Piero della Francesca

Piero di Benedetto de' Franceschi was born around 1415 and became both painter and mathematician, twin disciplines that fused in his work. He built compositions on geometric forms and perspective with a precision that gave his figures an almost sculptural serenity. The History of the True Cross, the fresco cycle he painted in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, stands as his most famous achievement — a marriage of narrative and spatial logic that defines Early Renaissance humanism. He died on 12 October 1492, leaving behind art characterized by its calm and its math.