PIERO'S LIGHT

In the tradition of The Swerve and Galileo's Daughter, PIERO'S LIGHT reveals how art, religion, and science came together at the dawn of the modern world in the paintings of one remarkable artist.

An innovative painter in the early generation of Renaissance artists and one of the great enigmas of art history, Piero della Francesca was also intimately knowledgeable about religious topics and a mathematician who wanted to use perspective and geometry to make painting a "true science." Piero lived in a tumultuous age of princes and popes, soldiers and schisms. A skilled geometer, he was also part of the philosophical revival of Platonism, an ancient worldview that would shape our modern revolutions in art, religion, and science. In PIERO'S LIGHT Larry Witham presents Piero not only as a vivid character in his own time, but as an integral piece of our artistic legacy that takes us from past visions of belief, beauty, and knowledge to a secular age, a time when science is redefining our mental experiences. Although only sixteen of Piero's works survive, few art historians doubt his importance in the Renaissance. In recent years, the quest for Piero has continued among intrepid scholars and art lovers. PIERO'S LIGHT uncovers the life of this remarkable artistic revolutionary and enduring legacy of the Italian Renaissance. Larry Witham is author of more than twelve books, including By Design: Science and the Search for God, Art Schooled, and Picasso and the Chess Player.