On the Occasion of the MET Museum Exhibition Opening
Lecture
Piero della Francesca (1412-1492) was an Italian artist of the Early Renaissance, known to contemporaries as a mathematician and geometer as well as an artist, though now he is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its serene humanism and its use of geometric forms, particularly in relation to perspective and foreshortening. He was born and died in the small town of Borgo Santo Sepolcro in Tuscany and may have learned his trade from one of several Sienese artists working in San Sepolcro during his youth. It is known that Piero later apprenticed in Florence with Domenico Veneziano (1410 – 1461); he also knew Fra’ Angelico (1395 – 1455), who introduced him to other leading masters of the time, Masaccio (1401 – 1428) and Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446). He was active in Tuscany, in Rome, in Rimini and in Urbino, where he painted the Madonna di Senigallia, one of his most famous masterworks, which is now housed in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche (Urbino).
Keith Christiansen is the John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.