- published: 10 Apr 2016
- views: 80
The television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends features many fictional people and animals who interact with the engine characters and form the basis for many of the varying storylines. The following list describes the more notable people and animals that have appeared. A few have appeared in more than one episode, but most appear just once.
A number of the characters originated in The Railway Series of children's books by the Revd. W Awdry. Where appropriate, cross-links are provided to allow access to the non-TV side of the character in question.
For further information on the other characters, locations, Season 1, Season 2, etc., please see the links in the navigational box at the bottom of the page.
The Fat Controller, also known as Sir Topham Hatt (voiced by Keith Wickham in UK and Kerry Shale in US), is in charge of all the engines on Sodor, and has a great deal of influence on the Island. He is firm but fair, and is an extremely complex character. He often acts as a father-figure to the engines of Sodor - when an engine is upset he speaks to them kindly, and he treats all his engines equally. He does not stand for nonsense, but is also forgiving. When an engine misbehaves, as they often do on his railway, he is willing to allow them a second chance if they are truly sorry.
Piero della Francesca (c. 1415 – October 12, 1492) was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The Legend of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.
Piero was born in the town of Borgo Santo Sepolcro, modern-day Tuscany (where he also died), to Benedetto de' Franceschi, a tradesman, and Romana di Perino da Monterchi, part of the Florentine and Tuscan Franceschi noble family.
He was most probably apprenticed to the local painter Antonio di Giovanni d'Anghiari, because in documents about payments is noted that he was working with Antonio in 1432 and May 1438. Besides he certainly took notice of the work of some of the Sienese artists active in San Sepolcro during his youth; e.g. Sassetta. In 1439 Piero received, together with Domenico Veneziano, payments for his work on frescoes for the church of Sant'Egidio in Florence, now lost. In Florence he must have met leading masters like Fra Angelico, Luca della Robbia, Donatello and Brunelleschi. The classicism of Masaccio's frescoes and his majestic figures in the Santa Maria del Carmine were for him an important source of inspiration. Dating of Piero's undocumented work is difficult because his style does not seem to have developed over the years.