How many panels compose the work The Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello?

Last Updated: 9 January 2023

The Battle of San Romano

The Battle of San Romano is a famous Italian Renaissance painting by 15th-century artist Paolo Uccello. It depicts a scene from the Battle of San Romano, which took place in 1432, between the Florentines and the Sienese.

Paolo Uccello was an Italian Renaissance painter renowned for his battle paintings. He was a pupil of Lorenzo Ghiberti, the famous Florentine sculptor who worked on the doors of Florence’s Baptistery. Uccello was also influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance humanists, who valued mathematical problem-solving in art. He therefore used perspective techniques to create effects of depth in his paintings.

The Battle of San Romano is a triptych, a painting in three panels. Each panel represents a different part of the battle. The first panel shows Florentine horsemen charging the Sienese on the battlefield. The second panel shows a scene of close combat, with soldiers fighting on foot, and the third panel shows the Sienese retreat.

Paolo Uccello’s painting was created using the oil painting technique. This technique was relatively new at the time, having been developed in Flanders in the early 15th century, but was very popular in Italy during the Renaissance. It enabled artists to create more realistic lighting effects and to work more easily on details. The Battle of San Romano is considered one of the finest works of the Italian Renaissance, with its meticulous compositions and precise perspective. The panels are now in the National Gallery in London, the Uffizi Museum in Florence and the Louvre Museum in Paris. These works perfectly illustrate the influence of the Renaissance on the art of painting, where the search for proportions and pictorial effects was at the center of artists’ attention.

• wikipedia.org