Piero completes the splendid fresco cycle in…

Piero completes the splendid fresco cycle in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo in 1466, filling the three walls of the choir with narrative scenes whose subject is the Legend of the True Cross, which traces the history of the wood on which Christ was crucified from its first form as a branch of the Tree of Knowledge.

Piero's treatment of the complex story includes the Discovery of the Wood of the True Cross and the Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Piero has the Queen kneeling in adoration of the sacred wood; on the right she tells Solomon of her premonition that Christ will be nailed to it.

His composition, while conveying an illusion of simplicity, provides endless variation by juxtaposing the harmony of the natural setting with the classical ordering of the architecture.