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The Battle of San Romano:
Catalogue entry

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Entry details

Full title
Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano
Artist
Paolo Uccello
Inventory number
NG583
Author
Dillian Gordon and Susanna Avery-Quash

Catalogue entry

, 2003

Extracted from:
Dillian Gordon, The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume I (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2003).

© The National Gallery, London

c. 1438–40?

Egg tempera (identified) with some walnut oil (main panel) and some linseed oil (corner additions) on poplar (identified), 182.0 × 320.0 cm

This painting showing the Battle of San Romano, which took place on , is one of a series of three battle scenes by Uccello. The other two are in the Uffizi, Florence (signed by Paolo Uccello: PAULI UGIELI OPUS), and the Louvre, Paris. The subject was once wrongly thought to be the Battle of Sant’Egidio of 1416, and to be one of four battle scenes on panel described by Vasari as having been painted by Uccello for the terrace of the Bartolini family in Gualfonda.1 It was correctly identified as the Battle of San Romano by Eugene Müntz2 and then by Herbert Horne.3 Niccolò da Tolentino, riding a white charger, is leading the victorious Florentines into battle.

Technical Notes Technical notes

Restoration

Cleaned while in the Lombardi‐Baldi Collection (see below under Provenance);4 cleaned and restored 1962–5.

Condition and technique5

NG 583 is on horizontal planks. It is impossible to be certain of the precise number because of the many splits, but judging from the X‐radiograph there may be eight planks, as in the Uffizi panel (see below). They were butt‐joined, not dowelled, and probably strengthened originally by vertical battens, possibly placed where the modern vertical battens now are (see fig. 14). An inserted piece of wood c. 20 × 38.5 cm, placed c. 62 cm from the left‐hand corner, is of uncertain function; however, the cracks in the gesso and paint surface show that it was there from the beginning, before the planks were gessoed. The back was thinned before 1857 (that is, before acquisition by the Gallery) and has been built up with balsa and covered with a waxed canvas.

The painting had three metallic fixings towards the top, presumably designed to anchor it to a wall. The remains of two metallic fixings are visible in the X‐radiograph (fig. 1) and an area of damage in the paint surface indicates where the third one was. The first, which is c. 10 cm long, is placed 21.6 cm (measuring to its centre) from the present left‐hand edge and 24 cm from the top edge. Towards the centre is a second fixing, 148 cm from the left edge, 181 cm from the right edge and 25 cm from the top edge. Approximately 127/130 cm from the central fixing towards the right is an [page 379][page 380]area of damage where the third fixing originally was. Small wooden plugs are visible on the back where the removal of these fixings – presumably when the back was planed – left holes in the wood. The fixings probably consisted of looped metallic pins (in the shape of Ω ) which were inserted before the gesso layer was applied; at the back they created a loop through which a ring, or possibly a bar, could be passed.6 The pins at the front were then covered with patches of metal foil (as recommended by Cennino Cennini for covering nails);7 in the case of the first fixing the creases and overlaps in the foil can be seen in the X‐radiograph. These fixings were not in themselves sturdy enough to carry the whole weight of the painting; their function would merely have been to immobilise the top part of the painting against the wall. The heavy structure of several horizontal panels would almost certainly have needed some sort of support along the base.

Fig. 1

X‐radiograph: detail of metal fixing in NG 583 (© The National Gallery, London)

Fig. 2

Detail of incised circle not used (© The National Gallery, London)

The poplar planks were covered with four vertical strips of canvas (visible in the X‐radiograph, fig. 14) of varying width and with wide gaps between them. The left‐hand strip is c. 78/81 cm wide, the second strip c. 83 cm, and the third and fourth strips both c. 66 cm.

The composition was first outlined directly on the gesso as a preliminary drawing in fluid dark paint or ink, probably lampblack – visible where the paint did not follow the drawing, for example in the red‐ and blue‐stockinged legs immediately behind Niccolò da Tolentino’s white horse (fig. 3). The design was further outlined by incisions where the painted edges border on gold or silver leaf (for example, in Niccolò’s head) and elsewhere. Incised lines are, however, not consistently used throughout. Some of the incised lines were not followed: for example, the incised circle between the recumbent knight and the black lance (fig. 2), the horizontal lance, the incised sword hilt above the page’s left shoulder, and an incised circle above his head. Some incisions were made freehand, but those for the curved parts of the armour were made with a compass, and the compass point is clearly visible in the roundels of the bridles.

Once the painting process was complete, the composition was reinforced in two ways. First, lines were drawn on the painted surface with a light brown paint, as for the features of Niccolò’s face (see detail opposite), including his brow and the folds in his cheeks, the curls of the forelock of his horse, the puffed‐out cheeks of the trumpeters and their hands, and the indentations for holding the lances.8 Secondly, outlines were incised while the paint was still soft. In some cases, for instance the shaft of the banner, the edge was then reinforced yet again with paint over the incised line. Characteristic of the processes employed by Uccello is the broken lance beneath the right‐hand black horse: the tip was underdrawn with black – in the other lances the tip was first covered with bole and then silvered (fig. 4), but here the silvering was forgotten – and pink paint applied over the drawing; the straight edges of the lance were drawn and yellow paint applied to the handle, and the edges incised in the soft paint to give a sharp edge; the tip was outlined again with black paint over the pale pink, but never completely finished.

Figs 3 and 4

Details from NG 583 showing the configuration of legs and the broken lances, including one unfinished (© The National Gallery, London)

(© The National Gallery, London)

[page 381]

Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano (NG 583), detail (© The National Gallery, London)

[page 382]
Fig. 5

Detail of trumpets (© The National Gallery, London)

Fig. 6

Detail of punched gilding (© The National Gallery, London)

Fig. 7

Detail of armour (© The National Gallery, London)

The medium has been identified as mainly egg tempera, with some parts added in a tempera grassa containing walnut oil.9 The pigments detected in the painting are traditional for the period and include lead white, ultramarine, mixed with white for the horses’ harnesses, azurite, vermilion, verdigris, lead‐tin yellow (‘type I’), a variety of red and yellow lakes, red lead, charcoal black and earth pigments. The flesh has been painted with a single layer of lead white combined with small quantities of vermilion, and red and brown earths, over a layer of a yellow‐green verdaccio composed of white, green earth, golden ochre and a little red earth.10

Some changes have taken place in the pigments. Most disturbing to the colour balance of the painting is the extensive darkening of the vermilion – particularly in the harnesses, where it has assumed a greyish‐blue cast – and the darkening of the copper‐containing glazes of the foliage of the roses.

The gold details, such as the horses’ harnesses, are all water‐gilded. Much of the gilding has been given three‐dimensionality by being densely punched and then having a dark green or brown glaze applied: for example, the trumpets (fig. 5), the large orb and the smaller orbs with three feathers (fig. 7), the gold pommels of the saddles, and the page’s sleeve (fig. 8). The pattern of Niccolò’s hat has been inscribed in the gold and the pomegranate pattern picked out in a red glaze with a pattern that disregards its geometric shape (see also below), and the intervening gold incised with vertical hatched strokes and stippled (see detail, p. 381). The gold leaf of the horses’ harnesses has been punched with the type of punch commonly found in the gold leaf of haloes or bordering the frames of altarpieces (fig. 6).

The armour of the knights is of silver leaf applied over a red‐brown bole and sometimes modelled with a blackish glaze identified as soft wood pitch mixed with walnut oil, some of it blotted on, leaving fingerprints – for example, on Niccolò’s leg. Some parts, such as Niccolò’s cuff, had been resilvered prior to the cleaning of .11 Although there has been some oxidation of the silver leaf, some of it is still in good condition. The armour of the knight in profile at the left edge, parts of the torso of the dead knight in the left foreground, some of the armour under the forelegs of Niccolò’s horse and the plume of the helmet of the knight in the left foreground retain their original glazes and have not suffered from oxidation. The mail was originally sgraffito and has been almost entirely repainted; this repaint was left in place during the cleaning of 1962–5.

Other areas of the silver have glazes – for example, red in the barbuta (helmet) carried by the page, the fallen shields in the centre foreground and the knights’ plumes (identified as lac lake), green based on verdigris in the saddle of the knight on a black horse to the right, and ultramarine for parts of the knight’s armour.

Different‐coloured bole has been used for the gold and silver leaf: an orange‐red for the gold and a deeper red‐brown for the silver.

[page 383]
Fig. 8

Detail of the page behind Niccolò da Tolentino (© The National Gallery, London)

None of Uccello’s three panels of the Battle of San Romano can be said to be in good condition. The alterations and additions to the upper part of all three panels and the extensive use of silver leaf alone would preclude that, but in the case of the National Gallery panel other factors have also affected the state of the paint layers. When the poplar panel arrived in London in 1857 it had already been planed down and its inherent tendency to react to changes in temperature and relative humidity had been restricted by the gluing of six thick, vertical walnut battens to the back. In consequence, original joins had opened, many splits had formed between the joins, and the gesso and paint layers had been loosened and in places lost. The panel was extensively repaired at the National Gallery in 1931, and more work was found to be necessary in 1960, when the restraining battens were removed, the joins and splits glued and loose paint secured. The panel work of 1960, together with the installation of air‐conditioning in the Gallery, has prevented any further deterioration, and the panel now shows no further sign of instability.12

The paint surface was not treated kindly during early cleanings; this is the case with all three panels.13 Severe but uneven cleaning has worn away paint from the raised edges of cracks over some of the surface, and in places damaged the final paint layer. The two grey horses14 and the landscape at the top of NG 583 revealed during cleaning in the 1960s (see below) have been worst affected. Some of the horses now appear as flat geometric shapes, having lost much of their modelling.

Nevertheless, much of the picture is in a reasonably good state of preservation, and there are no major losses of paint – apart, of course, from the removal of the original arched top. Many of the gilded areas are very well preserved. For example, Niccolò da Tolentino’s hat and cloak and much of the gilded detail of the horses’ bridles and harnesses retain their original modelled glazes and have not been worn by cleaning, although there has been some loss of glazes over paint, such as in the details of the petals of the white and red roses. All the flesh painting is extremely worn and little remains of the modelling of the faces of Niccolò da Tolentino, his page and the trumpeters.

