The hometown of Piero della Francesca and the painting that saved it
Sansepolcro, in the upper Tiber valley on the border with Umbria, is the hometown of Piero della Francesca, and the Museo Civico keeps some of his greatest works: the Polyptych of the Misericordia and above all the Resurrection, a fresco in which Christ rises from the tomb with a fixed, powerful gaze over four sleeping soldiers, against a landscape passing from winter to spring.
The writer Aldous Huxley called it "the best picture in the world". In 1944 a British artillery officer, Anthony Clarke, who had read Huxley's essay, held his fire on the town to spare the painting; a street in Sansepolcro now bears his name. The town also has a fine cathedral and Renaissance palaces.
Tip: Sansepolcro is the home of the Buitoni pasta factory; in September the Palio della Balestra, a crossbow contest in costume, is held against Gubbio.
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