around 1415/1420 -1492 · Sansepolcro, Florence, Arezzo and Urbino

Sovereign geometry, still light and meditative figures make Piero della Francesca a peak of the Italian Renaissance.

Piero della Francesca was born around 1415 or 1420 in Borgo Sansepolcro, where he died in 1492. In 1439, he worked in Florence with Domenico Veneziano and discovered a culture where perspective, light color and Masaccio's heritage renewed painting. He then led a traveling career between Sansepolcro, Arezzo, Rimini, Rome and Urbino, serving brotherhoods, princes like Sigismondo Malatesta and Federico da Montefeltro, as well as Pope Nicholas V. The Baptism of Christ organized trees, bodies and landscape according to a calm geometry; equal light gives the miracle almost silent evidence. The miracle gives almost silent evidence. The Flagellation of Christ separates the sacred scene and three contemporary figures in architecture measured by perspective, creating one of the most famous enigmas of the Renaissance. In the Madonna di Senigallia, a domestic light crosses the room and makes the presence of the Virgin both familiar and solemn. The Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro fixes the Duke of Urbino in profile in front of a carefully observed territory. Mathematician and theorist, Piero writes treatises on perspective, geometry and regular solids. This science never cools his art: it gives figures their gravity, space its coherence and time this meditative suspension which makes his work immediately recognizable. The "Piero della" selection Francesca" notably compares The Baptism of Christ and The Flagellation of Christ. His reading favors space.

In Piero, perspective not only demonstrates space: it establishes silence where light, the body and mystery also become present.