haps equal to any who have followed him down to the present time, as may he shown by the many fine drawings in perspective which fill his works. Among other instances of this kind is a vase, which is treated in such a manner that it can be seen before, behind, and at the sides, while the base and mouth are equally visible; without doubt a most astonishing thing. In this work the smallest minuti^ are attended to with the utmost exactitude, and each turn of every circle is foreshortened with the greatest delicacy. Having by these things acquired considerable eminence in the court of Urbino, Piero desired to make himself known elsewhere; he therefore proceeded to Pesaro and Ancona,[1] whence, at the moment when he was most busily occupied, he was summoned by the Duke Borso, to Ferrara, where he painted many apartments of the palace. These chambers were afterwards destroyed by Duke Ercole the elder, who rebuilt the palace after the modern taste, one consequence of which was, that there now remains no work in that city from the hand of Piero, if we except a chapel in the church of Saint Agostino, which he painted in fresco, and even that has been grievously injured by the humidity of the place.[2]
From Ferrara Piero della Francesca was invited by pope Nicholas V. to Rome, where he painted two stories in the upper rooms of the palace, in company with Bramante of Milan.[3] But these works also were destroyed in like manner by pope Julius II., to the end that Raffaello da Urbino might paint the imprisonment of St. Peter, with the miracle of the corporale of Bolsena in its place. At the same time there were likewise destroyed certain pictures which had
- ↑ No vestige now remains of Piero’s works in Pesaro and Ancona. Vasari fails to notify those performed by him in Rimini, where there is still to be seen a fresco well preserved in the church of San Francesco in that city. It is in the Chapel of the Relics, and represents Sigismondo Malatesta kneeling before his patron St. Sigismund with the following inscription.— Sanctus Sigismtjndus Pandulfus Malatesta Pan F. Petri de Burgo Opus, 1451.
- ↑ The church has been demolished, and the paintings are consequently destroyed.
- ↑ Writers are divided in opinion as to whether Bramante of Milan, and Bramantino, be one person or two; but in any case we are not to confound the architect Bramante, whose birth-place was Castel Durante, near Urbino, with any other master. On this subject see Passavant in the Kundblatt, 1838.
