Piero della Francesca: an itinerary full of beauty

It all begins here, in this typical village of the Valtiberina area, near Arezzo, where Piero della Francesca was born around 1415 and where he began his pictorial training, before moving to Florence.

Some of his greatest masterpieces are preserved in the Civic Museum, housed in the Town Hall. Piero della Francesca was commissioned with the creation of the beautiful Polittico of the Misericordia (Polyptych of Mercy) in 1445, with an expected delivery date of three years, but it turned into more than fifteen years of work, on and off! But the result is indeed breathtaking: twenty-three compartments, in part designed by Piero’s assistants, and one main central compartment depicting Our Lady of Mercy that welcomes the devotees under her mantle, men on the left, women on the right.

The extraordinary fresco of the Resurrection (The Risen, 1463-65), considered one of the most beautiful paintings in the world and one of the most representative of the artist’s work, adorns the Audience Hall.

Besides the detached fresco depicting San Ludovico, the museum preserves also a fragment of a fresco of a saint, probably San Giuliano, found in the church of St. Agostino in 1954

It’s here, in the cradle of the Renaissance, that Piero della Francesca gained his professional experience, influenced by the masterpieces of Donatello and Masaccio, and mostly thanks to his master, Domenico Veneziano, with whom he painted some lost frescoes. And it’s here, in the Uffizi Gallery, that we can see one of his most famous pieces: the Double Portrait of the Dukes of Urbino; originally painted for the court of Urbino.

Due to the death of the Florentine painter Bicci di Lorenzo, Piero della Francesca was commissioned by the Bacci family to complete a work in the chapel of the church of San Francesco. Piero worked there until 1465, in two stages, with a temporary stay in Rome in the middle. The result? The wonderful fresco cycle of The Legend of the True Cross, one of the masterpieces of the whole of Renaissance painting!

The Cathedral houses a little bit of Piero della Francesca too: down the aisle, in fact, you find the beautiful fresco of Maria Maddalena.

This lovely hillside village, on the border of the Umbria region, is the "home" of one of the best-known works by Piero, the fresco known as the Madonna del Parto, today housed in a small museum.

Piero della Francesca died, almost blind, the day of the discovery of America, October 12, 1492, in his hometown and is buried here, in the Badia of Sansepolcro.