The Legend of the True Cross
In 1447 the Bacci family of Arezzo commissioned the Florentine painter Bicci di Lorenzo to decorate the choir of the Basilica of San Francesco By 1452, when Bicci died, he had finished painting only the four "Evangelists" in the great cross-vaulted ceiling of the choir, the "Last Judgment" on the front wall of the arch, and two "Doctors of the Church" on the intrados or inside curve of the arch. It is presumed that Piero della Francesca immediately took up with the work where Bicci had left off. The theme of the cycle is taken from the "Golden Legend" by Jacopo da Varagine, the iconographic source relied on by many Tuscan and Italian painters starting in the 1300s. It has been determined from a notary's document that the work was interrupted in 1458/59 and brought to completion by 1466. The story narrated pictorially in the 12 main episodes represented in the various scenes composing the cycle, begins with the "Death of Adam" in the lunette of the right wall and concludes with "The Exultation of the True Cross" in the lunette on the left wall and "The Annunciation" at the bottom left of the center wall. The chronological execution of the frescoes follows a different order, however, from top to bottom and from left to right, painted from seven different scaffolds over a period of 250 "working days".
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