Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to MantegnaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to Mantegna
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
well deserved to be richly rewarded by Luigi Bacci, whom he portrayed
there in the scene of the beheading of a King, together with Carlo and
others of his brothers and many Aretines who were then distinguished in
letters; and to be loved and revered ever afterwards, as he was, in that
city, which he had made so illustrious with his works.
[Illustration: THE RESURRECTION
(_After the fresco by =Piero della Francesca=. Borgo San Sepolchro_)
_Alinari_]
In the Vescovado of the same city, also, he made a S. Mary Magdalene in
fresco beside the door of the sacristy; and for the Company of the
Nunziata he painted the banner that is carried in processions. At the
head of a cloister at S. Maria delle Grazie, without that district, he
painted S. Donatus in his robes, seated in a chair drawn in perspective,
together with certain boys; and in a niche high up on a wall of S.
Bernardo, for the Monks of Monte Oliveto, he made a S. Vincent, which is
much esteemed by craftsmen. In a chapel at Sargiano, a seat of the Frati
Zoccolanti di S. Francesco, without Arezzo, he painted a very beautiful
Christ praying by night in the Garden.
In Perugia, also, he wrought many works that are still to be seen in
that city; as, for example, a panel in distemper in the Church of the
Nuns of S. Anthony of Padua, containing a Madonna with the Child in her
lap, S. Francis, S. Elizabeth, S. John the Baptist, and S. Anthony of
Padua. Above these is a most beautiful Annunciation, with an Angel that
seems truly to have come out of Heaven; and, what is more, a row of
columns diminishing in perspective, which is indeed beautiful. In the
predella there are scenes with little figures, representing S. Anthony
restoring a boy to life; S. Elizabeth saving a child that has fallen
into a well; and S. Francis receiving the Stigmata. In S. Ciriaco at
Ancona, on the altar of S. Giuseppe, he painted a most beautiful scene
of the Marriage of Our Lady.
Piero, as it has been said, was a very zealous student of art, and gave
no little attention to perspective; and he had a very good knowledge of
Euclid, insomuch that he understood all the best curves drawn in regular
bodies better than any other geometrician, and the clearest elucidations
of these matters that we have are from his hand. Now Maestro Luca dal
Borgo, a friar of S. Francis, who wrote about the regular geometrical
bodies, was his pupil; and when Piero, after having written many books,
grew old and finally died, the said Maestro Luca, claiming the
authorship of these books, had them printed as his own, for they had
fallen into his hands after the death of Piero.
Piero was much given to making models in clay, on which he spread wet
draperies with an infinity of folds, in order to make use of them for
drawing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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