Picture 8 / 8
For God so loved the world
Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection, c. 1463–65
- Painter
- Piero della Francesca
- Collection
- Museo Civico, Sansepolcro
- Scripture
- Matthew 28:6
- Published
- 4 October 2026
- Image
- Wikimedia Commons, public domain ↗
Piero painted the Resurrection for the town hall of Sansepolcro, the town that is named after the Holy Sepulchre. The guards sleep. Christ sets his foot on the edge of the tomb, and behind him the trees are bare on the left and in leaf on the right.
The fresco was painted for the hall where the council of Sansepolcro met; the risen Christ is the emblem of the town. In 1944 the British artillery officer Anthony Clarke held back the shelling of Sansepolcro because he remembered having read that the greatest picture in the world was there. The phrase is Aldous Huxley's.
To the left of Christ the trees are bare, to the right they are in leaf. The landscape passes from winter to spring across his body.
Four guards sleep against the tomb. Christ sets one foot on its edge, as if stepping over a threshold.