Piero della Francesca Museum

Resurrection of Christ

Date: ca. 1460
Materials and Technique: Fresco
Size: 225 cm x ca. 200 cm
Artist: Piero della Francesca (ca. 1412-1416 – 1492)

It is especially in this celebrated fresco that Piero della Francesca’s art reaches its peak in the perfect synthesis of art and science. The risen Christ, on which the most eloquent pages of critical literature have been written, becomes in the collective imagery a universal symbol, a cosmic emblem (Kronig, 1959), a metaphor of contemplation and a tangible sign of the eternal.
Portrayed facing perfectly forward, he rises powerfully on the sarcophagus and immediately holds a crusader flag firmly in his hand. It is the Christ who triumphs over the darkness of death and over the ignorance of the earthly world and the silence of humankind, yet who, at the same time, marks the passing of seasons and times, of life and death.

In the middle of the scene stands Pope Clement I, exiled to Crimea by Emperor Trajan, while preaching to the Christians among the marble excavators. The subject refers to the miraculous episode in which, through the saint’s intercession, a water source flows out of the place indicated by the symbolic Lamb (pictured in the grove on the right), an obvious allegory of Christ.

In the painting, with an accentuated horizontal format, the mythological Scylla appears in the foreground drawing back upon the arrival of Glaucus, now transformed into a sea god who has fallen in love with the beautiful nymph. The episode is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, which influenced the arts during Mannerism and the Baroque period, forming a very fruitful repository and primary source of inspiration for the literary, musical, and figurative representation of subjects taken from the myth.

The work, of a mainly public character, was painted by Piero della Francesca in a room of Sansepolcro’s Palazzo Pretorio, to celebrate the Florentine captain Lodovico di Odoardo Acciaioli, commissar in Sansepolcro from 3 July 1460 to 3 January 1461.

Our Lady of Mercy

Date: 1445-50 to ca. 1467
Technique and Materials: Painting on a wooden panel
Size: 168 cm x 91 cm
Artist: Piero della Francesca (ca.1412-1416 to 1492)
Provenance: Sansepolcro, Church of Santa Maria della Misericordia (suppressed)

The Misericordia Polyptych, of which this Our Lady of Mercy is part, was commissioned to Piero della Francesca in 1445 by the Confraternity of Mercy. However, the work was not fully completed until the sixth decade of that century (Banker 2010), despite the likely involvement of assistants in the execution of some marginal parts of the polyptych (the predella scenes). There are obvious stylistic, aesthetic as well as technical and executive differences in the individual compartments that confirm that the work was carried out in stages.

The iconography in which the Assumption and the Coronation are simultaneously depicted was often present in the Observant Minor churches during the 16^th century. In Umbria especially, the icons were arranged generally on the high altar, as if to underline their importance to worship and theology.

The composition of the Martyrdom of Saint Quentin was influenced primarily by the painting’s liturgical purpose and its placement in a religious building from the beginning. The entire scene is rendered with a style that met the rich local patrons’ requests for devotional images. The rather rare and unusual subject perhaps refers to private worship and, in any case, unusual in the area.

The “theme” of the Saint Julian appears to have been particularly successful during the 15^th century evoking the cultural value attributed to the saint, as the protector of pilgrims and the Hospitallers, already in the Middle Ages. Even if the lower part is mutilated or missing, the young man wears Saint Julian’s “clothes”.

Crucifixion

Date: 1445-50 to ca.1467
Technique and Materials: Painting on a wooden panel
Size: 83.2 cm x 54.5 cm
Artist: Piero della Francesca (ca.1412/1416 – 1492)
Provenance: Sansepolcro, Church of Santa Maria della Misericordia (suppressed)

This Crucifixion is part of the top panel of the Misericordia Polyptych commissioned to Piero della Francesca.

The altarpiece with the Nativity, from the church of Santa Chiara, is referred to Andrea Della Robbia. It is an iconographically complex and intricate work, connected to the Della Robbia production from the 1480s. The Nativity with the Announcement to the Shepherds and the Annunciation in the lunette is organized on three registers: at its center is the image of the Nativity scene with shepherds, with the Annunciation above and the Eucharistic Tabernacle Surrounded by Angels and Saints below.
The rigorous arrangement and geometry is accentuated by the side pilasters topped by leafy capitals and by a horizontal entablature, consisting of dentil cornices and a central band with cherubs.

The subject represented is, however, connected to the institution of the bishopric, because it represents Pope Leo the Great, the pontiff who stopped Attila’s army that was heading for Rome. It is a clear and explicit allusion, then, to the events in Sansepolcro’s at that time when the Medici pope intervened in support of the local episcopate.