Italian painter, mathematician and geometer (c. 1414–1492)
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Piero was born Piero di Benedetto in the town ofBorgo Santo Sepolcro,[1][6] modern-dayTuscany, to Benedetto de' Franceschi, a tradesman, and Romana di Perino daMonterchi, members of the Florentine and Tuscan Franceschi noble family. His father died before his birth, and he was called Piero della Francesca after his mother, who was referred to as "la Francesca" due to her marriage into the Franceschi family (similar toLisa Gherardini who was known as "la Gioconda" through her marriage into the Giocondo family). Romana supported his education in mathematics and art.[6]
He was most probably apprenticed to the local painter Antonio di Giovanni d'Anghiari, because in documents about payments it is noted that he was working with Antonio in 1432 and May 1438.[7][8] He certainly took notice of the work of some of theSienese artists active in San Sepolcro during his youth; e.g.Sassetta. In 1439 Piero received, together withDomenico Veneziano, payments for his work onfrescoes for the church of Sant'Egidio in Florence, now lost. In Florence he must have met leading masters likeFra Angelico,Luca della Robbia,Donatello, andBrunelleschi. The classicism ofMasaccio's frescoes and his majestic figures in theSanta Maria del Carmine were for him an important source of inspiration. Dating of Piero's undocumented work is difficult because his style does not seem to have developed over the years.
Piero returned to his hometown in 1442 and was elected to the City Council of Sansepolcro.[9] Three years later, he received his first commission, to paint theMadonna della Misericordia altarpiece for the church of the Misericordia in Sansepolcro,[9] which was completed in the early 1460s. In 1449 he executed several frescoes in theCastello Estense and the church of Sant'Andrea ofFerrara, now also lost. His influence was particularly strong in the later Ferrareseallegorical works ofCosimo Tura.
TheBaptism of Christ, now in theNational Gallery in London, was completed in about 1450 for the high altar of the church of the Priory of S. Giovanni Battista at Sansepolcro. Other notable works are the frescoes ofThe Resurrection in Sansepolcro, and theMadonna del parto inMonterchi, near Sansepolcro.
In 1454, he signed a contract for thePolyptych of Saint Augustine in the church of Sant'Agostino in Sansepolcro. The central panel of thispolyptych is lost, and the four panels of the wings, with representations ofsaints, are now scattered around the world.[10] A few years later, summoned byPope Nicholas V, he moved to Rome, where he executed frescoes in theBasilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, of which only fragments remain. Two years later he was again in the Papal capital, painting frescoes in theVatican Palace, which have since been destroyed.
In 1452, Piero della Francesca was called toArezzo to replaceBicci di Lorenzo in painting the frescoes of the basilica ofSan Francesco. The work was finished in 1464.[11]The History of the True Cross cycle of frescoes is generally considered among his masterworks and those ofRenaissance painting in general. The story in these frescoes derives from legendary medieval sources as to how timber relics of theTrue Cross came to be found.[11] These stories were collected in theGolden Legend ofJacopo da Varazze (Jacopo da Varagine) of the mid-13th century.[12]
At some point,Giovanni Santi invited Piero toUrbino,[13] where Piero "executed several commissions for DukeFederico da Montefeltro."[14][a]The Flagellation is generally considered Piero's oldest work in Urbino (c. 1455–1470). It is one of the most famous and controversial pictures of the early Renaissance. As discussed in its own entry, it is marked by an air of geometric sobriety, in addition to presenting a perplexing enigma as to the nature of the three men standing at the foreground.
Another famous work painted in Urbino is theDouble Portrait of Federico and his wife Battista Sforza, in theUffizi.[15] The portraits in profile take their inspiration from large bronze medals and stucco roundels with the official portraits of Federico and his wife. Other paintings made in Urbino are the monumentalMontefeltro Altarpiece (1474) in theBrera Gallery in Milan and theMadonna of Senigallia.
