The Battle of San Romano

The Battle of San Romano

Detail of Niccolò da Tolentino from the left panel, now in London
Artist	Paolo Uccello
Year	c. 1435–1460
Type	egg tempera with walnut oil and linseed oil on poplar
Location	National Gallery, Galleria degli Uffizi, Musée du Louvre

External media

Audio
Personal response: Serena Ferrente
Video
Smarthistory – Uccello's The Battle of San Romano

The Battle of San Romano is a set of three paintings by the Florentine painter Paolo Uccello depicting events that took place at the Battle of San Romano between Florentine and Sienese forces in 1432. They are significant as revealing the development of linear perspective in early Italian Renaissance painting, and are unusual as a major secular commission. The paintings are in egg tempera on wooden panels, each over 3 metres long. According to the National Gallery, London, the panels were commissioned by a member of the Bartolini Salimbeni family in Florence sometime between 1435 and 1460. The paintings were much admired in the 15th century; Lorenzo de' Medici so coveted them that he purchased one and had the remaining two forcibly removed to the Palazzo Medici. They are now divided between three collections, the National Gallery, the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, and the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

The three paintings are:

Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino at the Battle of San Romano (probably c. 1438–1440), egg tempera with walnut oil and linseed oil on poplar, 182 × 320 cm, National Gallery, London.

Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseats Bernardino della Ciarda at the Battle of San Romano (dating uncertain, c. 1435–1455), tempera on wood, 182 × 320 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

The Counterattack of Michelotto da Cotignola at the Battle of San Romano (c. 1455), wood panel, 182 × 317 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris