Piero Della Francesca - Baptism of Christ

Matthew Collings concludes the series by looking at the invention of Renaissance painting.

The Baptism of Christ by Italian master Piero Della Francesca showed the household names of the High Renaissance how to use the big new trick of Renaissance painting - illusionism and perspective. Without him their achievements would have been impossible, but change came so rapidly in the Renaissance that the qualities that made Piero famous in his own time quickly went out of fashion.

The Baptism was bought for the National Gallery in 1861 and later Cezanne and Picasso saw him as the real deal: the authentic, honest Renaissance, a model for modern painting. Now he is so in tune with secular modern taste that a tourist trail links his work in the beautiful hills of Umbria, Tuscany, and a few galleries around the world who own a precious panel by him.

Collings follows his trail and hunts down the forensic detail in the highest-resolution images of paintings yet seen on television.