CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA, THE

As a great master of the early Renaissance, Piero della Francesca created paintings for ecclesiastics, confaternities, and illustrious nobles throughout the Italian peninsula. Since the early twentieth century, the rational space, abstract designs, lucid illumination and naturalistic details of his pictures have attracted wide audiences. Piero's treatises on mathematics and perspective fascinate scholars in a wide range of disciplines. This Companion brings together new essays that offer a synthesis and overview of Piero's life and accomplishments as a painter and theoretician.

Contents - 1. The Misericordia Polyptych: reflections on spiritual and visual culture in Sansepolcro Diane Cole Ahl; 2. The spiritual world of Piero’s art Timothy Verdon; 3. Piero’s Legend of the True Cross and the friars of San Francesco Jeryldene M. Wood; 4. Piero’s meditation on the Nativity Marilyn Aronberg Lavin; 5. ‘Troppo belli e troppo eccellenti’: observations on dress in the work of Piero della Francesca Jane Bridgeman; 6. Piero della Francesca’s ruler portraits Joanna Woods-Marsden; 7. The Renaissance prospettiva: perspectives of the ideal city Philip Jacks; 8. Piero’s treatises: the mathematics of form Margaret Daly Davis; 9. Piero della Francesca’s mathematics J. V. Field; 10. Piero’s parnassus of modern painters and poets Anne B. Barriault.