In his later years, painters such asPerugino andLuca Signorelli frequently visited his workshop. He completed the treatiseOn Perspective in Painting in the mid-1470s to 1480s. By 1480, his vision began to deteriorate,[15] but he continued writing treatises such asShort Book on the Five Regular Solids in 1485.[b] It is documented that Piero rented a house in Rimini in 1482. Piero made his will in 1487 and he died five years later, on 12 October 1492, in his own house in Sansepolcro.[1] He left his possessions to his family and the Church.[citation needed]
Virgin and Child Enthroned With Four Angels by Piero della Francesca,Clark Art Institute
In a 2013 exhibition, theFrick Collection in New York collected seven of the eight paintings of Piero known to exist in the United States. Of the seven paintings in the exhibit, criticJerry Saltz writing inNew York magazine singled out Piero'sVirgin and Child Enthroned With Four Angels for its exemplary qualities.
Saltz wrote, "The Virgin and child are elevated two steps. They are in a world itself apart from this world apart. Mary isn't looking at her child and looks instead at the rose he reaches for. You begin to glean the revelation she is having. The flower represents love, devotion, and beauty. It also symbolizes blood and the crown of thorns Christ will wear. This child who will suffer a horrendous death reaches for his acceptance of fate. Mary does not pull the flower back. You sense an inner agony, noticing her deep-blue robe open to reveal scarlet beneath, symbol of outward passion and pain to come. In the dead-center vertical line of the painting is Christ's right palm that will be nailed to the cross."[17]
By contrast, Walter Kaiser, reviewing the exhibition inThe New York Review of Books, wrote, "The most splendid picture in the Frick exhibition is the magnificent figure ofSaint Augustine from theMuseu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, a companion to Saint John the Evangelist [owned by the Frick Collection] on the Sant'Agostino altarpiece".[18]
You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in French. (April 2019)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, likeDeepL orGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
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Piero's deep interest in the theoretical study of perspective and his contemplative approach to his paintings are apparent in all his work.[19]In his youth, Piero was trained in mathematics, which most likely was for mercantilism.[20] Three treatises written by Piero have survived to the present day:Trattato d'Abaco (Abacus Treatise) [fr],De quinque corporibus regularibus (On the Five Regular Solids)[c] andDe Prospectiva pingendi (On Perspective in painting).[21] The subjects covered in these writings includearithmetic,algebra,geometry and innovative work in bothsolid geometry andperspective. Much of Piero's work was later absorbed into the writing of others, notablyLuca Pacioli. Piero's work on solid geometry was translated in Pacioli'sDivina proportione, a work illustrated byLeonardo da Vinci. Biographers of his patronFederico da Montefeltro ofUrbino record that he was encouraged to pursue the interest in perspective which was shared by the Duke.
^According toGiorgio Vasari, Piero worked forGuidobaldo da Montefeltro, who was Federico's son. However, in theirOxford World's Classics translation of Vasari, pp. 533-534, Julia Conaway Bondanella andPeter Bondanella write that Guidobaldo "was born too late to have been Piero's first patron, [and] Vasari probably means to allude toGuidantonio da Montefeltro," who was Federico's father. By contrast, Machtelt Brüggen Israëls writes inPiero della Francesca and the Invention of the Artist, p. 43, that Vasari was "possibly intending Federico di Montefeltro".
^Although he may have given up painting in his later years, Vasari's remarks that he went blind at the age of 60 have to be doubted,[15] since he completed his 1485 treatise onregular solids in his own handwriting. Machtelt Brüggen Israëls, however, wrote in 2020 that Piero was blind in his last months.[16]
^abcdTurner, A. Richard (1976). "Piero della Francesca". In William D. Halsey (ed.).Collier's Encyclopedia. Vol. 19. New York: Macmillan Educational Corporation. pp. 40–42.
^Banker, James R.,The Culture of Sansepolcro during the Youth of Piero della Francesca, The University of Michican Press, 2003, p.159.
^Banker, James R., "Piero della Francesca as Assistant to Antonio d'Anghiari in the 1430s: Some Unpublished Documents",The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 135, No. 1078 (January 1993). pp. 16–21.JSTOR/885421.
^The four saints areSaint Augustine,Museu de Arte Antiga, Lisbon;Saint Michael,National Gallery, London;Saint John the Evangelist,Frick Collection, New York; andSaint Nicholas of Tolentino,Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan. The paintings are identified and pictured in Cole, Bruce,Piero della Francesca: Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Art, pp. 44-45, and in Pope-Hennessy, John,The Piero della Francesca Trail (2002), pp. 20-21. (Pope-Hennessy believes that the painting of Saint John the Evangelist is probably actually St. Simon, p. 19.)
