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Piero della Francesca
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Piero della Francesca
(1416/17-1492)
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 ¨C 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).
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