Piero della Francesca | The Resurrection, Museo Civico, Sansepolcro | Art in Tuscany | Podere Santa Pia, Holiday house in the south of Tuscany

Piero della Francesca | Resurrection of Christ, Museo Civico, Sansepolcro

Piero della Francesca is now recognised as one of the great artists of the early Renaissance and yet by the time of his death in 1492 he was better known as a mathematician and geometer than as an artist. He had studied and absorbed the artistic discoveries of his great Florentine predecessors and contemporaries — Masaccio, Donatello, Domenico Veneziano, Filippo Lippi, Uccello, and even Masolino, who anticipated something of Piero's use of broad masses of colour. Piero unified, completed, and refined upon the discoveries these artists had made in the previous 20 years and created a style in which monumental, meditative grandeur and almost mathematical lucidity are combined with limpid beauty of colour and light.
In 1467, Piero della Francesca was commissioned to paint a Resurrection which is now one of his most famous works. The fresco was painted in the Meeting Hall of Palazzo dei Conservatori di Sansepolcro, the current Civic Museum, probably in 1467-68.[2] The subject of the picture alludes to the name of the city (meaning Holy Sepulchre), derived from the presence of two relics of the Holy Sepulchre carried by two pilgrims in the 9th century. Christ is also present on the town's Coat of Arms.
It is likely that Piero painted his striking image of the risen Christ stepping resolutely, banner in hand, from the tomb, to represent not only the resurrection of Jesus but also the resurgence of Sansepolcro.

Jesus is in the centre of the composition, portrayed in the moment of his resurrection, as suggested by the position of the leg on the parapet. His figure, depicted in an iconic and abstract fixity (and described by Aldous Huxley as "athletic"), is hanging over four sleeping soldiers, representing the difference between the human and the divine spheres (or the death, defeated by Christ's light). The landscape, immersed in the dawn light, has also a symbolic value: the contrast between the flourishing trees on the right and the bare ones on the left alludes to the renovation of men through the Resurrection's light.

According to tradition, the sleeping soldier in brown armor on Christ's right is a self-portrait of Piero. The contact between his head and the pole of the Guelph banner carried by Christ is supposed to represent his contact with the divinity.

Aldous Huxley described The Resurrection as "the greatest painting in the world".[1]

According to tradition, the sleeping soldier in brown armor on Christ's right is a self-portrait of Piero. The contact between his head and the pole of the Guelph banner carried by Christ is supposed to represent his contact with the divinity.

Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection
(self-portrait, detail of fresco), Museo Civico
of Sansepolcro

Andrea del Castagno (1423-1457) was born in a village in the Mugello area near Florence now called Castagno d'Andrea, and was probably trained in Florence. He was well known for the emotional expressionism and naturalism of his figure style. Castagno's first noteworthy paintings were executed for the Florentine convent of Sant' Apollonia. In this fresco cycle of 1447 Castagno depicted scenes from the Passion of Christ and the Last Supper, works influenced by the pictorial illusionism of Masaccio.

The presence in Florence of Domenico Veneziano – who, assisted by Piero della Francesca, worked in the church of Sant'Egidio (1439-1445) – was probably decisive for Andrea. Even without giving credence to Vasari's story about Andrea's envy of Domenico, he was certainly influenced by the latter's clear, luminous palette and rigorous perspective constructions, with solutions often very near to or foreshadowing those of Piero della Francesca.

The obvious analogies between this fresco, the Resurrection, and the same subject painted several years later by Piero della Francesca in Borgo San Sepolcro has been the object of many critical studies. The simplicity and the perfect perspective composition of the fresco in Sant'Apollonia is considered by some scholars an anticipation of the art of Piero, whereas others think that it is rather a reflection of it.

Andrea del Castagno, Resurrection (detail), 1447, fresco, Sant'Apollonia, Florence

Andrea del Castagno, Resurrection, 1447, fresco, Sant'Apollonia, Florence [3]

Andrea del Castagno, Resurrection (detail), 1447, fresco, Sant'Apollonia, Florence

The cathedral in Sansepolcro contains a gilded polyptych of the Resurrection (14th century), attributed to Niccolo di Segna. The central figure of Christ stands in a pose so similar to Piero della Francesca's Ressurection in the Museo Civico, that many feel della Francesca must have studied this first.
Niccolo di Segna began his career in the workshop of his father, Segna di Buonaventura.
He followed the style of Duccio with a greater rigidity of the forms. He was also influenced by Simone Martini as seen in the Crucifixion (1345, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) and in the frescoes attributed to him (S. Colomba a Monteriggioni near Siena).

