Visiting Arezzo means visiting the land where Piero della Francesca, the most important 15th-century Italian painter, was born and worked.

The son of Benedetto de` Franceschi and Romana di Perino da Monterchi, he was born between 1416 and 1417 in Borgo del Santo Sepolcro, nowadays Sansepolcro. We do not have much information about his artistic education.

According to a document, in 1439 he worked in Florence with the painter Domenico di Bartolomeo. However, only when he went back to Arezzo his talent unfolded.

While he was in Sansepolcro he began the "Polyptych of the Misericordia" - which he finished only 15 years later, around mid-1460. The painting is nowadays conserved in the Civic Pinacotheca.

The Baccis, a powerful family, summoned him in Arezzo in 1452. There he frescoed the church of San Francesco with the "Legend of the True Cross" (for more information read the chapter of this tourist guide dedicated to the Duomo and other churches of Arezzo).

Between the 1450s and the 1460s in Monterchi he painted the "Madonna del parto" (conserved in the Civic Museum).

Like many other artists of the time, Piero della Francesca worked also for the most important Italian courts: from Romagna to Marche, from Umbria to Latium. And whereas most of his minor works have gone missing, the most important one are still to be admired.

So, in your holiday villa in Arezzo you could a plan a visit to the pinacotheca of Sansepolcro, the Civic Museum of Monterchi and the Basilica of San Francesco and the Cathedral of San Donato in Arezzo.