Piero della Francesca - Definition and Overview

The Baptism of Christ, 1442

Piero della Francesca (c. 1420 - 1492) was an Italian artist whose work was characterized by his interest in mathematics, particularly how it related to perspective and foreshortening. He wrote a treatise De prospectiva pingendi on how the rules of mathematical foreshortening could be applied to any object, be it a cube or human head. Less obvious in his work is his significant contribution to the 'humanistic' rendition of figures in painting specifically his renditions of Christ. Most of his life was spent in Arezzo and his hometown, Borgo San Sepolcro in Tuscany. He studied under Domenico Veneziano in Florence.

His work includes the Madonna della Misericordia (c.1445), The History of the True Cross (1452-66) painted in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo, The Flagellation (c.1460), and portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (c.1472).