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Schuyler Coleman on : Piero Della Francesca

“The greatest painter of the mid-fifteenth century was Piero della Francesca (1416?-92).” Piero was born in the town of Sansepolcro, Italy, into early Renaissance Europe, a place full of creativity among the arts, the sciences, and religion. Although Piero della Francesca painted in a unique and identifiable style he is a prime example of a Renaissance artist both because he incorporates his broad knowledge of mathematics in his paintings, and because his patrons included not only the church, but also the secular, educated elite.

Piero was just as much a mathematician as he was a painter. Even when he was a child, Piero demonstrated great mathematical ability. Piero uses this ability in his art, as well as his writings: De Prospectiva Pingendi, (On Perspective in Painting), Trattato d’Abaco (Treatise on the Abacus), and Libellus de Quinque Corporibus Regularibus (Book on the Five Regular Solids). De Prospectiva Pingendi became the standard guide for artists who tried using plane figures in their work. Trattato d’Abaco was used in the schools in renaissance Florence for mathematical instruction. Piero did not only teach with writing, but he also taught mathematics to Luca Pacioli, a mathematician and a major contributor to the field of accounting, and Luca taught Leonardo da Vinci, another renaissance artist who similarly contributed to the field of mathematics. One prime example of Piero’s geometry in his artwork is The Resurrection of Christ, where there is an almost perfect isosceles triangle linking Christ’s head and the soldiers’ bodies. In this same, essentially square painting, Christ is exactly centered, enhancing this painting’s static quality. The painting is divided vertically and horizontally through Christ’s body: the vertical line separates the scene with winter on the left and the summer on the right, perhaps representing the resurrection of Christ, as summer is the resurrection from winter, and the horizontal lines separate three sections or bands. Christ’s body occupies the midsection, linking the heavens (the upper band) and earth (the lower band) through his head and shoulders, down to his foot, which is at the eye-level of the soldiers on the ground. Thus the entire mathematical structure of the image forms a cross. Contemporary art scholars believe that Piero’s treatment of geometry in his paintings had an enormous influence on cubism in the 20th century. As part of the flourishing intellectual activity during the Renaissance, Piero’s reach stretched into future centuries of artistry and mathematics.

Piero’s use of perspective was unsurpassed during his time, even though he was not the first person to use it; the inventor of perspective was Fillippo Brunelleschi, who, along with Donatello, pushed the boundaries in relief sculpture by carefully using measurements to create a depth. Since the use of the vanishing point was discovered 15 years before his own use of perspective, Piero essentially grew up with the technique involving perspective. “Prospectiva pingendi” is the Italian word for single vanishing point perspective that Piero and other renaissance artists used. However, what is special about Piero’s use of prospectiva pingendi is that he uses almost perfect plane geometry. In other words, Piero mathematically determined the position of his figures to create the illusion of distance in a two- dimensional plane. Piero’s passion for painting was grounded in Euclidean geometry, which is still the standard for the logic of geometry that we study today. One of Piero’s most famous frescoes, The Flagellation of Christ, is a perfect example of his work with perspective. Aside from the incredible detail just within the figures themselves, Piero’s accurate prospectiva pingendi is focused on Christ, therefore the columns and figures in the foreground are larger as the figures further away diminish. The use of Piero’s one point perspective was at the time not fully understood by the audience, it was just an expression of realism; but today, mathematicians marvel at the precision of Piero’s perspectival technique. Piero favors gestures over facial expressions in order to express what his characters are meant to signify. An excellent example of Piero’s figures’ meaningful gestures is found in The Polyptych of the Misericordia of the Virgin Mary, located in the Pinacoteca Comunale of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy. Mary is placed in the center, while all the other saints and prophets look and point to Jesus on the crucifix. Mary gesture is also significant because she forms a dome-shaped shelter with her robes around “the faithful,” who have, among all the other figures in all of his paintings, virtually no expression.

They seemed to belong to a last heroic race, beautiful and strong – and silent. Their inner life is conveyed by glances and gestures, not by facial expressions. Above all, they have a gravity, both physical and emotional, that make them kin to Classical Greek sculpture. More than any artist of his day, he believed in scientific perspective as the basis of painting; in a treatise full of rigorous mathematics – the first of it’s kind – he demonstrated how perspective applied to the stereometric bodies and architectural shapes, and to the human form.

Even so, all of the figures in this painting have importance, identifiable by the color of their robes and the items that they possess; Piero pays close attention to meaningful details. As stated in the previous quote, Piero’s figures are “kin to Classical Greek Sculpture”, meaning that they share many similarities. These similarities are yet another sign of Piero’s Renaissance persona, as a key part of the renaissance was the revival of classical Greek works.

One of the defining differences of Renaissance artists from medieval artists are their patrons. If medieval artists wanted to receive sponsorship or any sort of payment, they had to go to the Church. Renaissance artists could receive work from the Church and from separate contractors. Piero has well known paintings in both of these domains. The most famous example of his work with secular patrons is The Portrait of Batista Sforza and Portrait of Frederico da Montefeltro, a diptych masterpiece with the profile of the Duke of Urbino on the right, and his Duchess, Batista Sforza on the left. This was obviously not patronized by the church, but sponsored by the Duke himself. This seven-year painting was executed within an important intellectual center, the city of Urbino, in the Marche region of Italy.

Thanks to his aristocratic and hieratic art, Piero della Francesca achieves the noble goal to make the memory of the two Dukes eternal. With this rational, almost metaphysical style, the greatest artist achieves the perfect representation of the Renaissance man, aware of his role in the universe and the importance of his intelligence and culture.

Urbino today has one of the top universities in Italy. The contributions by Piero were pivotal to the origins of this prospering city, and serve as an emblem for the cultural renewal that Urbino underwent. A secular, private commission would never have happened during earlier times, but many Renaissance artists like Piero profited from a variety of benefactors.

Piero della Francesca embodies the spirit of the intellectual movement known as the Renaissance. The attributes that contribute to his mantle of the true Renaissance man are not only that he was one of the most intelligent people of his time, but the intellectual and artistry dominance he possessed was revolutionary; linking the past with the present, and even foreshadowing the future. Ultimately, his influence on the Renaissance is recognized by scholars as among the most significant in the history of Western art.

Bibliography

Calter, Paul. "POLYHEDRA & PLAGIARISM in the RENAISSANCE." Dartmouth College. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit13/unit13.html (accessed 1998).

Calvesi, Maurizio. Piero della Francesca. New York, NY: Rizzoli New York, 1998. (accessed April 18, 2012).

Clark, Kenneth. Piero della Francesca. London & New York: Phaidon London and New York, 1969. (accessed April 18, 2012).

Damisch, Hubert. A Childhood Memory By Piero della Francesca. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007. (accessed April 18, 2012).

Ginzburg, Carlo. The Enigma of Piero. London: Verso, 1985. (accessed April 18, 2012).

Janson, H.W., and Anthony F. Janson. History of Art for Young People. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1987. (accessed April 18, 2012).

O'Connor, J.J. "Piero della Francesca." School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland. http://www-history.mcs.st -andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Francesca.html (accessed May, 2010).

Piper, David. The Illustrated History of Art. New York, NY: Crescent Books, 1994. (accessed April 18, 2012).

Uffizi Gallery. "Portraits of the Dukes of Urbino by Piero della Francesca." The Uffizi Gallery Guide to Uffizi Museum in Florence. http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/portraits-of-the-duke-and-duchess-of-urbino-by- piero-della-francesca/ (accessed April 18, 2012).

de Vecchi, Pierluigi. The Complete Paintings of Piero della Francesca. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1967. (accessed April 18, 2012).