ployed to finish these works. According to VASARIhe was
very highly regarded as a designer. He fled to Genoa after
the Sack of Rome (1527) and worked there on the deco-
ration of the Palazzo Doria. Returning to Rome (1540) he
was put in charge of decorative schemes in the Vatican and
Castel San Angelo.
Piero della Francesca (1410/20–1492) Italian painter
Piero was born the son of a shoemaker at Borgo San Se-
polcro, with which he maintained a lifelong connection
and where he eventually died. In 1439 he is recorded as
assisting DOMENICO VENEZIANOon the frescoes of Sant’
Egidio in Florence (now destroyed). He returned to his
birthplace in 1442, was made a councilor there, and in
1445 was commissioned to paint the Madonna della Mis-
ericordia polyptych (Palazzo Communale, Borgo San Se-
polcro), which apparently shows the influence of
MASACCIO. His Baptism of Christ (National Gallery, Lon-
don) probably dates from this time or a little later, and he
also worked in Ferrara for the Este family before going to
Rimini to paint a fresco in the TEMPIO MALATESTIANA,
showing Sigismondo MALATESTAkneeling before his pa-
tron saint (1451). There he met and was deeply influenced
by ALBERTI, whose interest in perspective and architectural
practice is reflected in many of Piero’s later paintings; no-
table among these is the Flagellation of Christ (c. 1457;
Palazzo Ducale, Urbino), with its enigmatic foreground
figures and complex mathematical construction.
The work generally acclaimed as Piero’s masterpiece
is the fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross in the
church of San Francesco at Arezzo (c. 1452–c. 1464).
These frescoes show Piero’s skill in handling a range of
scenes and emotions from the pathos of the dying Adam
to the drama of the discovery of the True Cross, from the
motionless figures of the dream of Constantine to the hec-
tic action of Heraclius’s victory over Chosroes. During this
period Piero also worked in the Vatican on frescoes (later
painted over by Raphael) and painted the Madonna del
Parto for the cemetery chapel of Monterchi (his mother’s
birthplace). In the late 1460s he painted the portraits in
profile of Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino and his wife,
Battista Sforza, in a diptych on the reverse of which are al-
legorical “triumphs” (Uffizi, Florence). For Borgo San Se-
polcro in the same period he painted the powerful and
moving Resurrection (Palazzo Communale), one of his
finest works, and the now dismembered polyptych for the
high altar of the church of Sant’ Agostino (panels in Lis-
bon, Milan, London, and New York).
From about 1470 Piero’s vigor as an artist began to de-
cline, perhaps on account of failing eyesight. His latest
commission from Federico da Montefeltro, an altarpiece
depicting the duke adoring the Madonna and Child with
saints and angels (Brera, Milan) shows his skill at depict-
ing imposing and solemn figures in an opulent architec-
tural setting, but increasingly Piero’s later work relied
upon the help of assistants. His interest in the mathemat-
ical aspects of aesthetic theory was set down in treatises
from his last years. De prospettiva pingendi, dedicated to
Federico da Montefeltro, was written sometime before
1482 and an autograph manuscript in Italian survives in
Parma; a Latin version, with autograph notes by Piero, is
in Milan. His other works, one in Italian on geometry and
arithmetic and the other in Latin on the five regular solids,
survive in Florence and the Vatican in autograph or par-
tially autograph form.
Further reading: Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Piero della
Francesca (London: Phaidon, 2002); Kenneth Clark, Piero
della Francesca (complete ed., Oxford, U.K.: Phaidon,
1981); Bruce Cole, Piero della Francesca: Tradition and In-
novation in Renaissance Art (New York: Icon Editions,
1991); Carlo Ginzburg, The Enigma of Piero: Piero della
Francesca, transl. Martin Ryle (London and New York:
Routledge, 1985; new ed. 2002); Roberto Longhi, Piero
della Francesca, transl. David Tabbat (Riverdale-on-
Hudson, N.Y.: Sheep Meadow, 2002).Piero di Cosimo (1462–c. 1521) Italian artist
A native of Florence, Piero was born Piero di Lorenzo but
later assumed the Christian name of Cosimo ROSSELLI, of
whom he was a pupil. In about 1481 he was assisting
Rosselli with the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Piero’s
early conventional religious scenes show the influence of
Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, but subsequent works owe
more to the style of Signorelli and Leonardo da Vinci.
Piero was renowned for his unconventional character, and
his eccentricity expressed itself most clearly in the mytho-
logical paintings for which he is best known. Such works
as The Discovery of Honey (c. 1500; Worcester, Mass.), The
Battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths (1486; National
Gallery, London), and A Forest Fire (c. 1486; Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, U.K.) bear witness to Piero’s taste for
the bizarre and idiosyncratic with their depictions of dis-
torted humans and wild animals. His masterpiece, The
Death of Procris (c. 1490–1500; National Gallery, London),
combines a sense of tenderness with elements of both
mythology and natural detail. Other works include such
portraits as the head-and-shoulders of Simonetta Vespucci
(c. 1498; Musée Condé, Chantilly). Piero was a recluse in
his later years, often painting purely for his own pleasure.
His pupils included ANDREA DEL SARTO.
Further reading: Sharon Fermor, Piero di Cosimo: Fic-
tion, Invention and Fantasia (London: Reaktion Books,
1993).pietà A painted or sculpted representation of the Virgin
Mary with the body of her son, Jesus Christ. The image,
which extols Mary’s emotional sacrifice, was popular in
Catholic Europe during the Renaissance. The most fa-
mous Pietà is MICHELANGELO’s marble sculpture in St.
Peter’s, Rome (1499): the sense of the Virgin’s anguish is33776 6 PPiieerroo ddeellllaa FFrraanncceessccaa