Paolo Uccello, 'The Battle of San Romano', probably about 1438-40

The Battle of San Romano

Paolo Uccello

Room 62

About the work

Overview

It’s hard to follow what’s going on in this large and busy painting, partly because it’s much darker now than when it was painted. This is one of three battle scenes by Uccello showing the Florentine victory at San Romano in 1432.

The Florentine commander, Niccolò da Tolentino, rides a white charger and wears a magnificent red and gold hat. He leads a cavalry charge from the left, while at the right a knight on a white horse fights off three others.

Uccello was intensely interested in linear perspective – using lines to create an impression of three-dimensional space within a painting – which was a relatively recent discovery. Here he is clearly experimenting: the broken lances in the foreground make a formal grid-like pattern, and scattered pieces of armour are shown at various angles.

In-depth

It’s hard to follow what’s going on in this large and busy painting, partly because it’s much darker now than when it was painted. This is one of three large battle scenes Paolo Uccello painted in the 1440s; the others are now in the Louvre, Paris and the Uffizi, Florence. All show episodes from the Battle of San Romano on 1 June 1432 – the flowers and oranges here show that it was high summer – an important battle in Florence’s war against Lucca, Milan and Siena over access to the port of Pisa

The three paintings show key moments in the Florentine victory, although we are not sure what order they were meant to be seen in, or in what order they were painted. Our panel shows the Florentine commander Niccolò da Tolentino leading an attack. In the painting now in the Uffizi a knight, possibly the Sienese leader Bernardino della Carda, is unhorsed. The Paris panel shows Florence’s ally, Michelotto Attendolo da Contignola, giving an order to attack.

Battles are notoriously hard to depict, and Uccello has shown not the chaotic reality of a bloody conflict but a formal, almost courtly, scene. Painted some years after the event, the pictures seem more concerned with glorifying the Florentine victory than relating exact events, although some details do seem to be taken from eyewitness accounts. The knights wear field armour intended for war, but details of it are taken from the parade and tournament rather than the battlefield, and their prancing horses seem to have hopped off a carousel rather than out of a stable.

The main character here is Niccolò da Tolentino, riding a white charger at the head of a frenzied mass of horsemen, crests and lances. His personal emblem, the ‘Solomon’s knot’, appears on the banner held by his standard bearer. Although he grasps a baton of command, da Tolentino is not dressed for battle: he has a mail shirt but no steel cuirass (breastplate) over it; his helmet is carried by his page, who rides behind him, apparently indifferent to the brawl around them. Instead of a helmet, da Tolentino wears a magnificent mazzocchio, a hat made of velvet cloth of gold. His short cloak is made of the same material. The hat, cloak and baton perhaps recall the gifts given to him by the grateful Florentines after the battle, and his gesture and rearing horse are very similar to contemporary equestrian monuments made for successful military commanders.

Just behind him, partly hidden, is a knight with an extravagant helmet and a surcoat (the tunic worn over his armour) of black and white waves. This is possibly Michelotto Attendolo, who was supposed to have rescued da Tolentino at one point when he was cut off from the rest of the Florentine troops. In the background two knights gallop away up the hillside – perhaps the messengers da Tolentino sent when he realised he was in trouble. At the far right, a knight fends off an attack from three others, in a manoeuvre contemporaries would have recognised from tournaments.

Uccello was fascinated by linear perspective, then a relatively recent discovery. He mixed traditional and modern techniques, using real silver and gold leaf for armour and fabrics, but experimenting with the laws of perspective to impose order on a chaotic scene. The broken lances in the foreground are arranged in a grid-like pattern, but the receding lines are blocked by the hedge rather than vanishing at a single point in the distance. The armour scattered on the ground is shown at various angles, but the foreshortening of the fallen knight’s body is reversed – his shoulders are larger than his feet, so that he looks back to front in comparison with the rest of the painting. It wasn‘t really until Andrea Mantegna was painting in the 1450s that artists worked out how to do perspective properly (look at The Agony in the Garden, for example).