The original shape of the panel and the corner additions

The three panels probably originally had arched tops: they seem to have been carpentered to fit under a vaulted ceiling (see fig. 9), as first suggested by Umberto Baldini, with irregularly cut corners designed to fit around corbels.15 At an unknown date (probably in 1484) the arches were cut horizontally approximately 64 cm from the top, and the corners filled in order to convert the panels into rectangles (see figs 1416).16 The technique used for the corner additions in NG 583 is consistent with a fifteenth‐century date, but differs from that used in the construction of the rest of the panel in ways which suggest that the additions were executed at a later stage. First, the gesso on the main panel is made up of two layers – initially a layer of gesso grosso (gypsum and anhydrite), then a layer of gesso sottile (gypsum) – whereas the gesso on the additions appears to be just gypsum. A single layer of pure gypsum tends not to have been used by Florentine painters, but was commonly applied by carpenters to frames to be gilded. It is just possible that it was applied by the carpenter who made the additions (see below). Secondly, the binding medium of the painted additions is based on egg tempera with some linseed oil admixed: that is, tempera grassa.17 The use of linseed oil in the mixed medium in these areas (rather than walnut, which is found in the main panel) again suggests that the corners are later additions, although the technique is still typical of the second half of the fifteenth century. Thirdly, although the green pigment of the foliage on both the main panel and the [page 384][page 385]corners has a black underlayer, as is common in fifteenth‐century Florentine paintings,18 the painting of the foliage in the additions is slightly different: that in the corners is painted with artificial malachite over the black layer described above, whereas throughout the main panel the greens, such as the rose leaves, are composed of verdigris mixed with lead‐tin yellow, with a copper‐green glaze. The use of artificial malachite over black seems in Tuscany to be restricted to the fifteenth century and to occur only with an egg tempera medium (see also below). The oranges are painted with red lead, with the pigment in the additions microscopically similar to that in the main panel. Leaves were added to the top right‐hand corner and to the main panel; they are brownish with pale yellow flecks containing red lead which has decolorised, and they may have been added in the fifteenth century to integrate the corners with the main panel. The conclusion may be drawn that the additions were executed at a somewhat later stage than the main part of the painting. They appear to be the work of a Florentine craftsman of the fifteenth century,19 and there are good reasons to suppose that the work was undertaken in 1484 (see below (a, b, c)).

Fig. 9

Line drawing by Umberto Baldini, suggesting the original arrangement of the three panels of the Battle of San Romano. Photo: ‘Restauri di dipinti fiorentini in occasione della mostra di quattro maestri del rinascimento’, Bollettino d’Arte, XXIX, fasc.iii, 1954 Photo: The National Gallery, London

Fig. 10

Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano (NG 583). © The National Gallery, London

Fig. 11

Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano. Tempera on wood, 182 × 317 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. © Photo: SCALA, Florence © Louvre, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images

Fig. 12

Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano. Tempera on wood, 182 × 323 cm. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi. © photo: SCALA, Florence © 2020. Photo Scala, Florence

The later overpainting

A further adaptation of the painting was made when part of the landscape was overpainted with a blue sky, removed in the cleaning of 1960 (see fig. 13). Examination of cross‐sections has shown that this overpainting consisted first of a cancellation layer of lead white, which formed a consistent underlayer for a second layer of azurite and lead white bound in an oil and resin mixture.20 These two layers were painted over a layer of darkened varnish. One small area of the sky covered a copper resinate green of earlier foliage which had started to go brown, indicating that some time had elapsed before it was overpainted. Combined with the evidence of the medium used for the blue sky (oil and resin rather than egg), this suggests that it was painted later than the fifteenth century, probably in the sixteenth, and probably when the three paintings were adapted to be shown in one frame(?), possibly after 1512 and certainly before 1598 (see below).

The other two paintings from the series (figs 11 and 12) are in the Uffizi, Florence,21 and the Louvre, Paris. A preliminary [page 386]examination of both indicates that they are very close in technique to NG 583.22

Fig. 13

NG 583 before cleaning (© The National Gallery, London)

Fig. 14

X‐radiograph of NG 583 (© The National Gallery, London)

The Florence painting has the same dimensions (182 × 323 cm) and is painted on eight horizontal poplar planks which have been planed at the back.23 As in NG 583, the planks are covered with four vertical strips of canvas (visible in the X‐radiograph, fig. 16), and the design has been extensively incised for painting. Tracings of the corner additions of the Uffizi panel when placed over NG 583 show that the top right‐hand addition is identical to that of the top left‐hand corner in NG 583, but reversed, while the top left‐hand addition is slightly wider than the top right‐hand corner of NG 583, but reversed, and follows the same curve and extends deeper down.24 Visible in the X‐radiograph of the Uffizi panel is a curved incised line in the top‐left hand corner where the lances stop short of the addition, confirming Umberto Baldini’s statement that the panel was originally arched. There are no obvious signs of metal fixings in the Uffizi panel.

Fig. 15

Line drawing of the canvas in the Paris painting (see fig. 11). Black lines denote strips of cloth; red lines denote added pieces of wood. Courtesy of E. Ravaud. © E. Ravaud, Paris, Photo: Courtesy National Gallery Photographic Archive, London © E. Ravaud-C2RMF / Photo: National Gallery, London

Signs of metal fixings have been detected in the X‐radiograph of the Paris panel, and it has been deduced that this painting, which measures 182 × 317 cm, is on seven horizontal planks. Visible in the X‐radiograph are four broad vertical strips of linen covering the planks, the three to the left measuring 66 cm and the right‐hand one 76.5 cm, with a fifth narrow strip at the extreme right measuring 13 cm. The Paris painting, unlike the other two, has five additional pieces along the top (see diagram, fig. 15), although of course the other two panels could once have had the same, but beginning further up.25 This painting has also been cut along the top, and the curvature where the linen finishes at the left‐hand side, visible in the X‐radiograph, shows that it too was once arched. It has similar additions at the corners: tracings laid over them show that the narrower left corner corresponds in profile to the left corner of NG 583 and to the right corner of the Florence panel, while the wider corner at the right side corresponds to the right corner in NG 583 and the left corner of the Uffizi panel (see figs 1416).26 The corner additions in [page 387]the Paris painting were certainly made after the main panel had been painted: in the left‐hand corner the yellow lances, which are incised in the main painting, are painted with a thinner ochre mixture lacking lead white, and the incised lines do not continue into the corner addition; in the right‐hand corner the red lances are painted with vermilion over a black underlayer in the main painting, but only in vermilion and lacking any black underlayer where they extend into the corner addition.27

Fig. 16

X‐radiograph of Uccello’s Battle of San Romano in the Uffizi, Florence (see fig. 12) ( © Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza per i beni artistici e storici per le provincie di Firenze, Prato e Pistoia Image courtesy of the Ministry for Cultural Assets, Activities and Tourism, Italy )

The Paris painting has a further rectangular insertion at the bottom left‐hand corner where there was once a gap, which may have been cut to accommodate a doorway.28 This too was painted later than the main panel: the brownish‐green pigment of the grass is more thinly painted, and examination of cross‐sections of pigment samples shows this green to be a mixture of yellow and black, whereas the greens of the main panel, just above the rectangular addition, contain artificial malachite and the paint has a thick crusty appearance. The composition, with the leaping horse, appears to allow for a doorway. The rectangular addition was probably, although not certainly, inserted when the paintings were made rectangular, having been moved from their original location and adapted for the Camera di Lorenzo (see below), probably in 1484: the use of yellow and black to create the green may perhaps be explained by the desire to match the greens in the foreground, which had already discoloured to a darkish brown in the forty‐odd years that had elapsed since the panel was first painted.

Pending further research, two important differences may be signalled in the Paris painting. First, the application of the linen is slightly different, as described above. Second, artificial malachite, found in the main part of the Paris painting as well as in the corners, is found only in the corners of the London painting and not in the main part, where the greens are a mixture of verdigris and lead‐tin yellow. The earliest example of artificial malachite detected to date occurs in Sassetta’s San Sepolcro altarpiece (for which see p. 325), commissioned in 1437 and completed in 1444.29 Uccello used it again in the Hunt in the Forest (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), probably a work of the late 1460s.30 The Florence panel has yet to be sampled, but one may tentatively suggest that Uccello introduced this pigment in the Paris painting and continued to use it fairly late in his career, and that, taken with other evidence, this helps to date the Paris painting later than the other two (see below).

The Battle of San Romano in the Palazzo Medici in 1492

NG 583 was one of three paintings of the Rout of San Romano inventoried in the Camera di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Medici (now Riccardi), Florence, in 1492: ‘nella chamera grande terrena detta la chamera di Lorenzo…Sei quadri chorniciati atorno e messi d’oro sopra la detta spalliera et sopra al lettuccio, di br.42 lunghi et alti br.iii½, dipinti c[i]oè tre della Rotta di San Romano e uno di battaglie e draghi et lioni et uno della storia di Paris, di mano di Pagolo Ucello e uno di mano di Francesco di Pesello, entrovi una chaccia.’31 (‘in the [page 388]large ground‐floor room known as Lorenzo’s room are six paintings with gilded frames above the said spalliera and above the lettuccio,32 forty‐two braccia wide and three and a half high, three of them painted with the Rout of San Romano and one with battles and dragons and lions and one with the story of Paris, by the hand of Paolo Uccello, and one by the hand of Francesco di Pesello, within it a hunt’).

Fig. 17

Detail from NG 583 showing the roses (© The National Gallery, London)

By 1598 the three battle scenes were framed, probably as a single unit, and had been moved to the passage approaching the chapel: an inventory of 1598 describes ‘3 quadri grandi di giostre antichi tutti in un pezzo con lor corniciette dorate, apicchati al muro altri sopra alla porta del primo salone, nell’andito della cappella’33 (‘three large paintings of ancient jousts, all in a [single] piece, with their gilded frames, hung on the wall, others above the door to the first room, in the passage/ vestibule passage/vestibule of the chapel’).

