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Though little is known about Piero della Francesca and many of his works are lost forever, he was an important artist of the Italian Renaissance – he clearly formulated the geometrical rules for building perspective and made wonderful empirical discoveries in the use of color and light.
The artist was born between 1410 and 1420 in Borgo San Sepolcro near Arezzo. In the 1430s he worked in Florence under Domenico Veneziano, assisting him with the now lost fresco cycle in San Egidio (now Santa Maria Nuova). Independently he worked in his native town, and also in Rome, Ferrara, Arezzo, Rimini, Urbino, and Perugia and this played a determining role in the birth of local schools of painting.
In 1452 Piero began the wonderful cycle of frescos dealing with stories of the True Cross for the choir of the Basilica of San Francesco (Church of St. Francis) in Arezzo. The frescoes were inspired by stories from the thirteenth-century Golden Legend. The painter ignored the chronological sequence of the scenes in favor of "a structured rhythm and clear symmetry between the walls". This work demonstrates Piero’s advanced knowledge of perspective and color, his geometric orderliness and skill in pictorial construction.
In the 1450s Piero worked for the court of Rimini. Piero executed several works for the Prince of Rimini, including the fresco Sigismondo Malatesta before St. Sigismund and the Portrait of Sigismondo.
During the 1460s the artist worked for the Duke of Urbino, for whom he executed the Flagellation of Christ and the Senigallia Madonna, the wonderful twin portrait of the Duke and his wife Battista Sforza (Florence, Uffizi), the Nativity, and above all the incomparable Pala Montefeltro, which by some critics is considered to be his best work, which epitomizes the noblest aspirations of Early Renaissance.
According to Vasari, Piero lost his sight in old age and being unable
to paint wrote treatises on painting and mathematics.
His mostly known pupil was Luca
Signorelli (c.1445-1523).
Sigismondo Malatesta (1417-1468),
Lord of Rimini, was the son of Pandolfo di Galeotto Malatesta. On the abdication
of his half-brother, Galeotto Roberto, in 1432, he succeeded to the lordship
of Rimini, Fano, and Cesena, as papal vicar.
He was a professional soldier and throughout his life was regarded
as almost the best military leader in Italy. Undoubtedly one of the worst
tyrants of the Renaissance, he, at the same time, shared to a high degree
the Renaissance cult of art and letters. Many humanists and poets found
shelter at his court.
Sigismondo is suspected in the murder of his two wives, Ginevra d'Este
and Polissena Sforza. He afterwards married his mistress, Isotta degli
Atti, in whose honor he composed poems, which still exist.
In 1465 he commanded the Venetian army in the unsuccessful campaign
against the Turks in the Morea. On this occasion he discovered the remains
of Gemisthus Pletho (the Byzantine scholar who introduced Platonism into
Italy), which he brought back with him to Rimini and solemnly enshrined
in San Francesco.
Pope Pius II, who held Sigismondo in peculiar abhorrence, partly because
of his treachery towards Siena, had begun by degrees to deprive him of
his dominions, and Paul II continued the same course until only Rimini
itself remained. Infuriated at a demand to surrender Rimini also, Sigismondo
went to Rome in 1468, with the intention of slaying the pope with his own
hands. Either opportunity or resolution failed him. Paul II pardoned him
and even confirmed him in the possession of Rimini, but Sigismondo returned
home a broken man, and died a few months later.
Based on the text from the Catholic
Encyclopedia.
See: Piero della Francesca. Sigismondo
Malatesta, the Prince of Rimini, before St. Sigismund. Portrait
of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the Prince of Rimini.
Recomended reading:
Federico
Da Montefeltro & Sigismondo Malatesta: The Eagle and the Elephant (Studies
in Italian Culture--Literature in History ; Vol. 20) by Maria
Grazia Pernis, Laurie Schneider Adams. Peter Lang Publishing, 1997.
Federico da Montefeltro
(1422-1482), Duke of Urbino, was an outstanding military leader of his
time and served both the papacy and Lorenzo de’Medici as a mercenary. He
lost his right eye and part of his nose in a tournament, and so was always
portrayed from the left. A true Renaissance figure, he was not only a professional
soldier , but a learned statesman, wise diplomat and ruler, a patron of
arts, who made his court at Urbino a center of education, science and the
arts. He deplored the printing of books, and so assembled one of the biggest
libraries of handwritten manuscripts in Europe.
In 1457, after the death of his first wife, Frederico married the thirteen-year-old
Battista Sforza (1444-1472), thus establishing an important connection
with the powerful Sforza family. Battista gave birth to seven daughters
and one son, Guidubaldo da Montefeltro (1472-1508), and died in his childbirth.
Most art historians think that her portrait by Piero della Francesca
was created posthumously.
Piero della Francesca intended these two portraits as a folding diptych,
The Duke and the Duchess facing one another. The background shows the city
of Urbino and surrounding countryside.
The reverse side of the diptych shows both Frederico and Battista riding
in a sort of Roman triumph. "The black-clad Virtue Caritas, who is sitting
on Battista's carriage and whose symbol is a pelican, which she is holding
in her hand, can also be interpreted as a reference to the death of a young
woman. Tradition, which liked to identify the bird with Christ, had it
that the pelican tore its breast open with its beak in order to feed its
young with its own blood. This self-sacrifice has its parallels in the
life of the Duchess, as she died giving birth to her son." (p. 273 in The
Art of the Italian Renaissance. Edited by Rolf Toman. Könemann. 1995).
