Few themes in the history of art are as often gone over yet as unclear as the question of ornament as it is put forward in the first treatise on architecture in modern Europe, the De re aedificatoria, written by Leon Battista Alberti starting around 1450 and first appearing in print in Florence in 1485. The notion of ornament is central to it. The ten books of De re aedificatoria are effectively divided into three parts. Firmitas, utilitas, and commoditas (firmness, utility, and aptness) are the objects of the first five books. The tenth book is devoted to instauratio; that is, maintenance, repairs, and restorations. The core of the treatise, books 6 to 9, is devoted to ornament. Four books, close to half the work, are devoted to what French translators have tended to designate as embellissement (embellishment). Alberti himself identifies ornament as the “part of art which is the most dignified, and because of this, the most necessary,” sometimes called gratia et amoenitas, sometimes ornatus or venustas. But these four books manifest a further organizing principle. Alberti presses the general category of ornamentation into two complementary yet distinct designations: pulchritudo and ornamentum.

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