The historical Battle of San Romano

The Battle of San Romano in the valley of the Arno was a minor skirmish that took place during the war against Lucca on 1 June 1432.34 Florence’s war with Lucca and her allies Genoa, Milan and Siena, which lasted from 1429 to 1433, was over access to the port of Pisa. The leader of the victorious Florentines was Niccolò da Tolentino. The Sienese were led by Bernardino della Carda, who had recently defected from Florence. Niccolò was at some stage of the battle cut off from the rest of the Florentine troops, but he eventually won the day when Micheletto Attendolo da Cotignola came to his rescue. Peace was concluded a year later when Cosimo de’ Medici met with Visconti representatives in April 1433; Niccolò da Tolentino was accorded heroic status in June of that year, on the feast of Saint John the Baptist (patron saint of Florence), when Leonardo Bruni recited an oration in his praise and the Signoria gave him ‘un elmetto riccamente ornato ed il cavallo coverto di stragula veste purpurea deaurata’ (‘a richly ornamented helmet and a horse covered with a piece of [purple and gold] cloth and a purple and gold tabard’) and ‘il bastone in segno di pienissima autorità e obbedienza’ (‘a baton in sign of absolute authority and obedience’).35 Niccolò subsequently fought in other conflicts, and died a prisoner in Milan on 20 March 1435; his body was brought back to Florence and buried in the cathedral on 14 April 1435.36 That same year the Signoria planned a marble monument in the cathedral to honour him (although in the event the monument was in fresco).37 In his fundamental study of 1970, Lionello Boccia summarised the political victory achieved by the Battle of San Romano, which in one fell swoop defeated the Lucchese, the Sienese and the Milanese and brought about peace.38

The battle depicted

Battles are notoriously difficult to depict.39 Although there are at least six published accounts of the Battle of San Romano and an eyewitness report by Maso degli Albizzi, no single text seems to have been followed here. Griffiths says that the narrative may be based on Matteo Palmieri’s Annales,40 which describe vine, brambles, and men coming over the hill as in the Uffizi painting, while others suggest that it is based on hearsay.41 Petra Pertici has argued that the London painting follows the account of Maso degli Albizzi, and that the setting is topographically accurate as the battle took place in a long hollow with hills behind.42

Uccello has here painted a bloodless contest43 set against a background of oranges, roses (fig. 17) and pomegranates, which creates the decorative effect of a tapestry or fresco. The roses presumably indicate the month of June; the orange trees bear both blossom and fruit.44 The pieces of broken lances have been arranged in perspective to form an extraordinary, fragmented grid‐like pattern, interspersed with ‘rugs’ of grass. To the left is a drastically foreshortened knight in armour lying on the curiously pale pink ground.

The main protagonists have been identified on the basis of heraldic emblems, although it has to be said that the heraldry does not seem to be very precise in its colours. In the London painting the focus is on Niccolò da Tolentino, who alone is seated on a white charger: he is identifiable by his personal armorial device of ‘Solomon’s knot’, here painted in black,45 whereas in Andrea Castagno’s frescoed equestrian portrait of him it is painted in red.46 The remains of an unidentifiable emblem, curtailed, are in a dark green. Niccolò’s baton and embroidered clothing have been said to represent those he was given at the laudatory oration.47 Wegener points out that the classical pose of Niccolò da Tolentino and his horse represents the heroic exaltation of military virtue as extolled by Bruni, who reminded the Florentines that the Romans celebrated their heroes with equestrian statues.48 It has been argued by Pietro Roccasecca – who disputes that the Paris painting shows the Battle of San Romano and argues that it shows instead the Battle of Anghiari of 1441, in which Micheletto Attendolo da Cottignola was the hero – that the knight on a grey horse just in front of Niccolò, with his visor closed, is Micheletto Attendolo, bearing the emblem of the ‘ondato’ of the Sforza, to whom he was related, although fighting for the Florentines.49 Roccasecca is followed in this identification by Pertici. The arms on the shield lying on the ground beneath the enemy horseman on the grey horse have [page 389]been identified by Roccasecca as those of the Sienese Petrucci family, but with different colours; it is known that Antonio Petrucci took part in the battle and Pertici has confirmed the identification.50 The white standard with a red cross is the standard of Florence.51

Micheletto Attendolo da Cotignola appears to have been shown twice. He has been identified in the Paris painting, barefaced like Niccolò da Tolentino, and is probably identifiable by his standard of black and white ‘ondato’ with a unicorn.52

In the Florence painting an anonymous knight is being unhorsed; this incident has previously been called the unhorsing of Bernardino della Carda, but Roccasecca has argued that this knight merely represents the symbolic defeat of the enemy and that the title is a fiction, since Bernardino was not unhorsed but retreated from the battle.53

Rather than depicting a chaotic milling of fighting knights, Uccello has organised the battle into focused blocks of manoeuvres. At the right‐hand side of the London painting he shows a classic field attack and defence – a manoeuvre contemporaries would have recognised from tourney. The knight on a grey‐white horse at the extreme right is parrying a three‐pronged attack: the knight on the dark grey horse has thrust his lance under the rondel which the grey‐white horsed knight wears at his left breast (an extra protection used in the 1430s), while another knight has thrust his sword under the rondel at the top, and yet a third is attacking with a sword, which is being fended off with a war hammer. In the Florence painting the dramatic unhorsing of a knight is at the centre of the action, and in the Paris painting four lances represent the action of a single lance being brought down. In the background of the London painting archers are spanning their crossbows, an action taking place in the foreground of the Paris painting.

The armour and its date

The depiction of the battle is extraordinarily splendid. All the knights are wearing full field armour, intended for war, but with overtones of tournament and parade armour. This combination is manifest in the figure of Niccolò da Tolentino: he is wearing a mail shirt, but without a steel cuirass over the mail, and he has no lance arrest, which shows that he is not intending to use a lance, and instead carries a baton of command. His helmet, a velvet‐covered barbuta, is carried by the page riding behind him, while he himself wears a magnificent damask hat with a large‐scale pomegranate pattern of a type introduced into Italy around 1425, with a matching giornea over the mail shirt.54 On his arms he wears vambraces from the upper arm to the wrist, with a couter protecting his elbow, pauldrons on his shoulder, and a gauntlet protecting his right hand. His straight‐legged position on his horse, characteristic of the fifteenth century, is maintained by the saddle steel behind his thigh and by the long‐strapped stirrups. He wears a leg harness over the whole leg, consisting of a cuisse over the thigh with a rib at the top to deflect blows, a poleyn at the knee and a two‐part greave over the shin, and sabatons with spurs on his feet. His squire also wears vambraces, held in place with laces (called points), and a gilt mail shirt with a damask giornea matching that of his master. Implied but not shown are their left arm‐defences.

Fig. 18

Italian helmet, Milan 1440–80. Leeds, Royal Armouries Museum, IV.498, A4855/4. © The Board of Trustees of the Armouries, Leeds

The knights are similarly dressed for battle, but with references to tournament armour. The crests on their helmets are presumably for identification, since crests were worn only in tournaments and would have been totally impractical in battle. The knight on the dark grey horse behind the squire wears full plate armour which is typical of the armour worn by other knights. His armour is the same as that of Niccolò da Tolentino except that he wears a steel cuirass over the breast and back, with the lance arrest clearly visible (just below his right shoulder) and a fauld with two lames around the thighs, with an early form of tasset (the semicircular piece just where the tip of the lance is) protecting the upper thigh; he has a helmet called an armet (of ‘sparrow‐beak’ form; see fig. 18) with the hinged visor up and with a wrapper (around the chin and neck). In all three paintings Uccello shows various views of armets, with the visor up or down, with and without a wrapper, and with a rondel (a small disc at the back of the neck).

Other aspects of the field armour, including details of straps, rivets, hinges, etc., are depicted from various angles: for example, in the knight on the black horse and in the knight towards the left of the picture, Uccello shows the upper and lower parts of the back plate, seen from the back, held together by the strap. In the knight lying on the ground he shows the two‐part cuisses from the back, with the bifurcated straps holding them together. The pieces lying on the ground are also carefully studied. In front of Niccolò is a sallet, and beyond that a pauldron (shoulderpiece) with a rib over the shoulder.

In general the armour in the Battle of San Romano is exceptionally accurately rendered, implying that Uccello had actual armour to copy in his workshop and fully understood how it functioned.

In his study of 1970 Boccia demonstrated that the depiction of the different types of armour in the three panels is historically accurate, and identified it as being of the type in use between 1430 and 1440.55 Karen Watts has confirmed that the armour in all three paintings reflects armour used between 1430 and 1440, that the Paris painting shows armour which is contemporary with that of the other two paintings, and that all three paintings show armour that was out of date by the 1450s.56

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Fig. 19

Detail of top left‐hand corner of NG 583 (© The National Gallery, London)

The patron and the earliest recorded location in 1480 in the Bartolini Salimbeni Palace

Because of the unbroken Medici provenance from 1492, discussion of the original date, location and iconography of the three Battle of San Romano paintings has hitherto been predicated on their having been commissioned by a member of the Medici family.57 In a fundamental study, Wendy Wegener explored the relevance of the Luccan war in the rise of the Medici as rulers of the Republic of Florence, and the significance of the paintings as political propaganda. But it has always been difficult to explain precisely the motivation of the Medici in commissioning the series, particularly since the Battle of San Romano was one of the main reasons for their exile from Florence: in 1433 Cosimo and his cousin were exiled, having been charged with ‘inducing the people of Florence to enter into war with the Lucchese, which was almost the ruin not only of the Florentine Republic, but of the condition of Italy.58

However, recently Francesco Caglioti has published a document showing that the three paintings of the Battle of San Romano were not, in fact, commissioned by the Medici, but belonged originally to the Bartolini Salimbeni family, in whose possession they are first recorded in 1480.59 In that year the paintings were in the camera grande of the town house of Lionardo di Bartolomeo Bartolini Salimbeni (1404–1479), situated between Via Porta Rossa and Corso degli Strozzi (now Via Monalda).60 Lionardo was a leading member of the Florentine Government and, most importantly, provveditore (supervisor) of the Dieci di Balìa, the council of ten which conducted the war against Lucca.61 Cagliotti Caglioti suggests that Lionardo may have commissioned the paintings in 1438 when he took as a second wife Maddalena di Giovanni Baroncelli, who bore him six sons.62

Appropriation by Lorenzo de’ Medici

In 1477 Lionardo Bartolini Salimbeni bequeathed most of his possessions to his three youngest sons, Marco (1451–1480), Damiano (1453–1510) and Andrea (1455–1494), since he had already provided for his three eldest sons. But after Lionardo’s death on 28 June 1479 his will was contested, and in 1483 the arbitrators stipulated that Damiano and Andrea, who were by now the sole owners of their father’s house, their brother Marco having recently died, had to cede it to the other brothers and move to the family’s country villa, Villa Quinto (north‐west of Florence). Damiano took with him, along with the three paintings of the Battle of San Romano, several items of furniture from the camera grande, and wrote to his brother Andrea (who was still in Milan) itemising what he had removed to the Villa Quinto.63 By 1492 the three paintings had become the property of Lorenzo de’ Medici, through an extraordinary sequence of events tracked by Cagliotti Caglioti as follows.

In 1492 the three paintings appear in the inventory of the Camera di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Medici (see above). In 1494 the Medici were expelled from Florence.

