Piero della Francesca: The Legend of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo

The book presents for the first time the entire cycle of frescoes after the complex job of restoration documenting in detail each scene with spectacular close-up images. Recent restorations have infact made it possible to evaluate on a closer basis the techniques used in the execution of the frescoes as well as the method with which the artist worked. The sense of harmony that the spectator derives from the perfect co-ordination of attitudes, gestures and anatomy in every single scene, must have been the result of an exceedingly lengthy phase of study through preparatory sketches and drawings readied for each individual figure, done in such a way that each one occupies its own space, geometrically measurable, in careful relation to all the others, with a view to creating a scene with a powerful sense of illusion in which the miracle of light that reveals all offers a precise perception of the true and the natural. Fifteen long years to repair, recover and safeguard the fascinating stories that Piero painted in the mid-15th century to illustrate the major episodes of the Legend of the True Cross, quite widespread during the time of the Crusades up to the Renaissance and especially dear to the Franciscan friars: among the other the Death of Adam, the Meeting of the Queen of Sheba with King Solomon, the Burial of the Holy Wood, the Dream of Constantine and the Victory of Constantine over Maxentius.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Anna Maria Maetzke Piero della Francesca and the cycle of the Legend of the True Cross a new reading after the restoration Carlo Bertelli Narrative Strategy of the Legend of the True Cross Marylin Lavin Perspective Marisa Dalai Emiliani The New Unitarian Vision: Restoration and Results Anna Maria Maetzke The Reading of Single Scenes Anna Maria Maetzke

About the Author :
The authors are all world renowned experts of Italian Renaissance painting: Carlo Bertelli, visiting professor at the Universities of Berkeley, Geneve, Losanna, Venice and Milan, in 1999 gave the famous Mellon Lectures at National Gallery in Washington. His previous book Piero della Francesca (translated by Edward Farrelly, Yale University Press, 1992) has been a great success and it is sold out. Anna Maria Maetzke, is superintendent of Arezzo and leading expert on Piero della Francesca. Marilyn Aronberg Lavin teaches at Princeton University. She has written several books on Italian Renaissance painting and Piero della Francesca. Her book The Place of Narrative: Mural Painting in Italian Churches, 431-1600 AD has won the Chicago Women in Publishing award competition in 1991.