Massimo Predonzani The Battle of Anghiari, 29 June, 1440

The victorious outcome of the Battle of Anghiari on 29 June 1440 between the Milanese troops of Filippo Maria Visconti and the Florentine army supported by the contingents of the Pope and the Sforza, will be very important for the city of Florence. In fact, with this victory it will definitively free itself from the Milanese danger that since the time of Gian Galeazzo Visconti had oppressed, with wars and devastation, the city of the lily and all of Tuscany. This military success will be commemorated by Florence in literature and art. Famous in fact is the fresco of the battle painted by Leonardo in 1504 in Florence, unfortunately lost. But undoubtedly more important is a front of a Florentine 'cassone' painted after the mid-1400s to commemorate the battle, a 'cassone' that is now in the National Gallery in Dublin. This work of art is not the only one with this theme to have been created at the time, but certainly the most precise. The places represented and the moments of the battle are the same as those written in contemporary sources. Furthermore, the military heraldry depicted precisely identifies the infantry and knights of the two armies. We find the main banners of the Duke Visconti, of Florence and of the Pope. Then the devices of the main captains: the leopard of the Bracceschi, the waves of the Attendolo-Sforza and the bear of the Orsini and also the devices of numerous minor captains, all confirmed by research on chronicles, registers and letters of the period.Finally, everything has been reconstructed in the color plates and supported by images, photos and maps of the battle.