On 30 July 1495 Damiano appeared before the Sindaci responsible for administering the estate of the Medici after their exile, stating that the paintings had been forcibly removed from his possession by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Damiano claimed that he and his brother Andrea had jointly owned the three panels showing La rotta della Torre a San Romano, or (sive) La rotta di Nicol Picino.64 Andrea, who was a financial agent of the Medici in Milan, had been persuaded by Lorenzo de’ Medici to give him, Lorenzo, his share of the paintings (1½!), but Damiano claimed that he had refused his own share. The paintings had been hanging in the country villa in Santa Maria a Quinto, from where Damiano had taken them to his town [page 391]house in Florence. From there they were removed by the woodworker Francione, who had been sent by Lorenzo to obtain them, against the wishes of Damiano. Cagliotti Caglioti deduced that the forced removal of the paintings must have been after 1479 (the paintings having passed into the ownership of Damiano and Andrea after the death of Lionardo in that year) and before 1486 (the date of Andrea’s return from Milan), and subsequently found archival evidence that the most likely date is 1484: Lorenzo the Magnificent had been involved in 1483 in the arbitration of the division of the inheritance of the five Bartolini brothers, which is probably when he first began to covet the paintings. In 1484 Andrea wrote from Milan to ascertain whether the transferral had taken place.65

Date

The new documentary evidence of ownership presented by Cagliotti Caglioti does not solve the problem of when the series was commissioned, as the earliest record (1480) dates from after Uccello’s death (1475). However, it completes the process of detaching the dating of the series from linkage with the building of the Palazzo Medici, which had already been begun by a number of scholars for technical and stylistic reasons.

The three paintings of the Battle of San Romano have been dated variously between 1435 and 1460.66 Until 1970 the tendency was for scholars to date the series late on the assumption that it had been commissioned for the new Palazzo Medici, as first proposed by Horne, who implied that Pesellino’s death in 1457 served as a terminus ante quem on the basis that six of the paintings in the Camera di Lorenzo (see p. 392) represented a single programme.67 Mario Salmi and John Pope‐Hennessy linked them with the commission to Castagno for the equestrian figure of Niccolò da Tolentino in 1456,68 and Sindona dated them just before Uccello’s Ashmolean Hunt and his Urbino predella of 1465–8.69 An exception was Georg Pudelko, who stated that, were it not for Horne’s proposal, he would have dated the battle scenes early in Uccello’s career.70

In 1970 Boccia’s findings about the date of the armour (discussed above) led him to suggest that the series had not originally been commissioned for the Camera di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Medici, but for the Casa Vecchia, and that the paintings had then been adapted for the new Palazzo Medici71 – the London and Florence scenes around 1435, and the Paris scene around 1440.72 Given that Boccia’s arguments could be regarded as providing merely an approximate date, some writers continued to date the series late. For example, Francis Ames‐Lewis dated it to the mid‐1450s for the new palace,73 Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi to 1456,74 Heydenreich to 1456–60,75 Federico Zeri close to the Urbino predella and not before 1450,76 and Griffiths to the 1450s.77

However, most writers accepted Boccia’s date of c. 1435 (thus agreeing by implication that the series was planned for the Casa Vecchia). Those who accepted a date before the building of the new Medici palace included Alessandro Parronchi, who had formerly dated the series 1455–60, but now adjusted this to immediately after the Sir John Hawkwood monument for Florence cathedral of 1436; Parronchi thought that the series could have been completed by 1438, when Domenico Veneziano omitted Uccello’s name from those working for the Medici (although he suggested that this might have been out of rivalry).78 Others were Carlo Volpe, who dated the paintings around 1440 and not later than 1443;79 Andrea De Marchi, who dated them between 1435 and 1440;80 Angelini, who dated them just before 1440;81 Anna Padoa Rizzo, who dated them c. 1440;82 and Maria Grazi e a Ciardi Dupré dal Poggetto, who dated them before 1445.83

One difficulty in dating the series is that the Paris painting differs in some features from the other two (some differences in technique are discussed above). Boccia noted that the bits of the horses are slimmer and more complicated than in the other two paintings, and the reins single rather than double; he characterised the Paris painting as altogether more mature, dating it around 1440.84 Massimo Becattini and Maria Laura Cristiani Testi noted that the Paris painting is constructed according to different geometric principles and has a different viewpoint.85 The fact that the pattern of Niccolò da Tolentino’s hat runs flatly over the surface in NG 583 despite Uccello’s implementation of single‐point perspective in the rest of the painting, while in the Paris scene the pattern of Micheletto’s hat is shown in perspective, has been commented on by J.N. O’Grady.86 Paul Joannides pointed out that the figures in the Paris painting are on a larger scale, the background is different, and it is constructed according to a different perspective.87 Volker Gebhardt argued on stylistic grounds that the Paris scene was painted first, soon after 1435, and the London and Florence panels painted in the early 1450s. However, Joannides disagreed, suggesting that the London and Florence panels had been painted c. 1432–3 and the Paris panel after the Sir John Hawkwood monument of 1436 but before the clockface of the Duomo, for which Uccello was paid in February and April 1443, and that therefore the entire set had been painted by Uccello by 1444.88

Roccasecca agreed with an early dating of the London and Florence paintings and with the generally accepted sequence, but took the differences in the Paris painting noted by previous writers a step further.89 He maintained that only the London and Uffizi paintings represented the Battle of San Romano and suggested that they were designed as a diptych or pendants around 1436, whereas the Paris painting had been painted separately some twenty years later, probably between 1456 and 1458, and showed the Battle of Anghiari. He saw the London and Florence paintings as an immediate response to Alberti’s Della Pittura, published in Latin in 1435 and in Italian in 1436. Roccasecca also argued that the Paris painting lacked any contextualisation, unlike the other two, which he considered echoed Matteo Palmieri’s account; that the London and Florence paintings derived from Lippo Vanni’s battle fresco in the Sala del Mappamondo in Siena, both in composition and colouring, and from the Stories of David in Ghiberti’s Baptistery reliefs;90 and that the Paris painting is superfluous to the narrative and reflected the new alliance of the Sforza and the Medici after the Peace of Lodi, and was painted after the death of Micheletto da Cotignola in 1451.91 The latter argument is now weakened by the discovery of the Bartolini Salimbeni ownership.

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The adaptation of the corners

Boccia’s argument that the series had not originally been commissioned for the Palazzo Medici was explored in greater detail by some subsequent writers. In 1988 Alessandro Conti observed that the corner additions were probably fifteenth‐century, rather than sixteenth‐century as suggested by Baldini, who had thought they were made when the panels were unified into the single unit described in the 1598 inventory. Conti considered that the corner additions were probably by Uccello himself, inserted in order to adapt the paintings for the Camera di Lorenzo, and that the paintings had originally been made for the Casa Vecchia.92 In 1989 Paul Joannides observed that the dimensions of the rectangular addition in the lower left‐hand corner of the Paris painting did not correspond to those of the doorway in the south‐east corner of the Camera di Lorenzo, that the composition allowed for an intrusion into the bottom left‐hand corner, and that the doorway would in no way have impinged on the composition: he therefore concluded that the paintings had not been made for the Camera di Lorenzo.93 Gebhardt similarly argued that the corner additions were fifteenth‐century, and possibly by Uccello himself, and that no room in the Palazzo Medici would have required the paintings to finish in an arched shape; he likewise concluded that the paintings had been designed not for the Palazzo Medici but for the Casa Vecchia.94

In view of Cagliotti Caglioti ’s discoveries, the likelihood is that the corner additions were made in 1484 when the paintings were moved from the Bartolini Salimbeni dwelling to the Camera di Lorenzo, their site in 1492.95 Cagliotti Caglioti plausibly suggests that they were made by Francione, the woodworker who removed them in order to adapt them for the Camera di Lorenzo. This seems likely given the type of pure gypsum used for the corner additions, which is used most commonly by carpenters. The paintings had certainly been cut to their present height by 1492, when they are described as braccia high and the same height as the other three works by Uccello and Pesellino in the Camera.96 The corner additions would have been necessary, if the paintings were to hang in a row, as seems likely, to regularise their shape after the truncating of the tops for aesthetic reasons, filling the unsightly gaps where they had originally been cut to accommodate corbels.97

Fig. 20

Plan of the ground floor of the Medici Palace (the Camera di Lorenzo is shaded). Florence, Guardaroba medicea, 1016. © Courtesy National Gallery Photographic Archive, London British Library, London, UK © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Images

Fig. 21

Perspective lines in The Battle of San Romano paintings in London, Florence and Paris respectively, by Massimo Becattini. © Massimo Becattini Photo: The National Gallery, London

The Camera di Lorenzo

Where and how exactly the paintings were hung once they had been moved to the Camera di Lorenzo in the Palazzo Medici is not known. The ‘chamera grande terrena detta la chamera di Lorenzo’, their location in 1492, was correctly identified by W.A. Bulst, who charted the sequence of rooms according to the inventory of 1492: he published a ground plan of 1650 (fig. 20) showing the Camera as a room in the northern corner of the Medici Palace, looking out onto the garden.98 Although the palace was substantially rebuilt by the Riccardi family in 1659, Büttner pointed out that the ground floor remains in essence unchanged.99 The Camera di Lorenzo is a comparatively small room, with three bays on the east and west walls and two on the south and north. The vaults are supported by corbels of pietra serena carved with the armorial device of the Medici, three feathers in a ring (see under Lippi, NG 666). The wall measurements are recorded by Gebhardt, and with insignificant variations by Amonaci and Baldinotti: east wall 1,008 cm; north wall 758 cm; west wall (with windows onto the garden) 980 cm; south wall 753 cm; maximum height of the room 743 cm.100 From the inventory of 1492 we know that the room contained a spalliera of 24 braccia (1,392 cm) in length, which included a cupboard with 2 usci braccia (= 188 cm) high and a cassa 15 braccia (= 875 cm) wide, as well as a lettuccio braccia (= 535 cm) wide and a lettiera.

Bulst placed the paintings along the east wall.101 In 1989 Joannides discussed the correct room as the Camera di Lorenzo (although without reference to Bulst), and he too positioned the paintings in a line along the east wall, after taking into account their height above the spalliera (which he estimated to have been braccia) and below the capitals of the Camera di Lorenzo.102 Gebhardt, using Bulst’s identification of the room,103 also suggested the east wall in the Camera di Lorenzo as having accommodated the paintings, it being the best lit.104 Amonaci and Baldinotti, who made a detailed survey of the room, also placed the paintings along the east wall,105 but [page 393]pointed out that the panels could not have hung where they were placed by Gebhardt, since the maximum space between the corbels (315 cm) at the height he proposed (the tops reaching to 408 cm above the ground) would not have accommodated the full height of the paintings, and that they must have been hung slanting forward of the corbels. However, the crucial measurement – the height of the spalliera – is not given in the inventory.

