Museo Civico
During World War II, the British officer commanding the heights over Sansepolcro remembered he’d read an essay by Aldous Huxley, “The Greatest Picture,” about Piero della Francesca’s 1468 “Resurrection of Christ,” in the town hall. He ordered shelling to cease lest a masterpiece be lost, maybe saving Sansepolcro in the process. The painting that saved a town is upstairs at the far end of Room 4. Painted in 1463, the fresco-and-tempera work shows Christ rising from his tomb as four guards doze unaware. We see Christ in an unusually earth-bound pose, face on, staring directly out of the painting at us, his heavy, peasantlike features suggesting God in human form. Even so, the way he stands above the sleeping soldiers implies he is a Divine presence elevated above his human subjects. Christ has placed his leg on the parapet of the classic-looking sarcophagus, suggesting he is just in the act of climbing out. The soldier in brown with his head against the same parapet is thought to be a self-portrait of the artist; the soldier next to him, holding a lance, is positioned in such a way that he appears to have no legs—technically, we should see them, so obviously the artist abandoned anatomical veracity for the sake of a good composition. The landscape behind Christ is significant, too, mostly barren but just beginning to bud, a harbinger of springtime resurrection.
Piero appears again in room 1, in a 19th-century terra-cotta bust, and Room 3 house his “Polyptych della Misericordia” (1445–62), reassembled without its frame. The Mary of Mercy spreads her cloak around kneeling donors, who are dwarfed by her towering figure. The one to the left of her, in red and looking up, is believed by some to be another self-portrait of Piero. A sleepy-eyed St. John the Baptist, St. Sebastian (who seems more consumed by the ecstasy of being pierced by arrows than with his holy company), and other saints look on. By Piero’s contract with the Compagnia della Misericordia, the co-fraternity that commissioned the work, he was to deliver the finished product within 3 years, but he did not finish until 17 years later. Piero was a notoriously slow worker, and his father was tasked with mollifying patrons and apologizing to them for his son’s lateness. Failing eyesight made the situation even worse. Even so, had the brothers kept better tabs on their artist, they would have known that during the time he was under contract with them he also accepted commissions in Ferrara and Rimini, as well as closer to home, from other churches in Sansepolcro and Arezzo.
At least one other works by the artist, and possibly two, are in the museum: a much-deteriorated fresco fragment of “San Giuiano” (1455–58), who even in this rather sorry state looks quite beatific, and a much-disputed “San Ludovico da Tolosa” (1460), often attributed to Piero’s student Lorentino.
During World War II, the British officer commanding the heights over Sansepolcro remembered he’d read an essay by Aldous Huxley, “The Greatest Picture,” about Piero della Francesca’s 1468 “Resurrection of Christ,” in the town hall. He ordered shelling to cease lest a masterpiece be lost, maybe saving Sansepolcro in the process. The painting that saved a town is upstairs at the far end of Room 4. Painted in 1463, the fresco-and-tempera work shows Christ rising from his tomb as four guards doze unaware. We see Christ in an unusually earth-bound pose, face on, staring directly out of the painting at us, his heavy, peasantlike features suggesting God in human form. Even so, the way he stands above the sleeping soldiers implies he is a Divine presence elevated above his human subjects. Christ has placed his leg on the parapet of the classic-looking sarcophagus, suggesting he is just in the act of climbing out. The soldier in brown with his head against the same parapet is thought to be a self-portrait of the artist; the soldier next to him, holding a lance, is positioned in such a way that he appears to have no legs—technically, we should see them, so obviously the artist abandoned anatomical veracity for the sake of a good composition. The landscape behind Christ is significant, too, mostly barren but just beginning to bud, a harbinger of springtime resurrection.
Piero appears again in room 1, in a 19th-century terra-cotta bust, and Room 3 house his “Polyptych della Misericordia” (1445–62), reassembled without its frame. The Mary of Mercy spreads her cloak around kneeling donors, who are dwarfed by her towering figure. The one to the left of her, in red and looking up, is believed by some to be another self-portrait of Piero. A sleepy-eyed St. John the Baptist, St. Sebastian (who seems more consumed by the ecstasy of being pierced by arrows than with his holy company), and other saints look on. By Piero’s contract with the Compagnia della Misericordia, the co-fraternity that commissioned the work, he was to deliver the finished product within 3 years, but he did not finish until 17 years later. Piero was a notoriously slow worker, and his father was tasked with mollifying patrons and apologizing to them for his son’s lateness. Failing eyesight made the situation even worse. Even so, had the brothers kept better tabs on their artist, they would have known that during the time he was under contract with them he also accepted commissions in Ferrara and Rimini, as well as closer to home, from other churches in Sansepolcro and Arezzo.
At least one other works by the artist, and possibly two, are in the museum: a much-deteriorated fresco fragment of “San Giuiano” (1455–58), who even in this rather sorry state looks quite beatific, and a much-disputed “San Ludovico da Tolosa” (1460), often attributed to Piero’s student Lorentino.
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