The design of Sforzinda may have been in part a direct response to the Italian cities of the Medieval period, whose growth did not necessarily depend on city planning as such, which meant they could be difficult to navigate. In part, the Renaissance humanist interest in classical 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 High 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.