Piero Della Francesca

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.