Piero della Francesca

His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the Basilica of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.

The classicism of Masaccio's frescoes and his majestic figures in the Santa Maria del Carmine were for him an important source of inspiration.

The Baptism of Christ, now in the National Gallery in London, was completed in about 1450 for the high altar of the church of the Priory of S. Giovanni Battista at Sansepolcro.

[10] A few years later, summoned by Pope Nicholas V, he moved to Rome, where he executed frescoes in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, of which only fragments remain.

In 1452, Piero della Francesca was called to Arezzo to replace Bicci di Lorenzo in painting the frescoes of the basilica of San Francesco.

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.

Of the seven paintings in the exhibit, critic Jerry Saltz writing in New York magazine singled out Piero's Virgin and Child Enthroned With Four Angels for its exemplary qualities.

You sense an inner agony, noticing her deep-blue robe open to reveal scarlet beneath, symbol of outward passion and pain to come.

"[17] By contrast, Walter Kaiser, reviewing the exhibition in The New York Review of Books, wrote, "The most splendid picture in the Frick exhibition is the magnificent figure of Saint Augustine from the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, a companion to Saint John the Evangelist [owned by the Frick Collection] on the Sant'Agostino altarpiece".

Biographers of his patron Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino record that he was encouraged to pursue the interest in perspective which was shared by the Duke.

In the late 1450s, Piero copied and illustrated the following works of Archimedes:[22] On the Sphere and Cylinder, Measurement of a Circle, On Conoids and Spheroids, On Spirals, On the Equilibrium of Planes, The Quadrature of the Parabola, and The Sand Reckoner.

The manuscript consists of 82 folio leaves, is held in the collection of the Biblioteca Riccardiana[23] and is a copy of the translation of the Archimedean corpus made by Italian humanist Iacopo da San Cassiano.

[24] Bohuslav Martinů wrote a three movement work for orchestra entitled Les Fresques de Piero della Francesca.

Piero's geometrical perfection and the almost magic atmosphere of the light in his painting inspired modern painters like Giorgio de Chirico, Massimo Campigli, Felice Casorati, and Balthus.

The Resurrection ( c. 1463–65 )
The Montefeltro Altarpiece or the Brera Madonna
Virgin and Child Enthroned With Four Angels by Piero della Francesca, Clark Art Institute
First page of the Trattato d'Abaco