My love affair with Piero Della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto – one of the greatest artworks in Italy – started in the 1960s. To visit this fantastic fresco at that time was a bit of an adventure.
To start with, it was some two kilometres out of Monterchi’s centre in Tuscany, in what appeared to be the chapel of a cemetery. But the chapel was always locked up, and a little ritual was required. You had to make some discrete noises until a twelve-year-old girl appeared, not impeccably clean. Even in Italian, she would take her time to understand that we wanted to see the Madonna. And finally, when her mother appeared with the keys, the glorious fresco was visible. It was magnificent. But it needed restoration and was detached from the wall, probably to avoid dampness.
There’s a tradition that Piero painted it in memory of his mother. Although we have very little evidence, from the book of the dead, we know that Piero died in 1492. His mother Monna Romana died in 1469. So a probable date for the fresco is 1470, as also suggested by its style.
It’s located behind the main altar of a very small church on Santa Maria a Momentana, only 4 meters wide (significant detail as you will see). In 1781, a cemetery was required on the site. So most of the church was demolished, except the area around the main altar. This explains the apparent cemetery chapel, not an obvious place to represent birth and regeneration.
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