The thick hedge and the rising fields behind could be an attempt to show the battle’s location, which was described as taking place in a long hollow overgrown with vine and brambles. The whole impression, with the milling crowds, the clumsy perspective and rather doll-like horses, is almost more like that of a contemporary tapestry than a painting.

Once sparkling with burnished gold and silver and brilliant colours, the painting’s appearance has altered enormously over time, both from changes in materials and from the damage of repeated cleanings. The silver of the armour has tarnished, the bright vermilion in the knights’ banners and the horses‘ harnesses has turned blue-grey – look at Saint George and the Dragon to get an idea of the original effect – and the green of the hedge has darkened to almost black. The flesh tones on the men’s faces has worn away, leaving green underpaint showing through; both horses and landscape have lost their modelling and now look flat, and glazes of ultramarine over blue areas have been eroded.

Most dramatically it has lost its original arched top, removing the hilltops and sky which must have given it a less claustrophobic feel. All three paintings were designed to be hung high on the walls of a room with a vaulted ceiling. They had irregularly shaped corners designed to fit around corbels, and our painting once had three metallic fixings towards the top, presumably to anchor it to a wall. All were given new corners to change them into rectangles early on, when they were moved from their original location.

Painted for Leonardo Bartolini Salimbeni around the time of his second marriage in 1438, they were forcibly removed from the Salimbeni’s Florentine town house by Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1484, and installed in his private room in the Medici palace. In 1492 they were noted in the inventory of the so-called Camera di Lorenzo, a large room overlooking the garden, where they hung with other battle, hunting and mythological paintings. Lorenzo must have enjoyed the sparkling depiction of former Florentine glories, however unscrupulously obtained. By the end of the sixteenth century they had clearly gone out of fashion: they'd been moved to a corridor near the chapel.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this work.

Audio description

5 min 13 sec
Listen to an audio description of Paolo Uccello's 'The Battle of San Romano'

Transcript

This is an audio description of 'The Battle of San Romano', by the Italian artist Paulo Uccello, painted between 1438 and 1440. The picture is nearly 2 metres high and over 3 metres wide, in a wooden frame. It is painted in egg tempera, which is paint made from coloured pigments binded with egg yolk.

The painting depicts a battle in the Italian countryside, backed by distant rolling hills. It is a busy scene with many figures on horseback. But rather than the chaotic reality of a bloody conflict, Uccello has shown a triumphal, courtly scene which would have once sparkled with decorative touches of silver leaf and brilliant colours, now faded with time. Some of the elements are almost like cut-outs, the horses and riders with a somewhat flat appearance.

The painting commemorates an important battle in Florence’s war against Lucca and her allies Milan and Siena, that took place in the summer of 1432. Heralded on by a row of mounted trumpeters on the far left of the painting, a dozen Florentine soldiers on black and grey horses, charge across the scene. Holding up lances, they wear dark armour and helmets adorned with ostrich feathers and dragon wings - too impractical to have actually been worn in battle. Their prancing horses seem to have hopped off a carousel rather than out of a stable.

It is not clear who is attacking whom, but a soldier on the far right, on a white horse, faces the charge and fights off three others. He is wielding a horseman’s pick - used to pierce armour and hook men off their mounts. He represents the routed forces of the Italien State of Sienna.

Brightly lit in the centre, thrusting forth a commander’s baton in his right hand, Niccolò da Tolentino, leads the Florentine troops. He is astride a white rearing horse and wears a magnificent ‘mazzocchio,’ a large hexagonal shaped hat made of red and gold velvet. He has a matching cloak. These were gifts, actually awarded to him after the battle, in honour of his victory. His white heraldic flag flutters in the breeze above him, decorated with his family emblem – the ‘Solomon’s knot’ , a ring of rope with tassels knotted at North, South, East and West. However, most of the flag is cut off by the top of the painting. Niccolò da Tolentino is one of only a few figures in the melee whose face is uncovered – the other soldiers have their visors down. His helmet is carried by his fair-haired page, who rides behind him, wearing the same red and gold colours.