Art in Tuscany | Niccolò di Segna

Resurrection by Niccolò di Segna

The observation of nature meant that set forms and symbolic gestures which in Medieval art, and particularly the Byzantine style prevalent in much of Italy, were used to convey meaning, were replaced by the representation of human emotion as displayed by a range of individuals.
In this Resurrection, Giotto shows the sleeping soldiers with faces hidden by helmets or foreshortened to emphasise the relaxed posture.

Art in Tuscany | Giotto di Bondone

Giotto di Bondone, Scenes from the Life of Christ, Resurrection (detail), Cappella degli Scrovegni all'Arena, Padua

Piero della Francesca

Polyptych of the Misericordia       The Baptism of Christ       St. Jerome in Penitence       St. Jerome and a Donor      Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Praying

in Front of St. Sigismund       Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta      The History of the True Cros      The Flagellation of Christ       Polyptych of Saint

Augustine       Resurrection       Madonna del parto       Nativity       Polyptych of Perugia       Madonna and Child with Saints (Montefeltro Altarpiece)

Paired portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza       Madonna di Senigallia       Saint Mary Magdalene

[1] Sansepolcro escaped artillery fire during World War 2 because Antony Clarke, the British captain charged with the task, had read the aforementioned essay by Aldous Huxley which described The Resurrection as "the greatest painting in the world". Captain Clarke had never seen the painting but at the last moment (shelling had already begun) remembered where he had heard of Sansepolcro and ordered his men to stop. A message received later informed them that the Germans had already retreated from the area — the bombardment hadn't been necessary. The town, along with its famous painting, survived.

[2] In the late sixteenth century an altar was placed in front of the fresco, but it does not appear that originally the painting had any liturgical function. Only after the fresco had been painted were this and the adjacent room vaulted. According to Salmi (1975) this occurred around 1470. Battisti (1971, 11, p. 34) believes that the construction of the partition in the room below was needed to sustain the weight of the vaults that had been (or were just about to be) added on the floor above. The room, on the first floor of the Residenza, where the offices of the commune were, does not seem to have been the assembly room (1. Borri Cristelli, 1989). Bombe (1909) attributed a function of civic representation to the picture, even though it was only much later that the Resurrection was adopted as the emblem of the city. Since the sixteenth century the seal of the commune contained the image of the Resurrection with the words: 'sub umbra alarum tuarum protcgc nos' (A. Mariucci, 'Lo stemma della città di Borgo Sansepolcro e la "Resurrezione di Piero della Francesca"', in Alta Val/e del Tevere, 1,4, 1933, pp. 17-20 quoted by E. Battisti).
Carlo Bertelli, Piero della Francesca, New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1992, p. 198.

Tuscany is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Known for its enchanting landscapes, its fantastic and genuine food and beautiful towns as Florence, Pisa, Lucca and Siena. The strategical geographical position in southern Tuscany will give you the opportunity of arriving in Siena and other important cities of art in Tuscany, such as San Gimignano, Volterra and Massa Marittima. Podere Santa Pia is located in the heart of the Valle d'Ombrone, and one can easily reach some of the most beautiful attractions of Tuscany, such as Montalcino, Pienza, Montepulciano and San Quirico d'Orcia, famous for their artistic heritage, wine, olive oil production and gastronomic traditions. It is the ideal place to enjoy the beauty of Tuscany – both its cuisine and its historical towns – and to pass a very relaxing holiday in contemplation of nature, with the advantage of tasting the most typical dishes of Tuscan cuisine and its best wines. The extreme simplicity of Tuscan cuisine is its strongest strength, as the flavours that emerge during the cooking process are vibrant and pure. A little known fact about Tuscan cuisine is that the French learned how to cook from their Tuscan counterparts when it was imported by Catherine de' Medici into the court of Henry II. The Tuscan style of cooking is richly flavoured and wholesome. With its original kitchen and the wood burning pizza oven, Casa Santa Pia offers an upbeat atmosphere.



Podere Santa Pia	Podere Santa Pia, garden	Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in Florence


Villa I Tatti	Siena, Duomo	Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence

The façade and the bell tower of San Marco in Florence	Florence, Orsan Michele	Florence, San Miniato al Monte