Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca (c1416-1492) was an Italian artist whose work was characterized by his interest in mathematics, particularly how it related to perspective and foreshortening. He wrote a treatise
De prospectiva pingendi on how the rules of mathematical foreshortening could be applied to any object, be it a cube or human head. Most of his life was spent in
Arezzo and his hometown, Borgo San Sepolcro in
Umbria. He studied under
Domenico Veneziano in
Florence.
His work includes the Madonna della Misericordia (c.1445), The History of the True Cross (1452-66) painted in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo, the Flagellation (c.1460), and portraits of Federico II da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (c.1472).