Thousands of travelers visit Tuscany and Umbria each year to follow the Piero della Francesca Trail. John Pope-Hennessy examines each work of Piero della Francesca. Included is Aldous Huxley's essay "The Best Picture, " which inspired Pope-Hennessy to seek out these paintings and frescoes. 56 photos.

Cusk escapes dreary England for Tuscany, to relish the landscape, the weather, the food and , most of all, the art.

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, Piero dell Francesca was also an expert on religious topics and a mathematician who wanted to use perspective and geometry to make painting a “true science.” Although only sixteen of Piero’s works survive, few art historians doubt his importance in the Renaissance. A 1992 conference of international experts meeting at the National Gallery of Art deemed Piero, “One of the most highly regarded painters of the early Renaissance, and one of the most respected artists of all time.” In recent years, the quest for Piero has continued among intrepid scholars, and Piero's Light uncovers the life of this remarkable artistic revolutionary and enduring legacy of the Italian Renaissance.

The villa near a small Tuscan town is everything the Pargeter family could want for three weeks. But when the idyll turns sour, Molly Pargeter begins to wonder about their mysterious absentee landlord.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.

The author examines issues such as the rightness of web-based applications, the programming language renaissance, spam filtering, the Open Source Movement, Internet startups and more. He also tells important stories about the kinds of people behind technical innovations, revealing their character and their craft.