Battle of San Roman

This panel is part of a cycle of three paintings celebrating the victory of the Florentine forces over the troops of Siena and the alliance led by the Duke of Milan at the Battle of San Romano (Pisa) in 1432. Niccolò da Tolentino, at head of the Florentine army, is shown defeating Bernardino della Carda, the leader of the opposing troops, with his spear as the battle rages all around. The direction of the lances and crossbows, with those of the Florentine forces slightly inclined forward and those of the adversaries slightly behind, announces the outcome of the battle. The Uffizi panel is the central episode of the narrative sequence that begins with Niccolò da Tolentino leading the Florentine forces, in the painting now in the National Gallery in London, and concludes with the Attack of Michelotto da Cotignola, an ally of the Florentine army, illustrated on panel now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The decorative cycle was commissioned by Lionardo Bartolini Salimbeni, a protagonist of Florentine political life since the beginning of the 15th century, for his palace in Florence, a few years after the epic feat itself. Originally, the panels had an arched top, which was inserted between the arches of a room covered with a corbel arch. Lionardo Bartolini's heirs then sold the paintings to Lorenzo il Magnifico, who placed them in his palace on Via Larga (now known as Palazzo Medici-Riccardi on Via Cavour) probably asking Paolo Uccello, the painter of the cycle, to change the form. , as he did when signing the panel now in the Uffizi, at the bottom left. The integrations in the corners show the representation of orange leaves, the "mala medica" or sour orange, which was the emblem of the Medici family. To show the armor and bridles on the horses, Paolo Uccello used a fairly large amount of sheet metal, which in the past would have given the painting a richness of color. Uccello was a virtuoso in perspective, and he shows it in the construction of foreshortened bodies that allow us to assume a point of view from the bottom, due to the position of the panels in Lionardo Bartolini's palace.