Piero della Francesca

Piero della Francesca is an Italian Early Renaissance painter and mathematician, master of perspective and geometry whose serene and monumental work embodies the perfect synthesis between science and art. Trained in the Florentine tradition of Masaccio and profoundly influenced by mathematics and Euclidean geometry, he develops a style characterized by compositions rigorously constructed according to the laws of linear perspective, powerful architectural volumes, clear and diffuse light that bathes scenes in a timeless atmosphere, and hieratic figures of sculptural dignity. His fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo constitutes one of the summits of Renaissance painting through its narrative majesty, learned spatial construction and revolutionary use of light as structural element. Author of mathematical treatises on perspective (De prospectiva pingendi) and regular solids, he embodies the ideal of the Renaissance artist-scholar, combining scientific rigor and aesthetic sensibility. Long forgotten then rediscovered in the 20th century, he is today recognized as one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance, admired for his formal modernity and contemplative serenity.