Composition and sequence

Numerous studies have been made of Uccello’s use of one‐point perspective to organise the scenes. Parronchi’s study of the paintings in relation to the theory of perspective and optics appeared in 1957,106 and in 1992 Becattini analysed the central vanishing point of NG 583 – level with that of the Uffizi painting – with a second vanishing point off to the right, leading the eye towards the Uffizi painting (fig. 21). He showed that the Paris scene is different from the other two not only in its main vanishing point, but also in introducing two others within the same composition and in having no landscape backdrop.107 Cagliotti Caglioti suggested that the four scenes in grisaille seen by Vasari in Gualfonda (see above) might have been situated below the Battle of San Romano series when the paintings belonged to Lionardo.

The sequence in which the three paintings were originally intended to be viewed in Lionardo’s camera grande is uncertain. In 1981 Maria Laura Cristiani Testi saw them as describing three episodes of the Battle of San Romano in a triptych, bound together by geometric shapes in the costruzione legittima of Alberti, and reflecting the structure of a poetic canto; she placed the London and Florence paintings balancing each other on either side of the Paris painting, creating a geometric colour rhythm, and suggested that each one depicts a different moment of the day on which the eight‐hour battle was fought: dawn (the London painting), midday (the Paris painting), dusk (the Florence painting).108

However, the most likely and generally accepted sequence is London, Florence, Paris. In this order not only are the London and Florence paintings linked across the corners by oranges among foliage and by their hilly landscape backgrounds – both features lacking in the Paris painting – but, more incontrovertibly, the corner cuts match up only in this sequence.

When Baldini first discussed the corner additions, he reconstructed the London and Florence panels as adjacent on one wall, with the Paris panel set at right angles. Although he had incorrectly identified the Camera di Lorenzo as the first room of the Museo Mediceo (see fig. 20),109 the pattern of the irregular corbel shapes suggests that he was right to think that the three paintings were carpentered to fit around a corner, and indicates the sequence London, Florence, Paris: London and Florence on one wall with a wide mid‐wall corbel between them, and Paris at right angles, with a narrow corner corbel between Florence and Paris. This places the signature in the centre of one wall and explains its apparently curious position in the bottom left‐hand corner of the Florence painting.

This arrangement of the panels is somewhat perplexing, with the large corbel gap on the right of the Paris painting suggesting that it finished in the middle of a wall at the right. We know from the document of 1495 that there were then, and so had probably always been, only three paintings (the four paintings in grisaille belong in a different category). The anomaly can be explained if the Paris painting was an afterthought, a hypothesis consistent with the stylistic and compositional differences discussed above. However, Roccasecca’s argument that the Paris painting shows the Battle of Anghiari is now undermined by the description of the series in 1495 as representing the Battle of San Romano, with no mention of the Battle of Anghiari of 1441.110 Why the Paris picture might have been painted later remains unexplained.

Drawing

Few drawings attributable to Uccello survive. One of a knight in armour on horseback is undoubtedly the type of preparatory study he would have made for the battle scenes. Lorenza Melli sees the drawing of a horseman in the Uffizi (Gabinetto dei Disegni, 14502F; see p. 402, fig. 2) as preparatory for the knight behind Niccolò.111 However, the coincidence of scale, although not of pose, to Saint George and the Dragon (NG 6294, see p. 399) might suggest that it was a study for a painting of a smaller scale or to memorise a type of armour and manoeuvre, rather than destined for a monumental figure.

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Provenance

First recorded in the possession of the Bartolini Salimbeni family in 1480, from whom appropriated by Lorenzo de’ Medici before 1492, probably in 1484; recorded in the Medici Palace in 1492 and by the Codice Magliabechiano,112 mentioned by Vasari (editions of 1550 and 1568),113 and in an inventory of 1598. Still in Medici possession in 1666, in the collection of Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici in the Casino.114 The three paintings remained in the Granducal Collection; the Uffizi painting was exhibited in 1784, and the other two were with the restorer Carlo Magni until 1787, when NG 583 and the Louvre painting were returned to the Guardaroba.115 NG 583 is stated to have been acquired in 1844 from the Giraldi Collection in Florence by the dealers Lombardi and Baldi,116 who certainly had it in 1848.117 Purchased with other pictures from Lombardi and Baldi in 1857.

Select Bibliography

Notes

1. Gallery catalogue of 1858 (see note 116 below); Vasari, Vite, ed. Le Monnier , III, 1848, p. 96 and n. 2; Vasari, Vite, ed. Milanesi , 1878, II, p. 214, n. 1; Vasari, Vite, eds Bettarini and Barocchi , III, 1971, p. 69. They are probably identifiable with the paintings (on canvas) recorded by Vasari in 1568 in the Medici Palace (see Provenance). An excellent account of the fortuna critica of the paintings is given by Roccasecca 1994, pp. 35ff., and idem, 1997, pp. 9ff. (Back to text.)

4. Note in the conservation dossier. (Back to text.)

5. For a more detailed description of the technique, see Roy and Gordon, NGTB , 2001, pp. 4–17. (Back to text.)

6. For this type of fixing, see Ciro Castelli et al., ‘Considerazioni e Novità sulla Costruzione dei Supporti Lignei nel Quattrocento’, OPD Restauro, no. 9, 1997, pp. 162–74. Also Lorne Campbell, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools, London 1998, p. 277 and figs 7 and 8. (Back to text.)

8. First observed by Ashok Roy – see Roy and Gordon, NGTB , 2001, pp. 8–9. (Back to text.)

10. For the pigments used, see Roy in Roy and Gordon, NGTB , 2001, pp. 16–17. (Back to text.)

11. See the conservation dossier. Some repairs were identified as having been made with tin. (Back to text.)

12. For the treatment of the back, see the National Gallery Report 1962–4, pp. 83–4. (Back to text.)

13. Already Horne (Monthly Review, 1901, cited in note 3, p. 135) considered that the horses and armour in NG 583 had suffered from overcleaning. (Back to text.)

14. ‘Grey’ is used throughout with reference to the palette, rather than to equestrian terminology. (Back to text.)

15. U. Baldini, ‘Restauri di dipinti fiorentini in occasione della mostra di quattro maestri del rinascimento’, Bollettino d’Arte, anno XXXIX, fasc. III, 1954, pp. 226–34. The presumed complex profiles designed to fit around corbels were probably squared off in order to make them simpler to fill. The wood of the additions is poplar. See the conservation dossier. (Back to text.)

16. A document of 1483 describes the three panels as measuring 72 square braccia (that is, 24 square braccia each). Each is presently c. 3 × 5½ braccia (=16½ square braccia). Completing the arch brings the original height to c. 4⅓ braccia braccia (=24 square braccia) (Caglioti, Revue du Louvre, 2001, pp. 49–50). (Back to text.)

17. See report on analysis of media by Raymond White, 18 June 1998. (Back to text.)

18. See, for example, NG 727 (p. 274). See also Roccasecca 1997, p. 20. It is also found in Uccello’s Hunt in the Forest, for which see A. Massing and N. Christie, The Hunt in the Forest by Paolo Uccello, The Hamilton Kerr Institute Bulletin, 1, 1988, p. 36 and pl. 30. The similarity with the black layer found in NG 6294, cited by Gebhardt, BM , 1991, p. 182, is not, in fact, correct (see p. 398 of this catalogue). (Back to text.)

19. Suggested with regard to the Uffizi painting by Alessandro Conti (ed.) in E.H. Gombrich et al., Sul Restauro, Turin 1988, p. 78. (Back to text.)

20. Found also on the Uffizi painting; see Baldini 1954 (cited in note 15), pp. 231–2, and 240, n. 7. Since it was considered a sixteenth‐century repainting, it was removed from the Uffizi painting in 1954. In the case of NG 583 it was in poor condition and discovered to be false in 1960, so removed (see conservation dossier and National Gallery Report 1962–4, p. 85). Alessandro Conti [page 395]in Sul Restauro (cited in note 19), p. 76, incorrectly related this overpainting to the corner additions, because he believed the medium to be tempera. (Back to text.)

22. I should like to thank Dominique Thiébaut, Elisabeth Martin and Elisabeth Ravaud for all their help in the examination of the Paris painting and for their comments on this catalogue entry. Volker Gebhardt (Bochumer Schriften, 1991 and BM , 1991) and Pietro Roccasecca (1997) both published much of the technical information made available to them by the National Gallery and the Louvre on the three paintings. (Back to text.)

23. See the typed report of 10 March 1992 by Alfio del Serra, kindly made available by Alessandro Cecchi. The X‐radiograph was examined together with Roberto Bellucci, Cecilia Frosinini, Ashok Roy and Martin Wyld. It is intended that a more profound comparison between the techniques of all three paintings will soon be undertaken. (Back to text.)

24. The right‐hand corner addition in the Uffizi panel is on different wood from the other corner additions and was probably added at a different time. However, it may have replaced an earlier addition that had broken off, since the additions would have been very vulnerable. (Back to text.)

25. Elisabeth Martin very kindly made available her typed report of 25 August 1992 and generously shared her research on the technical features of the painting. The number of planks used in the Paris painting was established in 1997 by the restorers Daniel Jaunard and Patrick Mandron. The X‐radiograph was examined together with Mme Martin, Patrique le Chenu, Elisabeth Ravaud, Ashok Roy and Martin Wyld. I am grateful to Elisabeth Ravaud for providing the diagram of linen pieces illustrated here. (Back to text.)

26. The left‐hand corner is made up of three pieces of wood. The right‐hand corner is complicated, as it appears to have been reinforced from the back, slightly to the left of the corner addition, but without disturbing the original paint surface. The fact that a single piece of linen crosses from the main panel into this reinforcement, and the unified nature of the paint surface over this area, confirm that it is merely a reinforcement at the back, coincidentally the shape of a corbel (and thus misinterpreted by Gebhardt, BM , 1991, p. 181, and schematic diagram p. 183), not the sort related to the corner additions. It is impossible to be sure when this was put in place, but it was possibly when the Uffizi right‐hand corner was replaced. (Back to text.)

27. Pigments analysed by Elisabeth Martin. (Back to text.)

28. Joannides ( BM , 1989, p. 215) gives the dimensions as 26 × 90 cm; Gebhardt ( BM , 1991, p. 181) gives them as as 24 × 87 cm. Gebhardt incorrectly says that the insertion for the hypothetical doorway is in the same technique as the rest of the painting. The differences are visible to the naked eye. (Back to text.)

