Battle of San Romano

The scene depicts the decisive moment of the Battle of San Romano, won by the Florentines against the Sienese in 1432: the enemy commander, Bernardino della Ciarda, is thrown off his horse by a Florentine mercenary. Horsemen armed with lances and crossbows advance from right and left with warriors and animals lying in the foreground. The figures seem to be locked into a strict geometric pattern placing them in a complex perspectival framework in which, even the unreal colors and the silver leaf that once covered the armour, fit together with surprising equilibrium. In addition to this one, Paolo Uccello painted two other panels that completed the description of that victory: Niccolò da Tolentino leading the Florentines, now in the National Gallery in London, and the Counterattack of Michele Attendolo on behalf of the Florentines, now in the Louvre in Paris. The three panels were commissioned by Leonardo Bartolini Salimbeni (the payments are documented in 1438) who had also taken part in the battle. In 1484, Lorenzo il Magnifico acquired the three panels from the heirs and they were transferred from his room in Palazzo Medici in Via Larga to the Uffizi, where only this panel has remained since 1844.