^Paolo d'Alessandro e Pier Daniele Napolitani,Archimede latino.Iacopo da San Cassiano e il corpus archimedeo alla metà del Quattrocento, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2012.
Clark, Kenneth,Piero della Francesca. Phaidon Publishers. First ed. 1951, second ed. 1969.
Cole, Bruce,Piero della Francesca: Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Art, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.ISBN0-06-430906-1.
Damisch, Hubert,Un souvenir d'enfance par Piero della Francesca, Edition du Seuil, Paris, 1997; Engl. ed.:A Childhood Memory by Piero della Francesca, Stanford University Press, 2007.ISBN0-8047-3442-9.
Ginzburg, Carlo,Indagini su Piero, Eunaudi, Torino, 1982; Engl. ed.:The Enigma of Piero: Piero della Francesca, Verso, 1985, new edition 2002.ISBN1-85984-378-6.
Hendy, Philip,Piero Della Francesca and the Early Renaissance, New York: Macmillan, 1968, and London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968.
Israëls, Machtelt Brüggen,Piero della Francesca and the Invention of the Artist, Reaktion Books, 2020.ISBN978-1789143218.
Kaiser, Walter,"The Noble Dreams of Piero",The New York Review of Books, March 21, 2013. Review of Silver, Nathaniel E.,Piero della Francesca in America and the exhibition at theFrick Collection that it accompanied.
Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg,Piero della Francesca: San Francesco, Arezzo, New York: George Braziller, 1994.
Longhi, Roberto,Piero de' Franceschi, Rom, 1927; Engl. ed. translated by Leonard Penlock:Piero della Francesca, F. Warne & Co., London and New York, 1930; new ed. with expansions until 1962, 1963 translation by David Tabbat: Sheep Meadow, 2002.ISBN1-878818-77-5.
Maetzke, Anna Maria, ed.,Piero della Francesca: The Legend of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, with Giovanna Melandri, Stefano Casciu, and Carla Corsi. Skira, 2000.ISBN88-8118-829-5.
Maetzke, Anna Maria; Bertelli, Carlo, eds.,Piero della Francesca: The Legend of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, texts by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin et al. Skira, 2001.ISBN978-8884910233.
Manescalchi, Roberto,L'Ercole di Piero, tra mito e realtà,(ParteI), Grafica European Center of Fine Art (Terre di Piero), Firenze, 2011.ISBN978-88-95450-05-6
Manescalchi, Roberto, "Piero alla corte dei Pichi", inStudi e Documenti Pierfrancescani II, Sansepolcro 2014.ISBN978-8895450445
Meiss, Millard, "A Documented Altarpiece by Piero della Francesca",The Art Bulletin, Vol. 23 (March 1941), pp. 53-68; reprinted with alterations and additions in Millard Meiss,The Painter's Choice: Problems in the Interpretation of Renaissance Art, Harper and Row, 1976, pp. 82-104.
Pacioli, Luca,Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus, corredato della versione volgare [fac-sim du Codice Vat. Urb. Lat. 632]; eds. Cecil Grayson,... Marisa Dalai Emiliani, Carlo Maccagni. Firenze, Giunti, 1995. 3 vol. (68 ff., XLIV-213, XXII-223 pp.).ISBN88-09-01020-5
Piero's Archimedes, [fac-sim du Codice Riccardiano 106 par Piero della Francesca]; eds. Roberto Manescalchi, Matteo Martelli, James Banker, Giovanna Lazzi, Pierdaniele Napolitani, Riccardo Bellè. Sansepolcro, Grafica European Center of Fine Arts e Vimer Industrie Grafiche Italiane, 2007. 2 vol. (82 ff., XIV-332 pp. English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Arabic).ISBN978-88-95450-25-4.
Pope-Hennessy, John,The Piero della Francesca Trail, Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures, Thames and Hudson, London, 1991; new ed. expanded withAldous Huxley, "The Best Picture", The Little Bookroom, 2002.ISBN1-892145-13-8.
Silver, Nathaniel E.,Piero della Francesca in America: From Sansepolcro to the East Coast, with essays by James R. Banker and Machtelt Israëls, and an appendix by Giacomo Guazzini and Elena Squillantini. New York:Frick Collection, 2013. Catalogue for exhibition of the same name listed in "External links".
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