29. See M. Wyld and J. Plesters, ‘Some Panels from Sassetta’s Sansepolcro Altarpiece’, NGTB , 1, 1977, pp. 14–15, pls 2d and 2f. It is interesting that Cennino Cennini (The Craftsman’s Handbook. Il Libro dell’Arte, trans. Daniel V. Thompson, Jr, New York 1933, paperback edn, p. 31) refers to a green pigment, which he describes as artificially produced and connected in nature with azurite in the context of painting a secco in egg tempera. However, Daniel Thompson’s commentary on this material makes it quite clear that the green referred to is ‘natural’ (that is, mineral) malachite, found in association with azurite, and not what we term ‘artificial malachite’. (Back to text.)

31. Libro d’inventario dei beni di Lorenzo il Magnifico, eds M. Spallanzani and G.G. Bertelà, Florence 1992, p. 11. The copy of the inventory was made in 1512. Earlier sources simply call them a joust. See Il Codice Magliabechiano, ed. C. Frey, Berlin 1892, p. 100: ‘Dipinse [Uccello] e [read ‘tre’] quadri dell giostre del palazzo de medici nella via Largha.’ The other three subjects described in the 1492 inventory have not survived. Also by Pesellino in the Palazzo Medici was – according to Il Libro di Antonio Billi, ed. F. Benedettucci, Rome 1991, p. 88 – a painting with the lion in a cage (‘un lione a una grata’), which was over the door in Piero di Cosimo’s sala grande on the piano nobile (see W.A. Bulst, ‘Die ursprüngliche innere Aufteilung des Palazzo Medici in Florenz’, MKIF , XIV, 1969/70, p. 391; see also p. 280, and p. 286, note 84, of this catalogue). The spalliera painted with animals which both sources mention was in the Casa Vecchia (see J. Shearman, ‘The Collections of the Younger Branch of the Medici’, BM , 117, no. 862, 1975, p. 20). (Back to text.)

33. Transcribed by Horne, Monthly Review, 1901 (cited in note 3), p. 138. (Back to text.)

34. For a discussion of the historical sources, the battle and the issues involved, see Griffiths, JWCI , 1978, pp. 313–16; Starn and Partridge 1984, p. 59, n. 6; Borsi and Borsi 1992, p. 309; Wegener, Renaissance Studies, 1993, pp. 131ff.; and Roccasecca 1997, pp. 10ff. An extremely thorough discussion of the sources, with lengthy quotations, is to be found in Gebhardt, Bochumer Schriften, 1991, pp. 53–9 and 189–207. (Back to text.)

35. Roccasecca 1997, p. 12. (Back to text.)

36. Griffiths, JWCI , 1978, p. 315, gives the date of burial as 20 March 1435, which Marita Horster says is the date of death, with 14 April the date of burial. (Back to text.)

40. Griffiths, JWCI , 1978, pp. 313–16. (Back to text.)

41. For example, Starn and Partridge, Representations, 1984, pp. 36–7, and pp. 59–60, n. 6. (Back to text.)

43. Parronchi 1974, p. 34, points out that Ammirato (Istorie Fiorentine, 1647) says that according to some writers not a drop of blood was shed and the battle was more like a tournament. (Back to text.)

44. In view of Caglioti’s discoveries regarding the patronage discussed below, these can no longer be considered a subtle allusion to the Medici palle, as argued by Francis Ames‐Lewis, ‘Early Medicean Devices’, JWCI , 42, 1979, p. 128, and by Roccasecca (1997, p. 20), who notes that the orange was known as the ‘mala medica’. According to Borsi and Borsi 1992, p. 311, the pomegranates symbolise death. Certainly they are often used to symbolise Christ’s Passion. See M. Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, Florence 1977, p. 316. Roccasecca’s suggestion that the roses refer to the silver helmet decorated with roses that was presented to Micheletto da Cotignola by the Signoria (1997, p. 20) remains unlikely. (Back to text.)

45. Identified by Horne in The Monthly Review, 1901 (cited in note 3), p. 128. Boccia (L’Arte, 1970, p. 77) notes that this was his personal device, not that of the Mauruzi family. Roccasecca 1994, p. 66, n. 57. Roccasecca suggests (on p. 60, n. 24) that the fragmentary device at the top of the standard may be the remains of the family emblem. Solomon’s knot is also found in two paintings in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: on the back of a fourteenth‐century Riminese painting of the Crucifixion attributed to the Master of Verrucchio, and on the back of an early sixteenth‐century Portrait of a Man by Bartolommeo Veneto. I am grateful to Norman Coady for drawing my attention to these examples. See J.W. Goodison and G.H. Robertson, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Catalogue of Paintings. Vol. II. Italian Schools, Cambridge 1967, p. 103, no. PD.8‐1955, and p. 7, no. 133, where reference is made to Solomon’s knot as symbolising eternity, given in J.A. Comenius (1592–1670), The labyrinth of the world and the paradise of the heart The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart (trans. Count Lutzow), 1901 Lutzow, 1901) . (Back to text.)

46. See note 37 above. (Back to text.)

47. Roccasecca 1994, p. 51, and idem, 1997, p. 28, n. 17, where he cites L. Bruni, Orazione di L.B. Aretino detta a Niccolo da Tolentino, edition for a marriage, Florence 1877, p. 8. (Back to text.)

48. Wegener, Renaissance Studies, 1993, esp. p. 136 and pp. 153ff.; also Griffiths, JWCI , 1978, p. 315. (Back to text.)

49. Roccasecca 1994, p. 54, and idem, 1997, pp. 22–3. Roccasecca notes that the identification had been made by Boccia, who, however, noted that the arms were lacking red. Roccasecca draws attention to the Sforza [page 396]‘ondato’ without red fields in the Sforza triptych of c. 1458 (illustrated on his p. 24). (Back to text.)

50. Roccasecca 1997, p. 22; Pertici 1999 (cited in note 42), p. 544. The Petrucci colours were blue and gold. (Back to text.)

52. Ibid. , p. 77. The use of the unicorn by Micheletto seems not to be documented. See Roccasecca 1994, p. 66, n. 57, where he says that it signifies military victory without bloodshed (macchia). Is it a coincidence that the Bartolini Salimbeni palace was in the Gonfalone Unicorno in the quartiere Santa Maria Novella? (See the Catasto records reported by Caglioti 2000, p. 276, nn 222 and 223.) (Back to text.)

53. Roccasecca 1994, pp. 52–3, and p. 65, n. 54; idem, 1997, p. 68. (Back to text.)

54. A fragment of a very similar textile of silk and metal thread is thought to be Italian (Venice?), second half of the fifteenth century (Metropolitan Museum, New York, Fletcher Fund, 46.156.120). See E. Callman Callmann , Beyond Nobility. Art for the Private Citizen in the Early Renaissance, exh. cat. (Allentown Art Museum, 1980–1), Allentown 1980, cat. no. 80, p. 81, colour plate III. (Back to text.)

55. See Boccia, L’Arte, 1970, pp. 58–91, for the armour in the battle scenes, esp. p. 68. It is impossible to say whether this is out of a desire to impart authenticity to the scene or merely exploiting what was available as models for the painter. Parronchi (1974, p. 33) suggested that it might have been modelled on the actual armour of the condottieri, reverently kept. (Back to text.)

56. Verbal communication. I am extremely grateful to Karen Watts for explaining the intricacies of the armour to me. Aspects of the armour which appear only in the three battle paintings suggest that Uccello was copying armour that came specifically from Florentine armouries. The sallet (helmet) with a curved nasal lying on the ground is worn also by one of the trumpeters, and this curved nasal appears also at the rim of a marzocco in the Florence painting. The curved nasal is otherwise unknown; similarly the apparently upside‐down spurs. (Back to text.)

57. Most scholars considered the series to have been commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464). Luciano Berti (in F. Gurrieri, L. Berti and C. Leonardi, eds, La Basilica di San Miniato al Monte a Firenze, Florence 1988, p. 275) suggested that it could have been commissioned by Cosimo’s son, Piero (1416–1469); Gebhardt, who saw the series as commissioned by Cosimo, detected the influence of Piero’s taste ( BM , 1991, p.185). (Back to text.)

59. Francesco Cagliotti Caglioti ’s initial discoveries concerning the ownership of the series were published in Caglioti 2000, pp. 265–81. Dale Kent’s comments on the document of 1495 were made in Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance, New Haven and London 2000, pp. 264–8, before Cagliotti Caglioti ’s discovery of further documentation, which substantiated and elaborated those discoveries and were published in the Revue du Louvre, 4, 2001, pp. 37–54. I am extremely grateful to Professor Caglioti for allowing me to read his chapter on the Battle of San Romano when the book was still in proof, and for always generously sharing the results of his archival research. (Back to text.)

60. Caglioti, Revue du Louvre, 2001, p. 49. Although the paintings are called ‘La Rotta di Nicholo Piccinino’ in 1480 and again in 1483 ( ibid. , p. 54, nn 59 and 60), it is clear from the document of 1495, where both titles are used, that it is the Battle of San Romano which is meant. The house no longer retains its original plan. See Caglioti, Revue du Louvre, 2001, figs 13 and 14, for its location. (Back to text.)

61. Caglioti 2000, p. 271, and Revue du Louvre, 2001, pp. 46–7. Caglioti (2000, p. 271, n. 192) also raises the possibility that the paintings were in fact commissioned by the Dieci di Balìa for the Palazzo Vecchio – certainly the iconography seems more in keeping with a public institution than a private individual, and would be consistent with subsequent commissioning of battle scenes for the Palazzo Vecchio. (Back to text.)

63. Caglioti, Revue du Louvre, 2001, p. 49. Cagliotti Caglioti suggests that the ‘armari in prospettiva’ that were left behind were the battle scenes seen by Vasari in Gualfonda, which belonged to a separate branch of the family. See Caglioti 2000, pp. 272–3, and idem, Revue du Louvre, 2001, p. 48, for why this was a separate series. (Back to text.)

64. Caglioti (2000, p. 275) points out that Niccolò Picinino was not in Tuscany in 1432 and therefore not present at the Battle of San Romano, although active in the Lucchese War. (Back to text.)

66. For a summary of views on dating, see Borsi and Borsi 1992, pp. 311–12. The authors date the cycle c. 1455. Although many of the arguments for date discussed here were predicated on the building for which the paintings were assumed to have been made, stylistic assessments remain germane, and for this reason have been summarised here. (Back to text.)

