. Ciriaco at
Ancona, on the altar of S. Giuseppe, he painted a most beautiful scene
of the Marriage of Our Lady.

Piero, as it has been said, was a very zealous student of art, and gave
no little attention to perspective; and he had a very good knowledge of
Euclid, insomuch that he understood all the best curves drawn in regular
bodies better than any other geometrician, and the clearest elucidations
of these matters that we have are from his hand. Now Maestro Luca dal
Borgo, a friar of S. Francis, who wrote about the regular geometrical
bodies, was his pupil; and when Piero, after having written many books,
grew old and finally died, the said Maestro Luca, claiming the
authorship of these books, had them printed as his own, for they had
fallen into his hands after the death of Piero.

Piero was much given to making models in clay, on which he spread wet
draperies with an infinity of folds, in order to make use of them for
drawing.

A disciple of Piero was Lorentino d'Angelo of Arezzo, who made many
pictures in Arezzo, imitating his manner, and completed those that
Piero, overtaken by death, left unfinished. Near the S. Donatus that
Piero wrought in the Madonna delle Grazie, Lorentino painted in fresco
some stories of S. Donatus, with very many works in many other places
both in that city and in the district, partly because he would never
stay idle, and partly to assist his family, which was then very poor. In
the said Church of the Grazie the same man painted a scene wherein Pope
Sixtus IV, between the Cardinal of Mantua and Cardinal Piccolomini (who
was afterwards Pope Pius III), is granting an indulgence to that place;
in which scene Lorentino portrayed from the life, on their knees,
Tommaso Marzi, Piero Traditi, Donato Rosselli, and Giuliano Nardi, all
citizens of Arezzo and Wardens of Works for that building. In the hall
of the Palazzo de' Priori, moreover, he portrayed from the life Cardinal
Galeotto da Pietramala, Bishop Guglielmino degli Ubertini, and Messer
Angelo Albergotti, Doctor of Laws; and he made many other works, which
are scattered throughout that city.

[Illustration: PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA: THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN

(_London: National Gallery, 665. Panel_)]

It is said that once, when the Carnival was close at hand, the children
of Lorentino kept beseeching him to kill a pig, as it is the custom to
do in that district; and that, since he had not the means to buy one,
they would say, "What will you