Paolo Uccello · The battle of San Romano

1436-1440 – Tempera on panel – Uffizi Gallery, National Gallery, and Louvre Museum

“Oh che dolce cosa è questa prospettiva! (What a sweet thing perspective is!)”
Paolo Uccello

Giorgio Vasari described Paolo Uccello with just four words: “solitary, eccentric, melancholic and poor”. Uccello was one of the most audacious geniuses of the early Florentine Renaissance, the lonely lover of perspective, and his three panels depicting the Battle of San Romano are widely considered his masterpieces.

These paintings prove Uccello’s fascination for the new sciences of perspective, as well as his personal interest for the figure of the horse. Indeed, a raging horse is the centerpiece of the composition of the three panels, a composition organized by the vertical and horizontal spears.

Paolo Uccello painted three versions of this scene, which would have constituted an impressive “triptych” for the Medici Palace in Florence. Today, the three panels are divided between three European museums.

Text: G. Fernández, theartwolf.com