Biography of Piero della Francesca
October 12 1492
Piero di Benedetto de ' Franceschi, known as Piero della Francesca, born between 1412 and 1418 in Borgo Sansepolcro, on the border between Tuscany and Emilia. Raised in the native works as a boy with Antonio d Abdul, to whom was entrusted the altarpiece of the Church of San Francesco; later he moved to Florence, where among the helpers of Domenico Veneziano to the frescoes of "Storie della Vergine" (now lost) in the choir of the Church of Sant'Egidio.
The first works
The bright painting of Venetian (with which Piero also cooperates in Perugia and the Church of Santa Maria in Loreto) is crucial in the evolution of his artistic career. Among the first works of Piero della Francesca, there are the "Madonna with child", dating back to the years between 1435 and 1440, and the "baptism of Christ" (now housed in the National Gallery, London), built around 1439. What is certain is that the artist leaves Florence shortly after 1440 and 1442 back to Borgo Sansepolcro, where popular elections as councilman, and the confraternity of mercy gives him complete an altarpiece by 15 boards (including the "Our Lady of mercy" and "Crucifixion"): Although the Commission stipulates that the work is completed in three years There will be about fifteen to compile, Piero.The first meetings with the Flemish art
In the 1940s he stays at several courts of Italy: in Urbino, Bologna and Ferrara. Just in Ferrara working in St Andrew's Church and the castle of Este, and most likely has the first contact dre with Rogier van Weyden (and thus with theFlemish art). In 1450 Piero is located in Ancona, guest of the family of count Giovanni di messer Francesco Ferretti, for which he painted the Saint Jerome the penitent "seat" and "Saint Jerome and the donor Girolamo Abbey": in the two works there is a considerable interest in detail and for the landscape. In the early 1950s he is situated in Rimini: here deals with the Malatesta Temple and in detail of the fresco of Sigismondo Malatesta. After having known Leon Battista Alberti, he moved first to Ancona, Pesaro and then finally to Bologna.Stays in several Italian cities
The following year, at the request of family B moves at Arezzo, where he must lead to the conclusion-after the death of Bicci di Lorenzo-the mural of the main Chapel of Saint Francis: deals, then, of "the history of the true cross", a series featuring scenes created in perspective and feature a bright coloring and delicate at the same time, Venetian style inheritance. In 1453 Piero della Francesca back momentarily to Borgo Sansepolcro, where the following year signed contract to work on the altarpiece of the high altar of the Church of Sant'Agostino. Afterwards he went to Urbino where he works in "the flagellation" and in Perugia, where he painted a polyptych of Perugia. Between 1458 and 1459 in Rome, called directly by Pope Pius II: here is running several frescoes in the Apostolic Palace (now lost as it destroyed to make way for the first of the raffaelliane Stanze Vaticane). In this period are traced the "resurrection" and the "Madonna del Parto". In Rome, the artist comes into contact with several colleagues from Spain and Flemings, and discover new techniques for realistic representation of atmospheric phenomena (you can see it in the night scene of "dream of Constantine"). [Pictured: detail from Resurrection (1465), with alleged self-portrait of Piero della Francesca's face]The last years of his life and mathematics
In addition to artistic activity Piero della Francesca was also the author of treatises on geometry and mathematical perspective. Starting from the second half of the seventies, is suffering from an eye disease that, in addition to force him to stop his pictorial activity leads him gradually to blindness. In the last years of his life, so he devoted himself to writing, completing three books science and math: "De corporibus regolaribus" ("regular bodies"), "Trattato d'abaco" and "De prospectiva pingendi" ("the perspective in painting"). Piero della Francesca died on 12 October 1492 in his birthplace, Borgo Sansepolcro.Article contributed by the team of collaborators.