on completing these studies, Alberti entered the Papal Chancery in Rome as secretary to the chancellor. Living in Rome provided him with many opportunities to meet artists visiting the monuments of antiquity, and his travels gave him the chance to observe the works of artists in many cities throughout northern Italy. Because Alberti searched the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and Pliny the Elder for reference to the art and carefully studies the collections of antique sculpture that were being assembled by patrons of the arts, his writings reveal a mixture of scholarly research and informed observations.