Alberti also believed in an idea in which there are parts to a whole which are different in form, but are brought together to mold into a coherent and harmonious whole (Turner,73), much like an organism of Nature. Alberti most likely assumed that artists wanted to solve the problem of creating a more logical, measurable, naturalistic and unified space, just as Masaccio was able to do, and that Brunelleschi's discovery of perspective provided the solution. As an accomplished mathematician and geometrician, Alberti was also able to understand every aspect of the developing theory and therefore wrote a book in which the first section is "entirely mathematical," and "shows how this noble and beautiful art arises from roots within Nature herself,"(Alberti, 35). This concept of numbers in Nature parallels St. Augustine's belief that all things that can be known have a number. Brunelleschi designed San Lorenzo in a way to accurate follow Augustine's thought on principles of rhythm and equality, by using his method of perspective: giving the optical illusion using orthogonals, a horizon line, a vanishing point, and the convergence of parallel lines as they recede from the viewer to give the impression that the view is actually far away from the position in which the viewer is standing. .
In detail, Alberti discusses his method for constructing perspective space that may have been used for many of the distinguishing spatial and compositional features of Renaissance paintings and Brunelleschi's architecture in relation to Augustinian thought. In constructing the illusion of perspective, there is an area which contains both a surface grid/pattern, but also the diminishing proportions that provide the convergence, and the controlled changes of scale necessary to create the spatial illusion (Alberti, 51). This method used as a tool for painters, enabling them to represent spatial relationships systematically on a two-dimensional surface.