A History of European Art

Lecture 16: Piero della Francesca in Arezzo

staff. On the left side is a severely damaged scene in which Adam has died.

His son, Seth, has obtained a shoot from the tree of knowledge of good and

evil brought from Eden, and he plants it in Adam’s mouth. In the background,

an enormous tree has grown from that shoot. This is an alternative account,

because the Golden Legend says that Seth planted it “over Adam’s grave,

where it grew to be a great tree and was still standing in Solomon’s time.”

Our next scene shows the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. Solomon had cut

down the great tree, mentioned above, to use for building his temple, but

because the beam fashioned from it was too large, he used it for a bridge.

When the Queen of Sheba came to visit

Solomon, she stopped at the bridge, and

having the gift of prophecy, she knew

that it would one day become the cross

on which the Savior would hang. Hearing

her prophecy, Solomon believed that the

beam would lead to the destruction of the

kingdom of the Jews, so he had it buried

deep in the Earth.

The painting is clearly divided into two

sides. On the left is the Queen of Sheba

and her entourage; the queen is pictured

kneeling to adore the wood. Note the

strong foreshortening of the white horse.

On the right, the queen is meeting with Solomon in a subdivided interior.

Compare this scene to Giotto’s Marriage of the Virgin. Piero probably had

seen this work, and consciously or otherwise, it ¿ gures in his composition.

Note the division into exterior and interior, the severe ¿ gure style, and the

clearly conceived cells of space. However, Piero brings a more mathematical

and rigorous system to his space using an interior cube and, for his ¿ gures,

stylizes the noble volumes of Giotto.

Dream of Constantine depicts the story of the emperor’s vision on the eve

of battle against Maxentius. In his vision, Constantine saw the sign of the

cross blazing in the sky, and an angel announced, “In this sign thou shalt

conquer.” He was unsure of the meaning until Christ appeared to him, telling

The Italian word

terribilitá, which means

“awesomeness,”

is often applied to

Michelangelo’s ¿ gures,

particularly in the

Sistine Chapel, but it

is also applicable to

Piero’s Resurrection.