Behind the soldiers is a tall hedgerow of greenery dotted with pink and white roses, clusters of bright oranges and a few pomegranates. All three add colour and decoration, but also have a symbolic meaning, the rose a Christian symbol for martyrdom, the orange as a fruit of paradise, while the pomegranate represented rebirth.

Beyond the bushes, on the rolling hills of farmland, are the small figures of a dozen scattered foot-soldiers, as well as a pair of cavalrymen.

Uccello was an enthusiastic experimenter with the laws of mathematical perspective. Each broken lance dropped in the battle is arranged in a grid-like pattern on the pink earthen floor. They form diagonal lines that recede into space towards an invisible vanishing point. Even a dead soldier, face down on the floor, falls into line along this perspectival grid.

The painting was one of three designed to hang in the Palace of Leonardo Salimbeni, the head of a wealthy family who had moved to Florence from Siena. Keen to show loyalty to his new home city, he commissioned Uccello to commemorate the battle. The paintings communicated Florence’s power so effectively that after Salimbeni’s death, they were forcibly seized by Lorenzo de’ Medici, who had the arched tops of the paintings cut down and squared off to hang in his own palace!

Key facts

Details

Full title: Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano
Artist: Paolo Uccello
Artist dates: about 1397 - 1475
Date made: probably about 1438-40
Medium and support: egg tempera with some oil on wood
Dimensions: 182 × 320 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1857
Inventory number: NG583
Location: Room 62
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 21st-century Replica Frame

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, mentioned by Vasari (editions of 1550 and 1568), and in an inventory of 1598. Still in Medici possession in 1666, in the collection of Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici in the Casino. 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. NG 583 is stated to have been acquired in 1844 from the Giraldi Collection in Florence by the dealers Lombardi and Baldi, who certainly had it in 1848. Purchased with other pictures from Lombardi and Baldi in 1857.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Dillian Gordon, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings’, vol. 1, London 2003; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1878

G. Vasari, Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori: Con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878
1898

C. Loeser, 'Paolo Uccello', Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, XXI, 1898, pp. 83-94
1901

H. Horne, 'The Battle-Piece by Paolo Uccello in the National Gallery', Monthly Review, 1901, pp. 114-38
1903

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, ed. R.L. Douglas, 2nd edn, 6 vols, London 1903
1903

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, eds E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols, London 1903
1927

C.J. Holmes, Notes on the Science of Picture Making, London 1927
1932

G. Gronau, 'Zu Paolo Uccellos Schlachtenbildern', Pantheon, IX, 1932
1934

G. Pudelko, 'The Early Works of Paolo Uccello', Art Bulletin, XVI/3, 1934, pp. 231-59
1938

M. Salmi, Paolo Uccello, Andrea del Castagno, Domenico Veneziano, Milan 1938
1939

W. Boeck, Paolo Uccello: Der Florentiner Meister und sein Werk, Berlin 1939
1944

J. Pope-Hennessy, Paolo Uccello: The Rout of San Romano in the National Gallery, London, London 1944
1946

M. Pittaluga, Paolo Uccello, Rome 1946
1946

E. Somaré, Paolo Uccello, Milan 1946
1950

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Complete Work of Paolo Uccello, London 1950
1951

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
1954

U. Baldini, 'Restauri di Dipinti Fiorentini in occasione della mostra di Quattro Mestri del Rinascimento', Bollettino d'arte, XXXIX/4, 1954, pp. 221-40
1956

E. Micheletti, Paolo Uccello, Novara 1956
1957

E. Sindona, Paolo Uccello, Milan 1957
1957

E. Newton, 'Round the National Gallery. Niccolo da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello (c.1397-1475)', Art News and Review, 1957
1957

