 43), 61-81; idem, Anatomy of the Soul: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Mind, London, 1973, 62-80; idem, 1993 (as in n. 43), 31-59, 89-118; Kretzmann et al. (as in n. 10), 602-22; and the appendixes by P. T. Durbin in Thomas Aquinas, S, xII, 170-75. Cf. Malcolm Lowe, "Aristotle on Kinds of Thinking," in Durrant (as in n. 40), 110-27.

48. Thomas Aquinas (S, 1.78.4. ob., ad 6; 79.3 res.; 85.1-2) argues that apprehension corresponds to Augustine's interior vision but does not comprehend divine ideas, which are accessible only to God.

49. Thomas Aquinas, H, I.III. See Kenny, 1993 (as in n. 43), 111-17.

50. Thomas Aquinas, S, 1.85.8; A, III.6. lect. XI. 746-64.

51. Thomas Aquinas, A, III.6. lect. XI, 757-59.

52. ee Aristotle, De anima 424a17-22, discussed above.

53. Thomas Aquinas, H, I.III.4.

54. See James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, Garden City, N.Y., 1974, 315-16.

55. For a contemporary philosophical treatment, see P. Crowthers, Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness, Oxford, 1993.

56. For an analysis of Aristotle's concept of the icon in relation to contemporary semiotic theory, see Jack M. Greenstein, "Icons and Memory: Aristotle on Remembrance," Public, no. 15, 1997.

57. Thomas Aquinas, "De memoria et reminiscentia," III, in Opera Omnia (1852-73), New York, 1948-50, xx, 204.

58. Augustine, De doctrina christiana II. 1.1, ed. I. Martin, Corpus Christianorum series Latina, XXXII, Turnhout, 1962. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, S, III.63.1. ob. 2.

59. Hills, 16.

60. See James A. Weisheipl, "The Nature, Scope and Classification of the Sciences," in Science in the Middle Ages, ed. D. C. Lindberg, Chicago, 1978, 461-82; Federici-Vescovini, 173-74, 201-11. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, P, II.160-64.

61. See Thomas Aquinas, S, 1.78.3. ad 2; and Bacon, OM, V-I.10.1-3. For OM, cf. 'Opus Majus' of Roger Bacon, R. B. Burke, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1928.

62. See James s. Ackerman, "Alberti's Light" (1978), in Distant Points: Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture, Cambridge, Mass., 1991, 88-89 n. 14, whose discussion is somewhat muddled. In Posterior Analytics (73a21-75a37) and Metaphysics (1025a13-34), Aristotle gives two definitions of accident. In one, accidents are changeable properties belonging to an object; for example, the changes a man undergoes when walking. In the other, accidents are changeable qualities external to an object, such as occur when a walking man passes under a light. Alberti's changeable qualities are accidents of the second sort, because they occur when the surface itself remains unchanged. But like most scholastics, Alberti reserves the term accident for accidents of Aristotle's first sort, as 1.18 makes clear.

63. See Joan Gadol, Leon Battista Alberti: Universal Man of the Early Renaissance, Chicago, 1969, 21-54.

64. An important exception is Hubert Damisch, "Le dit du peintre: En marge du livre I du 'Della Pittura' de Leon Battista Alberti," in La prospettiva rinascimentale: Codificazioni e trasgressioni, I, ed. M. Dalai Emiliani, Florence, 1980, 409-15, who argues that Alberti combines materialistic and idealistic approaches. George Didi-Huberman, on the other hand, ignores or misconstrues the meaning of the word sign in his Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration (trans. J. M. Todd, Chicago, 1995, 43) when he incorrectly cites this passage as proof that Alberti wished to restrict the visible in painting to what is seen with the "naked eye." As shown below (and as Charles S. Peirce and other modern semioticians recognize), signs, by definition, are perceived qualities that affect the mind. Paul Hills, "Ray, Line, Vision and Trace in Renaissance Art," Word and Image, VI, 1990, 217, remarks that Alberti's use of the word sign is problematic. The interpretation of signum by Samuel Edgerton, Jr., is discussed below.