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Documentation Centre for the Battle of Anghiari, Aghiari, Tuscany

The Documentation Centre for the Battle of Anghiari is situated in the exhibition rooms of Palazzo del Marzocco. It gives visitors not only the opportunity of finding out about a historical event which had an important effect upon the local area and on Florence, but also opens up an artistic affair that has taken on extraordinary importance ever since Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint the Battle of Anghiari on the wall of the Great Hall of the Palazzo della Signoria ( the seat of government at that time) in Florence. It was with good reason that when Benvenuti Cellini saw the Great hall with the preparatory cartoons that Leonardo was working on and those of Michelangelo who was working on another wall depicting The Battle of Cascina , he was amazed by the magic of the artists’ vision and called the room ‘the school of the world’.

In the first room of the Marzocco Museum (open every day) visitors can be guided around a large scale-model of the battle field made by Maurizio Prussi, a specialist in reconstructing battles.

The scene shows the plain below Anghiari and the final stages of the battle. 2200 lead and tin soldiers, horses, arms and flags all painted by hand. In the second room there is a collection of reproductions of some of the preparatory sketches Leonardo made when he was commissioned in 1503 by Piero Solderini, the gonfalonier or head of the Florentine Republic, to paint the Battle of Anghiari.

Alongside these are other reproductions which show the fascination Leonardo held over other artists of all ages, but above all Rubens who made an extraordinary copy (now kept in the Louvre in Paris) of the skirmish between the knights of the cavalry to capture the standard. This work was then subsequently copied or used as an inspiration by other artists (reproductions of which are displayed in the Museum) to show the dramatic fury of those who fought at Anghiari.

In the third room the records are completed with anastatic copies of two of Leonardo’s Codices or notebooks, Manoscritto K and the Codice Atlantico, faithful reproductions which give the visitor the best access into the world of this Renaissance genius. The first, one of twelve manuscripts currently kept at the French Institute in Paris, is a series of studies on Euclidean geometry, on water, bird flight and a drawing of a soldier for the Battle of Anghiari. The Codice Atlantico, the original of which is in Milan, is a collection of graphic material produced over Leonardo’s entire artistic career (1478-1519) demonstrating the wide variety of interests of this versatile artist.

To give a better understanding of the importance of the loss of the Leonardo work, three other pre-Leonardo representations of the battle of Anghiari have been put into the exhibition. These are all painted in Florence soon after the Battle of Anghiari on the front panels of wedding chests. The most interesting one from the artistic and historical point of view is now kept in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

Finally there is a reconstruction of Leonardo’s complete work by Vittoria Chierici. The present day artist made the reconstruction by studying the composition and its perspectives and naturally, the great masters own sketches and a variety of historical and pictorial sources.

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