 Among Alberti's smaller studies, pioneering in their field, were a treatise in cryptography, "De componendis cifris", and the first Italian grammar.With the Florentine cosmographer Paolo Toscanelli he collaborated in astronomy, a close science to geography at that time, and produced a small Latin work on geography, "Descriptio urbis Romae" ("The Panorama of the City of Rome").Just a few years before his death, Alberti completed "De iciarchia" ("On Ruling the Household"), a dialogue about Florence during the Medici rule.