The only battle I want

Paolo Uccello (born Paolo di Dono, 1397 - December 10, 1475) was an Italian painter who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. His best known works are the three paintings representing the battle of San Romano. Paolo worked in the Late Gothic tradition and emphasised colour and pageantry rather than the Classical realism that other artists were pioneering.

I knew there was a reason for studying Italian Renaissance paintings, they showed real battles. They were brilliant, painted on wood, in tempera! (Tempera is traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into a binding agent or medium, such as egg, glue, honey, water, milk and a variety of plant gums. Tempera painting starts with placing a small amount of the pigment paste onto a palette, dish or bowl and adding about an equal volume of the binder and mixing. Some pigments require slightly more binder, some require less. A few drops of distilled water are added; then the binder (egg emulsion) is added in small increments to the desired transparency. The more egg emulsion, the more transparent the paint.) Then you start painting.

To clear up a common misconception, no one 'battles with cancer'. You either take the pills, have the chemo or radiotherapy or maybe you don't. Either way, you carry on or not. Ultimately, there is nothing you can do to improve the odds. You can pray and then tell yourself god saved you. You can do yoga and only eat tofu and say that saved you. Or you can just be lucky and appreciate the life you've got.

Anyway, back to the real battle. This brilliantly structured and colourful painting depicts part of the battle of San Romano that was fought between Florence and Siena in 1432. The central figure is Niccolò da Mauruzi da Tolentino on his white charger, the leader of the victorious Florentine forces, who is identifiable by the motif of 'Knot of Solomon' on his banner. This detail of a panel is one of a set of three showing incidents from the same battle in the National Gallery, London. The other two are in the Louvre, Paris, and the Uffizi, Florence. This painting and its two companion panels were commissioned by the Bartolini Salimbeni family in Florence sometime between 1435 and 1460: only the Uffizi panel is signed. Lorenzo de' Medici so coveted them that he had them forcibly removed to the Medici palace.

So I prefer to call cancer 'Medici', both wicked in their own way.





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