Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseats Bernardino della Ciarda at the Battle of San Romano

This Uffizi panel of the Battle of San Romano shows Niccolò da Tolentino unseating the Sienese commander Bernardino della Ciarda, the pivotal moment of the 1432 battle. Painted around 1436 for the Medici palace, the three-panel cycle was among the most ambitious secular paintings in fifteenth-century Florence. Paolo Uccello was among the most theoretically ambitious painters of fifteenth-century Florence, whose fascination with perspective led him to develop extraordinarily complex spatial constructions that astonished his contemporaries.

Uccello constructs the clash of mounted warriors using his innovative foreshortening and perspective systems, with the toppled lances creating converging lines that demonstrate his legendary dedication to spatial mathematics.