Piero della Francesca 577died in 1382. Other Piast princes ruled Silesia and
Mozovia longer but were never kings of a united Poland.
Further reading:Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A
History of Poland,Vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1984); Paul Knoll, The Rise of the Polish Monarchy:
Piast Poland in East-Central Europe, 1320–1370(Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1972).
Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius SeePIUSII, POPE.
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni See MIRANDOLA,
GIOVANNIPICO DELLA.
Picts The Picts were a Celtic tribe in SCOTLANDwho
were never conquered by the Romans. Their society was
based on clans led by military chieftains, who frequently
attacked Roman Britain in the fourth and fifth centuries.
By the end of the fifth century, they were ruled by kings;
in the sixth century Irish monks arrived to spread Chris-
tianity. About the same time Scottish tribes from IRELAND
penetrated the southwestern part of the kingdom, and by
the eighth century the Picts had been absorbed by the
Scots, forming a newly united kingdom.
The Picts in the south spoke a Celtic language,
related to Welsh, but the language of those in the north
has remained unclear. Until the settlement of Scandina-
vians in the north and on the islands, during the ninth
and 10th centuries, the Picts along with the Scots proba-
bly controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth and
Clyde. Their new royal family followed the principle of
matrilineal succession: That is, the kings were selected
according to the royal status of their mother rather than
their father. Thus a king’s nephew or brother, rather than
his son, would succeed him.
See alsoMACALPIN, KENNETH.
Further reading:J. M. P. Calise, ed., Pictish Source-
book: Documents of Medieval Legend and Dark Age History
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002); Sally M. Fos-
ter, Picts, Gaels, and Scots: Early Historic Scotland(Lon-
don: B.T. Batsford/Historic Scotland, 1996); Isabel
Henderson, The Picts(New York: Praeger, 1967); Lloyd
Robert Laing, The Picts and the Scots(Wolfeboro Falls,
N.H.: Alan Sutton, 1993); A. F. T. Wainwright, ed., The
Problem of the Picts (1956; reprint, Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1970).
Piero della Francesca (de’ Franceschi)(1410/1420–
1492)painter
Piero was born at Borgo San Sepolcro in Umbria between
1410 and 1420, the son of Benedetto dei Franceschi and
Romana Pierino da Monterchi. Little is known of his
artistic training and formation. He seemed to have
been impressed by the work of Paolo UCCELLO, for his
geometrical formalism, and by the paintings of Fra
ANGELICO. In 1439 historical records trace him to
FLORENCE, where he worked with Domenico Veneziano
(ca. 1400–61) and Alessio Baldovinetti (1426–99) on a
cycle of paintings now lost. In 1445, his first known
work was commissioned, the Misericordia Polyptych,
clearly influenced by MASACCIO. From 1450 his painting
the Baptism of Christ has survived in the National
Gallery in London. In the same year, Piero was at the
ESTEcourt at FERRARA, where he painted more FRESCOES
that are now lost to us. In 1451, he was working for
Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (1417–68), the lord of
Rimini. He painted an idealized and flattering version of
his patron and Peter, his namesake saint, in an architec-
tural space suggested by the style of Leon Battista
ALBERTI. Between 1450 and 1455 he painted the preg-
nant Madonna for a chapel at Monterchi near Arezzo,
where his mother was probably buried.
In the later 1450s he traveled to ROMEto decorate
the Vatican rooms later covered over by Raphael’s fres-
coes. From around this time were the famous Flagellation
of Christin Urbino, and the cycle of the History of Discov-
ery of the Holy Crossfrom 1466 for the choir of thePiero della Francesca, portrait of Federico da Montefeltro,
duke of Urbino, Uffizi, Florence, Italy (Scala / Art Resource)