texts may have stimulated preoccupations with geometry in city layouts, as for example, in Plato's description of Atlantis. Filarete’s ideal plan was meant to reflect on society – where a perfect city form would be the image of a perfect society, an idea that was typical of the humanist views prevalent during the Renaissance. The Renaissance ideal city, implied the centralized power of a prince in its organization, an idea following closely on the heels of Dante’s that "The human race is at its best under a monarch." Thus, it could be argued that the Renaissance ideal city form was tensioned between the perceived need for a centralized power and the potential reality of tyranny. See also Palmanova Notes Sources Utopian theory