PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA'S MISERICORDIA POLYPTYCH: ARTIST, PATRON, AND COMMUNITY

Abstract

In 1548, Monsignor Zanobio de' Medici traveled to the chapel of the Misericordia in the small Tuscan village of Sansepolcro. He marveled at a remarkable century-old altarpiece, with images of the Madonna and other saints before the high altar (Fig. 1). At the time of his visit, he stated that the panel was painted by the hand of Piero Franceschi, otherwise known as della Francesca, a resident of Sansepolcro. Piero della Francesca had been hired by one of the most powerful confraternities iii Sansepolcro of the time, nearly one hundred years prior to the Monsignor's visit, in 1445. Piero painted the altarpiece nearly a hundred years after the Black Death decimated the population of Italy in 1348, which was also about the same time that the confraternity was established within Sansepolcro. The confraternity of the Misericordia, as it was called, was a charitable organization that emerged after the Black Death swept through the Italian peninsula during the mid-fourteenth century. The members would tend to the sick, bury the dead, and engage in anonymous acts of charity.