Machtelt Israëls: "Piero at Home: The Art of Piero della Francesca"

During the early Renaissance, Piero della Francesca’s artistic talents were highly sought after by patrons across the Italian peninsula but nowhere more so than in his hometown of Borgo San Sepolcro. This lecture explores how Piero gradually transformed the art of painting by applying his pioneering pictorial imagination to the challenge of three gothic polyptychs and by introducing Renaissance format paintings into the domestic interior with his Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels and Nativity of Christ (The National Gallery, London). The latter work will be discussed in the context of the architectural and pictorial decoration designed by Piero for his family’s private palazzo. This lecture is made possible by the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation.