Contributo all’interpretazione dell'intercenale «Divitie»

What makes the Intercenale "Divitiae" interesting, as has been observed before, is not only the exceptional room it provides for a contemporary figure, Leon Battista's famous ancestor and important Florentine politician, messer Benedetto degli Alberti, but also the fact that Alberti, instead of using vernacular to talk about his grandfather (the very language he used to paint the picture of Benedetto in "De familia" and "De iciarchia"), used Latin. After discussing probable reasons for this decision, this contribution focuses on two aspects. On the one hand it will put into question the process that, traversing from the first to the second version of the collection, has led to the removal of the final lines of the Intercenale. On the other hand it looks to better highlight the dialectic between the theory of using one's wealth, which is maintained by the author, and the respective discussion by contemporary humanistists. It is indeed needless to say that a position of critical importance in this consideration appertains to Leonardo Bruni, who did not by chance become dedicatee of the second book of the "Intercenales" which is as a whole reserved to economical matters and is concluded by the very "Divitiae". The paper also examines the insofar unknown profile of Leon Battista Alberti preserved in the manuscript of "Delle casate et famiglie fiorentine" by Giuliano de' Ricci (1543-1606), where the author collected several extracts from "De familia" and other fifteenth-century sources related to the figure of messer Benedetto degli Alberti.