Paolo Uccello - The Battle of San Romano (Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseats Bernardino della Ciarda)

• Title: The Battle of San Romano (Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseats Bernardino della Ciarda) (La batalla de San Romano)
• Artist: Paolo Uccello (1397-1475)
• Date: 1440
• Medium: Tempera on poplar wood panel
• Dimensions: 182 x 320 cm

“Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseats Bernardino della Ciarda” is the central painting of three equally huge paintings that formed a series “The Battle of San Romano” which used to be hung together in Florence and are now spread in three different locations- Florence, Paris and London.

The scene depicts the decisive moment of the battle where the Sienese commander, Bernardino della Carda, in the middle of the painting, is thrown off his white horse by the black spear of a Florentine horseman riding the brown horse with red colors.

The flat background with animals and scenes is reminiscent of pre-Renaissance techniques. But the energy that is expressed in the painting is striking- the victor’s lance cutting through the painting; the defeated horseman about to fall; the horse behind kicking backwards; and, the weapons in the air tilted towards the center of the painting giving a sense of wave moving in whereas the opposing force is bunched up.

Also remarkable is the complex perspectival framework with the lances in the foreground and in the background and those broken on the ground, the arquebuses pointed in the air and the hedges of the fields in the background going to the receding point which is the hunter with the arquebus pointed towards a rabbit.