<strong>Piero della Francesca</strong> was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his <em>Lives of the Artists</em>, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes "The Legend of the True Cross" in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.