A. Parronchi, 'Le fonti di Paolo Uccello: I perspettivi passati', Paragone, LXXXIX/8, 1957, pp. 3-33
1958

D. Gioseffi, 'Complementi di prospettiva', Critica d'arte, V/25-26, 1958, pp. 102-49
1961

M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
1969

W.A. Bulst, 'Die ursprüngliche innere Anfteilung des Palazzo Medici in Florenz', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XIV/4, 1969, pp. 369-92
1970

L.G. Boccia, 'Le armature di Paolo Uccello', L'arte, III, 1970, pp. 55-91
1972

E. Sindona, 'Introduzione alla poetica di Paolo Uccello. Relazione tra prospettiva e pensiero teoretico', L'arte, XVII, 1972, pp. 7-100
1974

A. Parronchi, Paolo Uccello, Bologna 1974
1974

'The Rout of San Romano', Horizon, 1974
1974

A. Parronchi, 'Una data per le battaglie', La nazione, 1974
1975

S. Meloni Trkulja, 'Vicende ignorate della "Battaglia di San Romano"', Paragone, CCCIX/26, 1975, pp. 108-11
1978

G. Griffiths, 'The Political Significance of Uccello's Battle of San Romano', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LI, 1978, pp. 313-6
1981

M.L. Testi Cristiani, 'Panoramica a volo d'Uccello: La battaglia di San Romano', Critica d'arte, XLVI, 1981, pp. 3-47
1982

R.V. Wells, 'Uccello's "Rout of San Romano"', History Today, 1982, pp. 44-6
1984

R. Starn and L. Partridge, 'Representing War in the Renaissance: The Shield of Paolo Uccello', Representations, V, 1984, pp. 33-65
1985

J.N. O'Grady, 'An Uccello Enigma', Gazette des beaux-arts, CV, 1985, pp. 99-103
1986

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
1986

D. Abse and J. Abse, Voices in the Gallery: Poems and Pictures, London 1986
1987

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, ed. D. Barrie, New York 1987
1988

A. Conti, Storia del restauro e della conservazione delle opere d'arte, Milan 1988
1989

P. Joannides, 'Paolo Uccello's "Rout of San Romano": A New Observation', The Burlington Magazine, CXXXI/1032, 1989, pp. 214-6
1990

W.A. Bulst, 'Uso e trasformazione del palazzo mediceo fino ai Riccardi', in Il Palazzo Medici di Firenze, Florence 1990, pp. 98-124
1991

J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
1991

V. Gebhardt, Paolo Uccellos 'Schlacht von san Romano': Ein Beitrag zur Kunst der Medici in Florenz, Florence 1991
1991

A. Paolieri, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno, Florence 1991
1991

A. Padoa Rizzo, Paolo Uccello: Catalogo completo, Florence 1991
1991

V. Gebhardt, 'Some Problems in the Reconstruction of Uccello's "Rout of San Romano" Cycle', The Burlington Magazine, CXXXIII/1056, 1991, pp. 179-85
1991

M. Kemp and A. Massing, 'Paolo Uccello's "Hunt in the Forest"', The Burlington Magazine, CXXXIII/1056, 1991, pp. 164-78
1991

National Gallery, 'John Carey's Picture Choice', National Gallery News, 1991
1992

F. Borsi and S. Borsi, Paolo Uccello, Paris 1992
1992

M.B. Hall, Colour and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, Cambridge 1992
1992

P. Joannides, 'Letter, in Response to Article by V. Gebhardt', The Burlington Magazine, CXXXIV/1069, 1992
1992

L.G. Boccia, 'Ancient Italian Pieces in the Kienbusch Collection', in C. Blair, Studies in European Arms and Armour, Philadelphia 1992, pp. 33-65
1993

J.H. Beck and M. Daley, Art Restoration: The Culture, the Business and the Scandal, London 1993
1993

D. Hope, 'My Personal Choice: Doris Lessing Selects Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano', The Scotsman, 1993
1993