See: Piero della Francesca. Diptych Portraits
of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and His
Wife, Batista Sforza.
Recomended reading:
Federico
Da Montefeltro & Sigismondo Malatesta: The Eagle and the Elephant (Studies
in Italian Culture--Literature in History ; Vol. 20) by Maria
Grazia Pernis, Laurie Schneider Adams. Peter Lang Publishing, 1997.
The Legend of the True Cross:
The decoration of the choir of the Basilica di San Francesco
in Arezzo, Italy, started in 1447. The work was commissioned to the Florentine
painter Bicci di Lorenzo, who unfortunately died, having executed only
part of the decoration. In 1452 the work was commissioned to Piero della
Francesco. The theme of his frescoes – Stories about the True Cross – was
inspired by the Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), a collection of saints'
legends, published in the 13th century by the Dominican Jacobus da Voragine,
Archbishop of Genoa. Piero della Francesco did not follow the chronology
of the story, but subordinates the separate episodes to his artistic vision
of the whole composition.
The frescoes are situated in the following order:
The story itself goes in another order. It starts with Adam on his deathbed sending one of his sons, Seth, to Archangel Michael, who gives Seth a seed from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The seed was placed in Adam's mouth at the moment of his death. (Death of Adam. Fresco 4)
The tree that grew on Adam's grave was chopped down in King Solomon's
times, but its wood could not be used for anything, so it was thrown as
a bridge across a stream. The Queen of Sheba on her way to the King Solomon
was about to step on the bridge, when by miracle she knew that the Savior
would be crucified on a Cross of that wood. Instead of stepping on the
wood she knelt and expressed her adoration. (The Queen of Sheba in Adoration
of the Wood. Left part of the fresco 8). Then she hurried to Solomon to
tell him about her revelation (The Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba. Right part of the fresco 8). After Solomon learnt about the divine
message he understood that the wood would cause the end of the kingdom
of the Jews, and ordered the bridge be removed and the wood be buried.
(Burial of the Wood, fresco 7).
Centuries later Mary received the angel's message that she was chosen
to give the birth to the Savior (Annunciation. Fresco 10) Solomon's precautions
did not help - the wood was found and Jesus was crucified on a Cross made
of it.
Three centuries later the Roman Emperors Constantine and Maxentius
were struggling for power over the Roman Empire. Just before the battle
of Ponte Milvio Constantine received a message in his dream that he would
be given a victory if he converted and went into the battle as a Christian.
(Constantine's Dream. Fresco 11) Constantine heeded the prophecy, he went
into the battle holding a cross in front of himself. (Battle between Constantine
and Maxentius. Fresco 12).
After Constantine's victory his mother, Helena, deeply moved by her
son's conversion, decided to go to Jerusalem and find the True Cross. In
the Holy City only one man, a Jew called Judas, knew the whereabouts of
the Cross, but he revealed the secret only after torture (Torment of the
Jew. Fresco 6). Judas brought Helena to the temple of Venus under which
the three crosses of Calvary were hidden. Helena ordered the temple be
destroyed and under it the three crosses were discovered (Discovery and
Proof of the True Cross. Left part of the fresco 5). The True Cross miraculously
resurrected a dead youth and thus it was identified (Discovery and Proof
of the True Cross. Right part of the fresco 5).
Another three centuries passed and in 615 A.D. the Persian King Chosroes
stole the Holy Cross, setting it up as an object of worship. The Emperor
of Byzantium, Heraclius, started a war against Chosroes and defeated him
in 628 A.D. at a battle on the Danube (Battle between Heraclius and Chosroes.
Fresco 9). Chosroes was executed (the right corner of fresco 9) and the
True Cross recaptured.
Heraclius took it to Jerusalem and carried it, barefoot, just as Christ
once did; Christians hurried to meet and adore the relic (Exaltation of
the Cross. Fresco 13)
Bibliography:
Monumental Painting of Italian Renaissance by I. Smirnova. Moscow.
1987.
The Art of the Italian Renaissance. Architecture. Sculpture. Painting.
Drawing. Könemann. 1995.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Iskusstvo. 1999.
Piero
Della Francesca: The Legend of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco
in Arezzo by Piero, Carlo Bertelli (Editor), Marilyn Aronberg
Lavin, Maria t Donati, Anna Maria Maetzke (Editor). Skira, 2002.
Helena
Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding
of the True Cross by Jan Willem Drijvers. Brill Academic Publishers,
1997.
The
Piero Della Francesca Trail/the Best Picture by John Wyndham
Pope-Hennessy, Aldous Huxley. Little Bookroom, 2002.
The
Enigma of Piero: Piero Della Francesca by Carlo Ginzburg, Martin
Ryle (Translator), Kate Soper (Translator), Peter Burke. Verso Books, 2002.
Piero
Della Francesca (Art & Ideas) by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin,
Piero. Phaidon Press Inc., 2002.
Piero
Della Francesca by Roberto Longhi, David Tabbat (Translator),
Keith Christiansen (Introduction). Sheep Meadow Pr, 2002.
Piero
Della Francesca: San Francesco, Arezzo (The Great Fresco Cycles of the
Renaissance) by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Piero. George Braziller,
1994.
Piero
Della Francesca (Library of the Great Masters) by Alessandro
Angelini, Lisa C. Pelletti (Translator). Scala Books, 1990.