Piero della Francesca

**Piero della Francesca** (, , ; ;  – 12 October 1492) was an Italian Renaissance painter from the Early Renaissance. He was also a mathematician and geometer. Piero della Francesca is famous for his art. His paintings usually used lots of humanism, geometry, perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes _The History of the True Cross_.

## Famous works

- _Polyptych of the Misericordia_ (1445–62) – <small>Tempera and oil on panel, 273 x 330 cm, Museo Civico Sansepolcro</small>
- _The Baptism of Christ_ () – <small>Tempera on panel, 168 × 116 cm, National Gallery, London</small>
- _St. Jerome in Penitence_ () – <small>Tempera on panel, 51 × 38 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin</small>
- _St. Jerome and a Donor (Girolamo Amadi)_ (1451) – <small>Tempera and oil on panel, 49 × 42 cm, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice</small>
- _Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Praying in Front of St. Sigismund_ (1451) – <small>Fresco (transferred to canvas), 257 x 345 cm, Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini</small>
- _Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta_ () – <small>Tempera and oil on panel, 44.5 × 34.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris</small>
- _The History of the True Cross_ () – <small>Fresco cycle, Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo</small>
- _The Flagellation of Christ_ () – <small>Tempera on panel, 58.4 x 81.5 cm, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino</small>
- _Polyptych of Saint Augustine_ (1460–70) – <small>Tempera and oil on panels, dispersed in several museums</small>
- _Resurrection_ () –<small>Fresco, 225 × 200 cm, Museo Civico Sansepolcro</small>
- _Hercules_ () –<small>Fresco (detached), 151 × 126 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston</small>
- _St. Mary Magdalene_ () – <small>Fresco, 190 × 180 cm, Cathedral, Arezzo</small>
- _Madonna del Parto_ (1459–67) – <small>Detached fresco, 260 × 203 cm, Chapel of the cemetery, Monterchi</small>
- _The Nativity_ () – <small>Oil on panel, 124.5 × 123 cm, National Gallery, London</small>
- _Polyptych of Saint Anthony_ () – <small>Oil on panel, 338 × 230 cm, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia</small>
- _Brera Madonna_, i.e. _Montefeltro Altarpiece_, (1472–74) – <small>Oil on panel, 248 × 170 cm, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan</small>
- _Diptych of the Count and Countess of Urbino_, Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza – <small>Oil on panel, each 47,4 × 33,6 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence</small>.
- _Madonna di Senigallia_ () – <small>Oil on panel, 67 × 53.5 cm, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino</small>

## Further reading

- Banker, James R., _Piero della Francesca: Artist and Man_, Oxford University Press, 2014,
- Berenson, Bernard, _Piero della Francesca_ or _The Ineloquent in Art_, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1954.
- Chieli, Francesca, "_La grecità antica e bizantina nell'opera di Piero della Francesca_", Firenze, 1993.
- Christiansen, Keith, _Piero Della Francesca: Personal Encounters_, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2013. With contributions by Roberto Belluci, Cecilia Frosinini, Anna Pizzati, and Chiara Rossi Scarzanella. .
- 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. .
- 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. .
- Ginzburg, Carlo, _Indagini su Piero_, Eunaudi, Torino, 1982; Engl. ed.: _The Enigma of Piero: Piero della Francesca_, Verso, 1985, new edition 2002. .
- 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. .
- 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 the Frick Collection that it accompanied.
- Lavin, Marilyn Aronberg, _Piero della Francesca: San Francesco, Arezzo_, New York: George Braziller, 1994.
- Lightbown, Ronald, _Piero della Francesca_, Abbeville Press, 1992. .
- 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. .
- 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. .
- 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. .
- Manescalchi, Roberto, _L'Ercole di Piero, tra mito e realtà,(ParteI)_, Grafica European Center of Fine Art (Terre di Piero), Firenze, 2011.
- Manescalchi, Roberto, "Piero alla corte dei Pichi", in _Studi e Documenti Pierfrancescani II_, Sansepolcro 2014.
- 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.).
- _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). .
- Pope-Hennessy, John, _The Piero della Francesca Trail_, Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures, Thames and Hudson, London, 1991; new ed. expanded with Aldous Huxley, "The Best Picture", The Little Bookroom, 2002. .
- 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".

## Other websites

- "The Art of Piero della Francesco", Lecture by Machtelt Brüggen Israëls at The Frick Collection, November 20, 2019.
- "Piero della Francesca in America", exhibition at The Frick Collection, February 12, 2013 to May 19, 2013.
- "Featured Catalogue—Interview with the Curator: Keith Christiansen", Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 5, 2014.

## Infobox (artist)

- **name**: Piero della Francesca
- **image**: Delle vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, et architetti (1648) (14799608033).jpg
- **birth place**: Sansepolcro, Republic of Florence
- **birth name**: Piero di Benedetto
- **death place**: Sansepolcro, Republic of Florence
- **nationality**: Italians, Italian
- **field**: Painting, Fresco
- **movement**: Italian Renaissance, Early Renaissance
- **works**: _The Baptism of Christ (Piero della Francesca), The Baptism of Christ_
 _Flagellation of Christ (Piero della Francesca), Flagellation of Christ_
 _Brera Madonna_