Legacy

 

Piero's first documented collaboration with an artist outside Sansepolcro was with Domenico Veneziano on a cycle of frescoes in the Main Chapel of the Church of Sant’Egidio in Florence in 1439. Domenico, as his name indicates, was of Venetian origin and few of his paintings have survived. He was a pioneer in the field of perspective, but it was his pastel palette of blues, pinks and greens, and his unusual interest in the subtleties of light, that had the more lasting influence on Piero.

Piero had already worked with Domenico Veneziano as his pupil. Both Domenico and Piero were fascinated by Netherlandish painting, which was also becoming sought-after in the courts Piero was to frequent. Piero manifested a determination to master the use of oil painting, a technique he may have learned directly from a Netherlandish artist, possibly in Ferrara. But in his easel paintings he never switched definitively to oil, more frequently using a mixture of tempera and oil as binders.


At the time of Piero’s stay in Florence, he had the opportunity to meet the most important artists of the time. In addition, a series of grand councils was being held in Florence, drawing together the Christian West and East to discuss the Holy Trinity. Representatives of the Greek world paraded through the town in costumes and colours which seem to have made a lasting impression on Piero.

Piero then moved to Ferrara where he found a stimulating environment at the Court which was a model of humanist culture. He met the humanist Guarino da Verona and was allowed to study the gems and coins collected by Duke Lionello At that time there was a painting by Rogier Van der Weyden in Ferrara. This allowed Piero to observe the great Flemish artist’s eye for detail and his command of oil painting. In 1451, Piero left Ferrara for Rimini, which was under the rule of the Malatesta and where he was commissioned to paint the votive fresco of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in Tempio Malatestiano. In Rimini, Piero took part in the humanist restoration of the Tempio conceived by Leon Battista Alberti, who, besides leaving important architectural masterpieces in Florence, deeply affected the Courts of Mantua and Urbino.
Shortly after completing the fresco in Rimini, he worked on the cycle The Legend of the True Cross in San Francesco in Arezzo, which was started after 1452.


Piero della Francesca died on 12th October 1492, the day on which Columbus discovered the New World.

Piero della Francesca is now recognised as one of the great artists of the early Renaissance and yet by the time of his death in 1492 he was better known as a mathematician and geometer than as an artist. A great many of his frescoes were torn down to make way for more modern work. As early as the 1520's, Pope Julius II called for the removal of his frescoes at the Vatican to make way for new frescoes by Raphael. Frescoes by Piero della Francesca have also been lost in Perugia, Florence, Ferrara, Ancona, Loreto and Pesaro.

Arezzo holds the only complete Piero della Francesca cycle to survive. This is the "Legend of the True Cross" in the Church of San Francesco. The narrative is a pictorial history of the world from the Garden of Eden, through the birth of Christ and the crucifixion, to the victory of Constantine over the pagans and the rediscovery of the True Cross. Careful cleaning also brought to light, in the "Dream of Constantine" scene, the first known starry night sky in Western painting with scientifically accurate renderings of constellations.


 

 

Source: http://www.sansepolcro-info.com/piero_della_francesco.htm