W.J. Wegener, '"That the Practice of Arms Is Most Excellent Declare the Statues of Valiant Men": The Luccan War and Florentine Political Ideology in Paintings by Uccello and Castagno', Renaissance Studies, VII/2, 1993, pp. 129-67
1994

P. Roccasecca, 'Paolo Uccello: I dipinti di battaglia', in Da Aristotele alla Cina. Sei Saggi di storia dell'arte universale, Rome 1994, pp. 35-70
1995

V. Gebhardt, Paolo Uccello: Die Schlacht von San Romano, Frankfurt am Main 1995
1996

J. Bloedé, Paolo Uccello et la représentation du mouvement: Regards sur la Bataille de San Romano, Paris 1996
1997

P. Roccasecca, Paolo Uccello. Le Battaglie, Milan 1997
1998

L. Melli, 'Nuove indagini sui disegni di Paolo Uccello Agli Uffizi: Disegno sottostante, tecnica, funzione', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XLII/1, 1998, pp. 1-39
1999

R. Duits, 'Figured Riches: The Value of Gold Brocades in Fifteenth-Century Florentine Painting', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXII, 1999, pp. 60-92
1999

F. Zeri, 'Paolo Uccello: Battaglia di San Romano', in M. Dolcetta (ed.), Federico Zeri: Un velo di silenzio, Florence 1999, pp. 48-53
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2001

F. Caglioti, 'Nouveautés sur la "Bataille de San Romano" de Paolo Uccello', Revue du Louvre, LI/4, 2001, pp. 37-54
2001

A. Roy and D. Gordon, 'Uccello's "Battle of San Romano"', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XXII, 2001, pp. 4-17
2002

M. Spring and R. Grout, 'The Blackening of Vermilion: An Analytical Study of the Process in Paintings', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XXIII, 2002
2003

Gordon, Dillian, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, 1, London 2003
2005

M. Kemp and A. Criminisi, 'Paolo Uccello's "Rout of San Romano": Order from Chaos', New, I, 2005, pp. 84-9
2005

P. Pertici, 'A proposito delle battaglie di Paolo Uccello', Bollettino senese di storia patria, III, 2005, pp. 311-8
2005

P. Roccasecca, 'La Rotta di San Romano e la Rotta di Niccolò Piccinino. Paolo Uccello e i Bartolini: Le ragioni di una commissione attraverso I'iconografia delle battaglie', Bulletin de l'Association des Historiens de l'Art Italien, II, 2005, pp. 5-21
2006

J. Harris, 'Whose Perspective? Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and the Patron's Point of View', Immediations, I/3, 2006, pp. 4-23
2006

J. Miller and L. Taylor-Mitchell, 'Donatello's "S. Rossore" the Battle of San Romano and the Church of Ognissanti', The Burlington Magazine, CXLVIII/1243, 2006, pp. 685-8
2006

Ajmar-Wollheim and F. Denniss (eds), At Home in Renaissance Italy (exh. cat. Victoria and Albert Museum, 5 October 2006 - 7 January 2007), London 2006
2007

S. Bibby, 'Changing Perspectives: The Florentine Histories of Uccello's "Battle of San Romano" Panels', Object, X, 2007, pp. 5-24

Frame

This walnut inlay frame was made at the Gallery in 2024. It is decorated with boxwood cutouts that form a guilloche surface pattern. The intricate design was inspired by the wooden inlays of the sacristy cupboards in Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence.

The series of three paintings, which all show episodes from the Battle of San Romano, were originally set under a vaulted ceiling and had arched tops. All the contemporary framings follow the later rectangular shape of the paintings. Of the two scenes not in the National Gallery’s collection, one is housed in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, where it is held in a metal structure. The other is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, framed in a fully carved and gilt Italian reverse moulding.

About this record

If you know more about this work or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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Dr Caroline Campbell, Director of Collections and Research, uncovers the good, the bad and the ugly in Paolo Uccello's 'The Battle of San Romano', as part of our 'Talks for all' series.

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Room 62