The geometric Mariology of Piero della Francesca (4th part)

A painting of Our Lady with the Child, recently attributed to Petrus de Burgo and once thought to be by Piero della Francesca, connects with landscapes created through a painting of light, divine proportions, and a contemplative gaze, where mathematics and art mysteriously unite in a new certainty about spaces, in which humans and things from the world descend from some sort of dream-like spatial anticipation. Absorbed, impassive, and silent guardians of these laws, privileged guardians of a joyful poetry of the minimum where a new intimacy of distances resonates between things, events, and moods.

Our Lady offers a red rose, appearing white due to the light reflection, to Jesus sitting on her lap naked, in a symbol reminiscent of His Passion. An angel dressed in red points to the Child. Surrounding the Virgin Mother, angels line up in a semi-circle, composed and solemn in their usual sculptural quality but regal.

Perhaps the most famous painting by Piero is the Brera Altarpiece, due to where it is housed and its theme of a sacred dialogue.

This term refers to paintings that depict Our Lady and the Child in her arms, accompanied by saints and sometimes even mere mortals.

In this case, the panel also features Federico da Montefeltro, the patron of the work, clearly recognizable as the man in armor kneeling to the right. It is worth noting that the positioning of characters generally respects a precise hierarchy: Our Lady is the only one seated, saints stand, and patrons kneel.

The panel depicts four angels near the Mother of God, and six saints, three on each side: to the left are Saint John the Baptist, Saint Bernardino of Siena, and Saint Jerome, to the right, Saint Francis, Saint Peter Martyr, and Saint John the Evangelist.

The work is an admirable example of this formal order, which is more than a mere stylistic choice: it is the confidence in a universe based on a harmony of rational and mathematical matrix. Everything is symmetrical and precise, especially the architecture in the background. We are inside a church, at the crossing of the nave with the transept, directly in front of the apse. The space is thus not only a representation of a sacred place but also an expression of a cosmic order based on clarity and rationality.

A unique detail of this space is the shape of the apse basin, a shell. An ostrich egg is hanging from the top. The meaning of the egg lies in a medieval belief that ostrich eggs were hatched by the heat of the sun and thus symbolized the virgin motherhood of Mary.

# Mariology, Angelology, and Demonology: Exploring the Art of Piero della Francesca’s “Madonna di Senigallia”The shell, with its association to formation without male intervention and storms’ rays, symbolizes the mystery of Jesus’ birth as a miracle offering salvation to humanity.## *La Madonna di Senigallia* and Artistic EvolutionThe painting *La Madonna di Senigallia* is pivotal in understanding the artistic transition from tempera to oil painting, influenced by Flemish masters like Jan Van Eyck. Flemish art introduced oil painting to Italy, enabling more precise control over light.## Color and Light in Piero della Francesca’s WorkPiero della Francesca creates images with color, building it through light. His artistic meditations peak at noon when the zenithal light erases earth’s shadows. In his work, colors seem to emerge as elements of a world invention. Florence, during his stay, was a hub for learning from Domenico Veneziano, known for his luminous paintings that construct figures in light, not superimposed but harmoniously integrated into the design.## The *Madonna di Senigallia*: A Captivation of Light*Madonna di Senigallia* is particularly rich as it captures oblique light filtering through left-side stained glass, revealing a majestic yet unopulent interior. Here, a young Mary, attended by two adolescent angels, presents her melancholic son with quiet gravity, almost obscured by foreboding.## Symbolism within the SceneAn atmosphere of intense concentration permeates the simple room. A jar on the shelves symbolizes the Eucharist and a basket represents Mary’s purity and salvific role, echoing Moses’ rescue from the basket (Exodus 2:3-6).

The work presents the monumental and intimate, the two strands in which its poetry manifests itself. Monumental are the volume of bodies, the composure of figures, and the soberness of attire, yet they open to the elegance of angelic jewelry and the refined transparency of the Virgin. The atmosphere of this interior of a 15th-century house is intimate, almost domestic. The architecture cut by light entering from the left allows Piero to focus on lighting effects, a clear reference to Flemish world. The work as a whole appears clean, essential, fixed in that typical static silence that constitutes the charm of this painter.

The Nativity of London is perhaps the last work by the Master of Sansepolcro. The Child lies on the ground, in a corner of Mary’s mantle, according to traditional Northern iconography that also reflects in the characteristics of the Child.

The Mother, of soft and delicate forms, an extremely elegant ivory figure, contemplates the lying Child on a fold of her mantle.

Saint Joseph sits casually on a saddle, in a pose of domestic flavor, absolutely intimate.

The two animals in the background are represented with great realism.

Behind, one of the shepherds points to the comet.

A group of angel musicians sing, but play instruments without strings. The vanishing point is slightly elevated, as in the Pala di Brera, offering a nearly aerial view of the spectacular river landscape that stretches far away with trees, bushes, and jutting walls reminiscent of some of Leonardo’s youthful drawings. Piero’s work, almost square, is beautiful to the point of evoking intense emotion. It reveals religiosity and mysticism, along with a deep sense of mystery, as well as nostalgia for past experiences brought back to life.The donkey braying is added to the choir of angels, a perfect quintet, playing and singing at the cabin’s entrance to glorify God. In short, the presence of the donkey would signify that all creatures, each in their own way, participate in the joy over Christ’s birth, or God’s coming to earth. However, the donkey’s braying corresponds to the dissonant note in the harmony of the angelic choir. At the exact moment of the divine Child’s birth, joy mixes with pain because the plan of redemption for humanity, desired by God, will lead Christ to the cross. The other animals present in the work, however, do not share in the jubilation of this extraordinary birth.One can see the ox by the donkey’s side, a pitchfork on the cabin’s roof, and a goldfinch in the foreground. None of these animals, however, mugs or sings. It follows that the presence of the braying donkey has its reason in an unpleasant, off-key sound. Popular wisdom also contrasts the donkey and its bray with music and harmony. Now, Piero’s donkey is very close to the angel playing a violin or lyre on his arm. If we add to this that the donkey’s hair is red (a sign of the devil), that the pitchfork in the cabin often alluded to the devil, and the goldfinch in the foreground refers to Christ’s martyrdom sufferings, the painting’s meaning seems clear.The architecture here is only hinted at in the ruin and the background where Borgo Sansepolcro can be made out. The space is punctuated by the landscape, the curves of the river where trees reflect, an opening of light and adoration that brings heaven to earth, the angels’ song in the poverty of the manger.Let yourself be enchanted by a word from the Lord, be surprised again by the manger and the Cross, marvel at the Logos within every flesh, with the Eternal insinuating itself in the instant, with the Bread becoming Body, for a God who smiles, making Mary a silent master of wonder, one who keeps and meditates on the Good News in her heart. Because a child’s story is written above all in his mother’s heart. She kept the Good News. She kept it carefully because even fragments are precious to memory of the heart.

Having become blind in his extreme old age, Piero della Francesca died in Borgo San Sepolcro on October 12, 1492, the day of the discovery of America. His images of the Virgin, calm, stable, silent, essentially hierarchical, marked by a sense of grave and solemn sacrality, bring back to the heart the echo of a poetry:

Ark of the new covenant

between man and nature, returns,

on the ship that carries the Lord under the white sail

(David Maria Turoldo).