Four Travelers Tour Tuscany to View Piero della Francesca Frescoes

Four travelers spent an all-day excursion touring Tuscany to view masterpiece frescoes by Piero della Francesca, covering a 140-mile loop from Florence through Sansepolcro, Monterchi, and Arezzo at a cost of about $450 per person for a car, driver, and guide.

The four travelers shared the cost of a private car, driver, and an art historian guide, totaling about $450 per person, with plans to return to Florence by 6:30 p.m.

Sansepolcro Inspires Huxley

The primary destination was Sansepolcro, the birthplace of Piero in 1415, named for relics brought from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Inside the town’s Museo Civico, formerly the Palazzo Comunale, hangs The Resurrection, a 15th-century fresco that critic Aldous Huxley assessed in his 1925 book Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist as the greatest picture in the world, though he immediately admitted the assessment was ludicrous.

Four Travelers Tour Tuscany to View Piero della Francesca Frescoes

The imposing fresco measures some seven feet on each side and survived being plastered over around 1463, remaining hidden for a couple of centuries before emerging undamaged. It also escaped demolition during World War II. The triangular composition features an idealized muscular Christ stepping out of a carved stone tomb holding a banner, flanked by sleeping soldiers in the foreground—one of whom, dressed in brown, is said to be a self-portrait. The background terrain shows barren land on the left and blooming greenery on the right to symbolize rebirth.

Before viewing The Resurrection, visitors study the gilded, dramatically lit Polyptych of the Misericordia. Its central panel depicts the Madonna enfolding followers into her garments, while smaller panels show saints such as Sebastian and John the Baptist, alongside the Crucifixion and scenes from the life of Jesus. The museum also houses two small fresco portraits by Piero depicting Saints Louis of Toulouse and Julian.

Monterchi Hosts Madonna del Parto

Leaving Sansepolcro at 11:30 a.m., the travelers drove 30 minutes to the crenelated hilltop village of Monterchi. Before visiting the Museo Civico, they stopped for lunch at La Terrazza di Piero, a small rustic restaurant that stands as one of about three options in the village and displays a copy of the local masterpiece on its wall.

Painted from 1455 to 1465 for the Cappella di Santa Maria di Momentana, the Madonna del Parto was created in honor of the artist’s mother, Romana di Pierino da Monterchi, who was born in the village. Over the centuries, the fresco has drawn women seeking protection in pregnancy or hoping to bear a child. The arresting artwork portrays a visibly pregnant Madonna holding her blue dress slightly open at the waist, watched by a pair of angels parting a tent embroidered with pomegranates as a fertility symbol.

Arezzo Features True Cross Cycle

After spending about 40 minutes with the guide in Monterchi, the group drove 20 miles west to Arezzo. Known as the birthplace of the 14th-century poet and philosopher Petrarch and the 16th-century artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari, the Tuscan city houses Piero’s cycle of The Legend of the True Cross decorating the Romanesque Basilica di San Francesco.

Returning to Florence, the group concluded the excursion at Giacosa 1815, a luxurious bar on Via della Spada that claims to have created the Negroni when it formerly operated across the street, where a flight of the cocktails awaited them.

Worth a look