Aliquid novi : alcune considerazioni su novità e modernità nell'Alberti latino e volgare

The paper begins by looking at the most recent edition of Alberti’s Latin works, whose textual and literary acquisitions are taken as a starting point for further analyses of a key problem in Alberti’s writings: that is the question of originality, first of all in comparison to classical authors. The paper will focus on this crucial theme, through a close examination of paradigmatic introductions, from De commodis to Momus, and selected passages from vernacular works, particularly from Profugiorum ab erumna libri. The pursuit of writing “something new” – as far as difficult or nearly impossible to get for a modern author, because of ancient authors’ writings about everything – not only joins Latin and vernacular works but shows Alberti’s subtle and depth consciousness of the original foundations that mark his modernity.