67. Horne, Monthly Review, 1901 (cited in note 3), p. 135. See also Borsi and Borsi 1992, p. 311. The palazzo, designed by Michelozzo, was built for Cosimo de’ Medici and begun in either 1444 or 1446. Bulst, MKIF , 1969/70 (cited in note 31), p. 370, gives the beginning of the building of the palace as 1444. However, I. Hyman, Fifteenth‐century Florentine Studies. The Palazzo Medici and a ledger Ledger for the Church of San Lorenzo, PhD dissertation, Garland, New York and London 1977, p. 1, gives it as 1446; see also Kent 2000 (cited in note 59), pp. 217–38. The Casa Vecchia in Via Largha was the first Medici dwelling in Florence, where the two brothers, Cosimo di Giovanni and Lorenzo di Giovanni, had by 1446 – perhaps as early as 1433 – unified three houses into a single complex (see D. Carl, La casa vecchia dei Medici e il suo Giardino’, in Il Palazzo Medici Riccardi di Firenze, eds G. Cherubini and G. Fanelli, Florence 1990, pp. 38ff.). When Lorenzo died in 1440, his heirs, including his young son, Pierfrancesco (Cosimo’s nephew), remained in the Casa Vecchia, while in 1446 Cosimo di Giovanni began the building of the new palace, also in Via Largha. When the property held in common was divided up in 1451, Cosimo retained his share of the Casa Vecchia for five years, presumably pending completion of the Palazzo Medici, and he and his family moved into the new palace not earlier than 1451 and not later than 1457. See Shearman, BM , 1975 (cited in note 31), p. 16, and Hyman 1977 (cited above), p. 78. For the completed palazzo, see R. Hatfield, ‘Some unknown descriptions Unknown Descriptions of the Medici Palace in 1459’, AB , 52, 1970, pp. 232–49. (Back to text.)

69. E. Sindona, ‘Una conferma uccellesca’, L’Arte, 3, 1970, p. 83. (Back to text.)

72. Ibid. , p. 133. (Back to text.)

76. F. Zeri, La percezione visiva dell’Italia e degli Italiani, Turin 1976, 2nd edn, 1989, p. 7, cited by Borsi and Borsi, 1992, p. 312. (Back to text.)

78. Parronchi 1974, pp. 33–9 and 91–2. For the Hawkwood monument, see Eve Borsook, The Mural Painters of Tuscany, 2nd edn, Oxford 1980, pp. 74–9. The first version was not considered satisfactory, the second version was complete by 31 August; Anna Padoa Rizzo points out that the monument had to be ready for the inauguration of Brunelleschi’s dome in August 1436 (Anna Padoa Rizzo, La Cappella dell’Assunta nel Duomo di Prato, Prato 1997, p. 14). Eve Borsook ( loc. cit. , pp. 79–84) does not accept that the Prato Master is Uccello himself. (Back to text.)

81. Alessandro Angelini in Pittura di Luce, exh. cat., Milan 1990, p. 75. (Back to text.)

82. Padoa Rizzo 1991, pp. 66–7, nos 9, 10, 11. (Back to text.)

84. Boccia, L’Arte, 1970, p. 68, and p. 90, n. 33. (Back to text.)

85. See notes 107 and 108. (Back to text.)

88. Joannides, letter in BM , 134, 1992, p. 249, in response to Gebhardt’s criticism of his article in the BM , 1989. This sequence is implicit in Padoa Rizzo’s discussion (Padoa Rizzo 1991); for the clockface, see cat. 13, pp. 85–9. (Back to text.)

89. Roccasecca first published his ideas in Da Aristotele alla Cina, 1994, pp. 35–67. (Back to text.)

90. Roccasecca (1994, p. 41) was pursuing a suggestion first put forward by Boccia (L’Arte, 1970, p. 90, n. 33). (Back to text.)

91. Roccasecca 1997, pp. 25–7. (Back to text.)

92. Alessandro Conti, Sul Restauro, 1988, pp. 76–8. Conti mistakenly considered the overpainting of part of the landscape to be original – see note 20 above. (Back to text.)

93. Joannides, BM , 1989, pp. 215–16. The argument concerning the doorway is now spurious. However, it should be noted that in any case Hyman (1977, cited in note 67, p. 175) argues that it is futile to attempt to reconstruct the interior spaces of the Medici Palace. See also Gebhardt, Bochumer Schriften, 1991, p. 183, for the problems concerning the doorways. Bulst ( MKIF , 1969/70, cited in note 31, pp. 375ff.) argues that this part of the palace in the north‐western corner had been altered before 1531. Davies ( 1961 . , p. 528) had previously drawn attention to the fact that the paintings did not fit properly into the room considered by Baldini to be the Camera di Lorenzo. Joannides discussed the correct room as the Camera di Lorenzo but was apparently unaware that this had been systematically deduced by Bulst (‘Uso e trasformazione del palazzo mediceo fino ai Riccardi’, in Il Palazzo Medici Riccardi di Firenze, eds G. Cherubini and G. Fanelli, Florence 1990, p. 110), who had also considered that the paintings had been made for the Casa Vecchia (see also note 98 below). (Back to text.)

96. Whether these other paintings were commissioned by the Medici or also sequestered by Lorenzo is not known and affects whether or not the battle series was cut down to match them. Although Ciardi Dupré dal Poggetto (1996, cited in note 83, p. 137) pointed out that they were not a single iconographic programme, it had been argued by Carlo del Bravo (‘Etica o poesia, e mecenatismo: Cosimo il Vecchio, Lorenzo, e alcuni dipinti’, in Gli Uffizi. Quattro Secoli di una Galleria, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi 1982, Florence 1983, pp. 201–5) that the six paintings in the Camera di Lorenzo all represented different aspects of the writings of Seneca; this argument, too, has been rendered spurious by Cagliotti Caglioti ’s discoveries. For the other paintings which also hung in the room, see Spallanzani and Bertelà 1992 (cited in note 31), p. 12. (Back to text.)

97. Roccasecca (1997, pp. 20–1) argued that in order to make the panels rectangular there would have been no need to cut them down because the Palazzo Medici would have been larger than the Casa Vecchia; he attributed the cutting of the panels’ arches to the fact that the Palazzo Medici was ransacked by the French in 1494, and considered that the return of the Medici in 1512 would have been the moment when the panels were physically adapted for a new site and their heraldic symbolism removed. He suggests that oranges have been incongruously added to a pomegranate tree in the right‐hand corner of the London panel. However, Cagliotti Caglioti (Revue du Louvre, 2001, p. 44) points out that the paintings are described as ‘quadri’ in the inventory of 1492 and that they had therefore certainly been adapted by that date, since ‘quadro’ in the Quattrocento always refers to a square or rectangular painting. (Back to text.)

98. See Bulst, MKIF , 1969/70 (cited in note 31), pp. 369–92, esp. p. 372, fig. 3, and p. 377, n. 34; and idem in Cherubini and Fanelli (eds) 1990 (cited in note 93), pp. 98–129. Bulst (1990, p. 110, n. 171) points out that Baldini, Parronchi and Davies were all mistaken regarding which was the Camera di Lorenzo. Gebhardt ( BM , 1991, p. 179) says that the room was first correctly identified by Karl Frey, Michelagniolo Buonarotti. Quellen und Forschungen zu seiner Geschichte und Kunst. Bd I. Michelagniolo’s Jugendjahre, Berlin 1907, p. 44. (Back to text.)

100. Amonaci and Baldinotti 1992, p. 128, n. 5. (Back to text.)

101. Bulst 1990 (cited in note 93), p. 110. (Back to text.)

102. Joannides, BM , 1989, pp. 214–15. Gioseffi had constructed them in a line in Critica d’Arte, 1958, p. 105. Bulst (1990, p. 110, n. 175) points out that the height of the spalliera is not given in the inventory. (Back to text.)

103. Gebhardt, BM , 1991, pp. 179–85. Gebhardt argued that Joannides’ reasons for suggesting that they had not originally been made for the Camera di Lorenzo were correct, but grounded on an incorrect interpretation of the layout of the room. (Back to text.)

104. Gebhardt, BM , 1991, p. 184. J. Beck discusses how the paintings would have fitted into the overall decorations with the spalliera, cassa and furniture (‘Lorenzo il Magnifico and his Cultural Possessions’, in La Toscana al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico, 1996, cited in note 83 above). Wegener, Renaissance Studies, 1993, p. 138. Bulst (1990, cited in note 93, p. 110, n. 178) notes that in the summer Lorenzo used the room as a bedroom. (Back to text.)

108. Maria Laura Cristiani Testi, ‘Panoramica a volo d’Uccello. La Battaglia di S. Romano’, Critica d’Arte, fasc. XLVI, 1981, pp. 3–47. Griffiths ( JWCI , 1978, p. 314) and the Borsi (1992, p. 311) say that the battle lasted only three hours, not eight. For an analysis of the compositions, see James Bloede Bloedé , Paolo Uccello et la représentation du mouvement: regards sur la Bataille de San Romano, Paris 1996. (Back to text.)

109. Baldini 1954 (cited in note 15). (Back to text.)

110. Caglioti 2000, p. 275. (Back to text.)

112. See note 31 above. (Back to text.)

113. Vasari, Vite, 1550, eds Bellosi and Rossi , 1986, p. 238 and n. 10, and p. 254: ‘Et in casa de Medici su le tele alcune bellissime istorie di cavagli & di altri animali’; and Vasari, Vite, 1568, ed. Milanesi , 1868, II, p. 208: In casa de Medici dipinse in tele a tempera alcune storie di animali… E in detta casa, fra le altre storie d’animali, fece alcuni leoni che cambattevano fra loro… e nell’altre tele fece alcune mostre d’uomini d’arme a cavallo di quei tempi, con assai ritratti di naturale.’ In spite of the fact that Vasari describes the scenes as being painted on canvas, there seems no doubt that he is referring to the Battle of San Romano panels. (Back to text.)

114. ‘Trè Quadri in tavola Alti Bᵃ 2½ Lunghi ba 5½ in Circa entrovi Battaglie Diverse con adornam: ti d’Albero Antico Dorato mano di Paolo Uccelli.’ See Silvia Meloni Trkulja, ‘Vicende ignorate della “Battaglia di San Romano”, Paragone, XXVI, 309, 1975, pp. 108–11. She notes that the measurements could only be approximate because the panels were hanging high, although the accuracy of the width shows that the bottom edge could be reached. (Back to text.)

116. See Wornum 1858, p. 219, presumably on information supplied to Eastlake by Lombardi and Baldi. For the Lombardi‐Baldi Collection, see Davies 1961 , Appendix 1, and pp. xxx– xxi xxxi of this catalogue. (Back to text.)

