Paulo Uccello's cycle of three great panel paintings representing the
Battle of San Romano, 1 June 1432 is not only the artist's most
recognised work, but one of the emblematic monuments through which we
visualize the Italian Renaissance. It is, therefore, all the more
unfortunate how little we actually know about these pictures, how
damaged and altered they have become over time, and how questionable
they are as vehicles for understanding Italian Renaissance art or
warfare. Not that these impediments have prevented a long history of
fascination with these delightful pictures or crowds of visitors from
responding to them enthusiastically in London (National Gallery),
Florence (Uffizi), and Paris (Louvre) - the three great museums among
which they are now divided - or scholars from engaging very actively in
attempts to reconstruct and interpret them. In this study , I will
attempt to clarify what is and what is not known about Uccello's Battle
of San Romano; understand the ways in which this extraordinary projects
fits, however comfortably or not, into its context of art and society;
and appreciate what Uccello and history have given us by subjecting the
three panels to close examination.

by Charles Cohen, having previously served on the faculty at Harvard
University, is the chair of the Visual Arts Committee at The University
of Chicago.

Other topics of "War in Art" issue is listed below:

War in Art, A Foreword

Ancient Egyptian Warfare,
by Ian Shaw

Picturing the Trojan War:
Antique Images and the Words of Homer

Assyrian Warfare:
A Pictorial Record
by Pauline Albenda

The Magic Army of the First Chinese Emperor
by Lothar Ledderose

The Samurai
by Clive Sinclaire

Campaigns of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent from the Suleyman-name
by Esin Atil

Artful Accouterments of Ottoman Warfare
by Tulin Coruhlu

British Naval Paintings
by Lindsey MacFarlane

Stars Hammered in the Unforgetting Sky
Reflections on Goya's Disasters of War
by Jonathan D. Greenberg

Inspiration and Progress in the 20th Century's
Most Important Anti-War Painting
Picasso, Guernica, and War
by Shannon Schedlich-Day