On the trail of Piero

Piero della Francesca is today acknowledged as one of the foundational artists of the Renaissance. Aldous Huxley thought his ‘Resurrection’ ‘the best painting in the world’. His compositions marry art and science with cool precision and a sophisticated grasp of perspective — he was, after all, a mathematician. But he was only rediscovered in the mid-19th century after centuries of relative obscurity. Following his death in 1492, his artistic achievements faded in the memory and he became known chiefly as a geometer (his numerous writings include an innovative treatise on solid geometry and perspective).

This is not wholly surprising. Many of the most impressive paintings in Piero’s oeuvre are not to be found conveniently in major museum collections (though the National Gallery does own three panel paintings, including a damaged, and possibly unfinished, Nativity — Piero was a notoriously slow painter who very rarely adhered to commission deadlines). Rather they are found exactly where they were painted, in the provincial churches and palaces they were commissioned for.