Recently we took a short trip to Arezzo, in Tuscany, to see the works of Piero della Francesca, an early Renaissance artist who was born sometime between 1412 and 1416, and died on October 12, 1492. (Sometimes we forget that the Italian Renaissance and the age of European exploration overlap.)
On our way, we stopped in Sansepolcro, where Piero was born. According to legend, the town was founded by two 9th Century pilgrims who had returned to the Holy Land, hence the name of the town, which means Holy Sepulcher in Italian.
Piero was a pioneer in the use of perspective in European painting, and wrote a treatise, De prospectiva pingendi, on the subject
Sansepolcro has a small museum, which features several paintings by della Francesca. The most famous is his Resurrection of Christ, which features Jesus emerging from the tomb, unobserved by sleeping Roman soldiers. This scene is not depicted in the Bible, so artists like had to use their imagination, in a manner that explained the lack of first-hand witnesses.
I also liked this depiction of the Christ encountering a startled Mary Magdalen after his resurrection.
The museum also featured works by several other local artists, including a depiction of the Assumption of Mary by Raffaellino del Colle (1490-1566), a pupil of Raphael, and the Holy Family at rest on the flight to Egypt, by Santi di Tito (1536-1603).
The Duomo of Sansepolcro had a fascinating wooden crucifix, dating from the 8th or 9th Century, centuries before depictions of Christ on the Cross became common in European religious art. Note that Jesus is fully clothed, and is not shown as suffering.
We ate at a small trattoria for lunch where one of the starters was a cheese called Ravigiolo, a fresh cheese made from raw cow’s milk, available only in parts of the regions of Tuscany and Romagna, and only during certain months of the year. We didn’t realize how unusual this cheese was until after we had eaten it, so sadly we didn’t take a picture. But this page will give you some idea of what it was like.
A few kilometers outside of Sansepolcro is the small town of Monterchi, which has what is one of Piero’s most unusual works, the Madonna del Parto, which features an extremely pregnant Madonna literally on the point of giving birth. She is, quite unusually, alone, with two angels in a tent decorated with fertility symbols, their flaps suggesting the process of childbirth to come.
The cathedral of San Francesco, in Arezzo, is the home of what is probably Piero’s most famous work, the fresco cycle depicting the Legend of the True Cross.
The discovery of the True Cross is, again, not in the Bible. What is known is that the Emperor Constantine attributed his victory in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 CE) to a dream, in which he is directed to use the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion as his standard going into battle.
After his victory, Constantine converted to Christianity, and his mother Helena travelled to Jerusalem to find the True Cross, ultimately founding the church of the Holy Sepulcher.
This relatively simple story had been embellished over the centuries, and by the 12th C, the story of the True Cross had been imaginatively connected to the Biblical figures of Adam, King Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba, all beautifully depicted by the artist.
Piero finishes the cycle by showing the victory of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius over the Persian Emperor Khosrau II, who had removed the True Cross after conquering Jerusalem in 614. After his victory, Heraclius returns the True Cross in triumph to Jerusalem. (Jerusalem was itself conquered by the Arabs just a few decades later, a fact discreetly omitted by the artist.)
Piero della Francesca was famous as an early pioneer of the use of perspective in European Renaissance art. One thing I hadn’t noticed before was that all the figures in the individual frescoes are the same height – clearly part of the illusion the artist was trying to create.
There is another work by Piero in the Duomo of Arezzo, a depiction of Mary Magdalen.
The Duomo had other treasures, including a Della Robbia altarpiece, a baptismal font by Donatello, and an Annunciation by Spinello Aretino.
The Diocesan Museum next door featured a baptism of Christ by Giorgio Vasari.
The Duomo also features some spectacular early 16th Century ceiling frescoes and stained glass windows (unusual in Italy), by Guillaume de Marcillat, a Frenchman who spent most of his life in Italy.
Arezzo was the birthplace of the 16th C artist and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). Vasari is best remembered today as the architect of the Uffizi in Florence, and for his biography of Italian Renaissance artists – the first work of what we would today call art history. He is also known for a series of paintings in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, which I had always found rather bombastic. The paintings he did for his own house, in Arezzo, along with the Baptism of Christ he did for the Duomo, pictured above, were thus a pleasant surprise.
The young woman dressed in yellow is believed to be Vasari’s wife.
I really liked this trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) painting of a young woman seen through an illusory door looking through an imaginary window.
The house also had an elegant garden, although it didn’t look its best in the rain.
That’s all for now.
Linda's Trip Tips 