Piero della Francesca / Marilyn Aronberg Lavin

1 Pietro da Borgo: The Painter and his City 11 -- 2 Places, Patrons and Portraits: Piero's Commissions around 1450 47 -- 3 Surface and Distance: Piero's Treatment of Pictorial Space 79 -- 4 Fresco as Epic: The Cycle of the True Cross in Arezzo 113 -- 5 Ideal Women: Mary Magdalene and the Madonna 185 -- 6 Numbers and Shapes: Piero the Mathematician 215 -- 7 Court of Law and Royal Court: Later Works for Sansepolcro and Urbino 233 -- 8 In the End a Mystery: Piero's Last Paintings 285.

Few artists of the fifteenth century are as revered today as Piero della Francesca (c.1413-92). The 'favourite artist' of many painters and sculptors of our own time, he is admired especially for the balance of his compositions, the geometric perfection of his forms and the emotional coolness of his style. The secret of these qualities lies in part in Piero's achievements as a mathematician - one of the greatest of his age who wrote three treastises on the subject.