|
Click
here to see a road map of the Arezzo
Province
ANGHIARI
Anghiari
is a lovely medieval town lying
between two rivers, the Tiber and
the Arno. The powerful thirteenth
century walls made the town an
invincible fortress which
constituted an important
reference point and kept the
Tuscan flag flying during the
many historical events that
occurred in this delicately
balanced border area.
|
|
On the 29th
June 1440 the famous Battle of Anghiari,
which was subsequently painted by Leonardo
da Vinci in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence,
reaffirmed Florentine rule in Tuscany.
Anghiari and its surrounding area has seen
the lives and work of the greatest men of
the Renaissance who brought the seeds of
the modern age from the land intra Tevere
et Arno to the whole of Europe. The
centuries that followed left their various
marks on the churches and houses giving
the town its own individual character
strung along the steep ‘ruga’
(furrow or wrinkle) that cuts through its
centre, making it unique and unmistakable.
Surrounded
by castles and country churches Anghiari
looks out over the beautiful High Tiber
Valley landscape, a natural amphitheatre
filled with the spirituality of St.
Francis of Assisi. The countryside around
Anghiari has an untouched atmosphere with
ancient woods dotted with monasteries and
archaeological sites. Artisan shops and
the workrooms of furniture and antiques
restorers enrich the small squares of the
town; its towers and churches are
embellished with masterpieces of painting
and sculpture and there are breathtaking
views and vistas to be found from every
corner of the ancient town.
Anghiari
is well worth visiting all year round
thanks to its active cultural life. There
are exhibitions, fairs, local festivals, a
busy theatre program and an active
interest in the conservation and
re-enactment of historical and folklore
traditions all contributing to the
cultural life of the town. Visitors enjoy
the enchanting atmosphere enhanced with
fairs, markets and open-air shows and the
excellent local cooking and warmth of the
Anghiarese add their special taste to this
superb landscape.
Documentation
Centre for the Battle of Anghiari.
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.
THE
BATTLE OF ANGHIARI
|
Anghiari
is famous for a battle fought and
won on its territory on Wednesday
29th June 1440 by the Florentine
Republic led by Micheletto
Attendolo and Giampaolo Orsini
against the Milanese army led by
Niccolò Piccinino.
When
Machiavelli subsequently wrote
about it he pointed out
ironically that twenty or twenty
four hours of skirmishing only
produced one death and that when
a soldier fell off his horse.
None the less, historically the
outcome of the battle was very
important as it kept central
Italy in the hands of the
Florentines and, indeed,
Machiavelli commented much more
seriously on this aspect.
|
|
However important the battle was at
the time, however, it would almost
certainly have been gradually forgotten
about if the Magistrati of Florence
hadn’t decided to decorate the walls
of the main Hall or Chamber of the
government building, Palazzo Vecchio, with
scenes celebrating the victories of the
Florentine armies. Michelangelo was
commissioned to paint the Battle of
Cascina and Leonardo da Vinci the Battle
of Anghiari.
Leonardo
drew up his project on cartoons and began
to transfer the work from the cartoons to
the wall of Palazzo Vecchio and painted
the central section showing The Fight for
the Standard. Unfortunately
Leonardo’s love of experimentation
caused the painting to be damaged during
the drying process and the uncompleted
painting was destroyed. Eventually it was
replaced by the existing painting by
Vasari and the legend of the Lost Leonardo
began. Even while Leonardo was working on
it the painting was lauded as a major
innovative work so that many artists came
to learn from it and make copies of it,
thus the battle still lives on through the
paintings of Rubens in the Louvre in Paris
and that of Biagio di Antonio (1470) of
the school of Paolo Uccello, which is in
the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.
Anghiari:
The Battle and Leonardo
On the 29th June 1440 the alliance of
the Florentine Republic, the Venetian
Republic and the Papal States had an
important victory over the Milanese army
led by Piccinino on the plain below
Anghiari. The success not only gave the
Florentines the opportunity of taking
their enemies standard but more
importantly allowed them to emerge as the
new power on the political and military
scene of central Italy in the middle of
the fifteenth century.
In fact it
gave them a leading role in a lot of the
politics of the period as it enabled them
to come close to the Papacy which was in
disarray and searching for a new unity
after the revolts at the Council of
Costanza (1414-1418) and Basle (1431-1449)
where the authority of the Pope was no
longer recognised. Thus the victory at
Anghiari was important for the Church too
and for the policies of the Pope. In fact
it became a crucial event for all the
States in Italy who were, at that time,
seeking a new equilibrium in the balances
of power.
After the
victory the Church was able to
re-establish Papal prestige and Pope
Eugenio IV who was sheltered in Florence
succeeded in becoming a leading player in
the Italian political scene. Indeed the
event was considered so important that in
May 1503 Leonardo da Vinci was
commissioned to paint a huge fresco on a
wall of the Council Chamber of the Palazzo
della Signoria (or Palazzo Vecchio, the
Government Seat) in Florence representing
and celebrating the Florentine victory
over the Milanese.
Unfortunately
the Leonardo fresco is now lost and we can
only admire some preparatory drawings and
sketches made by Leonardo and some partial
copies made by other artists. On the basis
of these the Anghiari Council and the
Associazione Pro-Anghiari, with the
support of the Soprintendenza ai Beni
A.A.A.S.of Arezzo, decided to remember the
historical event by organising a series of
cultural events about the Battle of
Anghiari starting in June 2000.
A fixed
point of reference has been created in a
Centre in Palazzo del Marzocco were people
can find information about both the
historical event and the artistic one.
Palazzo del Marzocco and the Museo
Nazionale di Palazzo Taglieschi were
already part of the project ‘Anghiari
and its Museums’ which has been set
up to increase awareness of the various
works of art that they hold (for example,
the wooden sculptures by Jacopo della
Quercia and Tino da Camaino and the
terracotta Nativity by Andrea della
Robbia) in their beautiful fifteenth
century buildings in the heart of
Anghiari’s Medieval town.
The
project for The Battle of Anghiari had its
beginning on the 29th of June 2000, on its
560th anniversary, with a three day
conference about the battle, Convegno
internazionale di Studi, which was divided
into three sections, artistic, literary
and historic.
|