117. Vasari, Vite, ed. Le Monnier , III, 1848, p. 96, n. 2. (Back to text.)

Glossary

a secco
Literally ’in dry’ – used in relation to fresco painting, to describe details painted after the fresco in buon fresco has dried
bole
A red clay applied to the gessoed surface of a panel as an adhesive underlayer for gold leaf
buon fresco
True fresco – in which the pigments are applied when the plaster is wet
camera
A room or chamber
cassone
A chest, often given on marriage
Catasto
Records of Florentine tax returns
giornea
A tabard or short tunic
lake
A pigment made by precipitation onto a base from a dye solution, resulting in a comparatively transparent pigment often used as a glaze
pietra serena
Grey sandstone
sgraffito
Literally ‘scratched’ – the process whereby paint is applied to a gilded surface and the paint then scraped away to reveal the gold beneath, generally used to convey the texture or patterns of textiles
spalliera
From Italian ‘spalle’ (shoulders) – a rectangular panel placed at shoulder height above a cassone
terminus ante quem
AA fixed date before which (a painting must have been made)
water gilding
Gold leaf applied to wetted bole and then burnished

Abbreviations

Periodicals
BM
Burlington Magazine, London, 1903–
JWCI
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
NGTB
National Gallery Technical Bulletin
Frequently cited works are given in abbreviated form throughout, as listed below:
Davies 1961
M. Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd revised edn, London 1961
Vasari, Le Vite, eds Bellosi and Rossi
G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani da Cimabue insino ai tempi nostri nell’edizione per i tipi di Lorenzo Torrentino, Firenze 1550/Giorgio Vasari, eds L. Bellosi and A. Rossi, Turin 1986
Vasari, Le Vite, ed. Le Monnier
G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori, ed. Le Monnier, 14 vols, Florence 1846–70
Vasari, Le Vite, ed. Milanesi
G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878–85
Vasari, Le Vite, eds Bettarini and Barocchi
G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 & 1568, eds R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, vol. II, Florence 1967; vol. III, Florence 1971

List of archive references cited

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HymanI.Fifteenth‐century Florentine Studies. The Palazzo Medici and a Ledger for the Church of San Lorenzo (Garland PhD dissertation), New York and London 1977
Joannides 1989
JoannidesP., ‘Paolo Uccello’s Rout of San Romano: A New Observation’, Burlington Magazine, 1989, 131214–16
Joannides 1992
JoannidesP., ‘letter’, Burlington Magazine, 1992, 134249
Kemp and Massing 1991
KempM. and A. Massing, ‘Paolo Uccello’s “Hunt in the Forest”’, Burlington Magazine, 1991, 133164–78
Kent 2000
KentD.Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine RenaissanceNew Haven and London 2000
Lloyd 1977
LloydC.A Catalogue of the Earlier Italian Paintings in the Ashmolean MuseumOxford 1977
Melli 1998
MelliL., ‘Nuove indagini sui disegni di Paolo Uccello agli Uffizi. Disegni sottostante, tecnica e funzione’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 1998, XLII1–39
Meloni Trkulja 1975
Meloni TrkuljaS., ‘Vicende ignorate della “Battaglia di San Romano”’, Paragone, 1975, XXVI309108–11
Müntz 1888
MüntzE.Les Collections des Médicis au quinzième siècle: le musée, la bibliothèque, le mobilierParis 1888
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O’Grady 1985
O’GradyJ.N., ‘An Uccello Enigma’, Gazette des Beaux‐Arts, 1985, 10599–103
Padoa Rizzo 1991
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Parronchi 1957
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Parronchi 1974
ParronchiA.Paolo UccelloBologna 1974
Pertici 1999
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Pudelko 1934
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Roccasecca 1994
RoccaseccaP., ‘Paolo Uccello: i dipinti di battaglia in Da Aristotele alla Cina’, in Sei Saggi di Storia dell’arte universaleRome 1994, 35–70
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The Organisation of the Catalogue
Chronological and geographical limits

Included in this volume are works by artists or workshops the bulk of whose surviving work falls within the first half of the fifteenth century, i.e. around 1400–60: Starnina (d. 1413), Lorenzo Monaco (d. c. 1423), Gregorio di Cecco di Luca (d. c. 1428), Masaccio (d. 1428/9), Masolino (d. c. 1436), Giovanni dal Ponte (d. 1437), Sassetta (d. 1450), Master of the Osservanza (active second quarter of fifteenth century), Francesco d’Antonio (active until 1452), Jacopo di Antonio (Master of Pratovecchio?) (d. 1454), Fra Angelico (d. 1455), Pisanello (d. 1455), Pesellino (d. 1457), Domenico Veneziano (d. 1461), Bono da Ferrara (active until 1461), Apollonio di Giovanni (d. c. 1465), Zanobi Strozzi (d. 1468), Filippo Lippi (d. 1469), Giovanni da Oriolo (d. by 1474), Uccello (d. 1475), Marco del Buono (d. after 1480), Giovanni di Paolo (d. 1482).

The exceptions to this are two paintings whose previous attributions were to artists represented in this catalogue but which are now attributed to artists active primarily in the second half of the fifteenth century. The Virgin and Child with Angels (NG 5581) used to be catalogued as by a follower of Fra Angelico. Now, it is generally accepted as being an early work of c. 1447 by Benozzo Gozzoli, and it is therefore included here. However, his work as an independent painter dates from 1450, and his altarpiece dated 1461 for Santa Maria della Purificazione, Florence, will be considered in a subsequent catalogue. A panel of the Nativity (NG 3648) used to be given to a follower of Masaccio, but technical evidence links it to the altarpiece attributed to the Master of the Castello Nativity (active mid‐fifteenth century), recently identified as Piero di Lorenzo di Pratese – a painter deeply enmeshed in the history of the Trinity altarpiece by Pesellino (NG 727 etc.) considered here.

The majority of the paintings included in this catalogue are from Tuscany, with the exception of those by Pisanello, his pupil Bono da Ferrara and his follower Giovanni da Oriolo. Because so few Venetian paintings in the collection date from the first half of the fifteenth century, those which do will be considered in another volume.

Artists: The artists are catalogued in alphabetical order. Autograph works precede those which are attributed.

Attribution: A painting is discussed under the artist where the attribution is not considered to be in doubt. ‘Attributed to’ implies a measure of doubt. ‘Workshop of’ indicates that the work has been executed by a member of the workshop, sometimes with the participation of the artist concerned.

Title: The traditional title of each painting has been followed, except where further research has made a more precise description possible.

Date: Reasons for the date given in the head matter are explained in the body of each entry.

Medium: This is generally assumed to be egg. Where this has been identified, it is stated.

Support: This is generally assumed to be poplar. Where this has been identified, it is stated.

Dimensions: The overall dimensions are given in the head matter. Height precedes width. More precise dimensions are given in the discussion of each work.

Restoration: The history of the restoration of a painting before it entered the National Gallery is not given unless specifically known.

Technique and condition: These are discussed together, since the condition of a painting is often the result of the techniques employed. Where pigments seemed unusual, samples were examined by Ashok Roy and in some cases the medium has been analysed by Raymond White.

Method: Every painting was examined and measured in the Conservation Department with a conservator – usually Jill Dunkerton, but in some instances Martin Wyld, Larry Keith and Paul Ackroyd. Some paintings were examined by Rachel Billinge with infra‐red reflectography (see p. 478).

X‐radiographs, infra‐red photographs and infrared reflectograms: The reader may find it frustrating that reference is sometimes made to X‐radiographs, infra‐red photographs and infra‐red reflectograms without their being illustrated. This is because once they are reduced to page size they are often no longer decipherable.

Bibliographical information: At the end of every catalogue entry is a Select Bibliography listing the main publications relevant to that entry, in chronological order. The works in this list are cited in abbreviated form in the notes following the entry. Full references to all works cited in the catalogue are given in the List of Publications Cited (pp. 435–55).

Comments: I have attempted to give as full an account as possible with regard to attribution, patronage, date, related panels, original location, subject matter, iconography, etc., and to make this information accessible and interesting to the lay reader as well as to the art historian. Inevitably the text contains some speculation – I have tried to make it clear when an argument is hypothetical. For ease of reference the comments are given subheadings, but their sequence varies according to the requirements of the argument.

Dating and Measurements

Dates – old style and modern

Dates are given in the modern style, but the old style (o.s.) is indicated where pertinent.

Florence:
The calendar year began on the feast of the Annunciation, 25 March.
Pisa:
The year began on 25 March, but anticipated the Florentine year by one year (i.e. 1 January–24 March = modern).
Pistoia (stile della Natività):
The year began on 25 December, anticipating modern style (i.e. 1 January–24 December = modern).
Siena:
The year began on 25 March, but sometimes followed the Pisan system.

(See A. Cappelli, Cronologia Cronografica e Calendario Perpetuo, 2nd edn, Milan 1930, pp. 11–16.)

Measurements

The Florentine braccio (fioretino da panno) was the standard unit of linear measurement in Florence from at least the fourteenth until the nineteenth century and was equal to approximately 58.4 cm. In Siena the braccio (per le tele) before 1782 was 60 cm, although Siena also used the braccio of 58.4 cm.

(See A.P. Favaro, Metrologia, Naples 1826, pp. 85 and 118; R. Zupko, Italian weights and measures from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century, Philadelphia 1981, p. 46.)

Infra‐red reflectography

Infra‐red reflectography was carried out by Rachel Billinge using a Hamamatsu C2400 camera with an N2606 series infra‐red vidicon tube. The camera is fitted with a 36mm lens to which a Kodak 87A Wratten filter has been attached to exclude visible light. The infra‐red reflectogram mosaics were assembled on a computer using an updated version of the software (VIPS ip) described in R. Billinge, J. Cupitt, N. Dessipris and D. Saunders, ‘A note on an improved procedure for the rapid assembly of infrared reflectogram mosaics’, Studies in Conservation, vol. 38, 11, 1993, pp. 92–8.

About this version

Version 1, generated from files DG_2003__16.xml dated 07/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; entry for NG583, biography for Uccello and associated front and back matter (marked up in pilot project) reintegrated into main document; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for L2, NG215-NG216, NG1897, NG2862 & NG4062; L15, NG727, NG3162, NG3230, NG4428 & NG4868.1-NG4868.4; NG583; NG663.1-NG663.5; NG666-NG667; NG766-NG767 & NG1215; NG1436; NG2908; NG3046; NG4757-NG4763; NG5451-NG5454; NG5962-NG5963; and NG6579-NG6580 prepared for publication; entry for NG583 proofread and corrected.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EBA-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E6C-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style
Gordon, Dillian. “NG 583, Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano ”. 2003, online version 1, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EBA-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style
Gordon, Dillian (2003) NG 583, Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano . Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EBA-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 19 March 2025).
MHRA style
Gordon, Dillian, NG 583, Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano (National Gallery, 2003; online version 1, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EBA-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 19 March 2025]