The Lost Battles Read online

  Young Man Before a White Curtain (c. 1506–8)

  oil on canvas

  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  Girolamo Machietti

  Baths of Pozzuoli (1570–2)

  Oil on slate

  Studiolo of Francesco I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

  Magdeburg Rider (c. 1245–50)

  Stone

  Kulturhistorisches Museum, Magdeburg

  Simone Martini

  Maestà (1311–17, repaired 1321)

  Fresco

  Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

  Masaccio, Masolino, and Filippino Lippi

  Brancacci Chapel cycle (1420s, finished by Lippi in 1480s)

  Fresco

  Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

  Michelangelo (copy of)

  Leda and the Swan (after 1530)

  Oil on canvas

  National Gallery, London

  Parthenon Sculptures (5th century B.C.)

  Marble

  British Museum, London

  Pech Merle Painted Cave

  Pigments dated to approximately 25,000 years before present

  Cabrerets, Lot, France

  Pablo Picasso

  Guernica (1937)

  Oil on canvas

  Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid

  Piero della Francesca

  The Legend of the True Cross (c. 1450s)

  Fresco cycle

  San Francesco, Arezzo

  Piero della Francesca

  Baptism of Christ (1450s)

  Tempera on poplar wood

  National Gallery, London

  Piero di Cosimo

  The Battle Between the Lapiths and Centaurs (c. 1500–15)

  Oil on wood

  National Gallery, London

  Piero di Cosimo

  The Forest Fire (c. 1505)

  Oil on wood

  Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

  Pisanello

  Portrait Medal of Niccolò Piccinino (c. 1439–92)

  Cast bronze

  Victoria and Albert Museum, London

  Inventory A.170-1910

  Nicola Pisano

  Pulpit (1260)

  Marble

  Baptistery, Pisa

  Antonio del Pollaiuolo

  Hercules and the Hydra and Hercules and Antaeus (both c. 1460–c. 1475)

  Tempera on wood

  Uffizi Gallery, Florence

  Antonio del Pollaiuolo

  Hercules and Antaeus (probably 1470s)

  Bronze

  Bargello Museum, Florence

  Antonio del Pollaiuolo

  Battle of the Nudes (c. 1470)

  Copper plate engraving

  British Museum, London

  Hind 1., 191

  Pontormo

  Portrait of a Halberdier (1529–30)

  Oil on wood, transferred to canvas

  J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

  Pontormo

  Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap (Carlo Neroni) (1530)

  Oil on wood

  Private Collection

  Pontormo

  Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1530)

  Oil on wood

  Pitti Palace, Florence

  Raphael

  The Marriage of the Virgin (1504)

  Oil on wood

  Brera Gallery, Milan

  Raphael

  Studies for the Trinity of S. Severo (c. 1505) with

  sketch of The Battle of Anghiari

  Silverpoint heightened with bodycolour on paper

  Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

  P. II. 535

  Raphael

  Madonna of the Meadow (c. 1505–6)

  Oil on wood

  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  Raphael

  Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506)

  Oil on wood

  Uffizi Gallery, Florence

  Raphael

  Bridgewater Madonna (c. 1507)

  Oil on canvas, transferred from wood

  Duke of Sutherland Collection, on loan to National Galleries of Scotland

  Raphael

  Portrait of Maddalena Strozzi Doni and Portrait of Agnolo Doni (both c. 1506–7)

  Oil on wood

  Pitti Palace, Florence

  Raphael

  Entombment (1507)

  Oil on wood

  Borghese Gallery, Rome

  Raphael

  The School of Athens (1509–10)

  Fresco

  Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Museums, Rome

  Raphael

  Portrait of Pope Julius II (1511)

  Oil on poplar wood

  National Gallery, London

  Raphael

  The Triumph of Galatea (1511–12)

  Fresco

  Villa Farnesina, Rome

  Raphael

  The Fire in the Borgo (c. 1516–17)

  Fresco

  Stanza dell’ Incendio, Vatican Museums, Rome

  Raphael

  Sistine Tapestry Cartoons (1515–16)

  Gouache on paper mounted on canvas

  Victoria and Albert Museum, London

  Raphael

  Stufetta of Cardinal Bibbiena (1516)

  Fresco and marble

  Vatican Palace, Rome

  Giulio Romano

  The Battle of Constantine (1521)

  Fresco

  Sala di Constantino, Vatican Museums, Rome

  Giulio Romano

  Sala dei Giganti (1532–4)

  Fresco

  Mantua

  Francesco Rosselli (atttibuted)

  The Execution of Savonarola (c. 1498)

  Tempera on wood

  Museum of San Marco, Florence

  Vincenzo de’ Rossi

  The Labours of Hercules (begun 1568)

  Marble

  Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

  Rosso Fiorentino (or early copyist)

  Moses and the Daughters of Jephron (1523–4)

  Oil on linen

  Uffizi Gallery, Florence

  Peter Paul Rubens

  The Fight for the Standard (c. 1600–15,

  reworked from a sixteenth-century copy)

  Chalk, pen and ink, washes, and gouache on two joined sheets of paper

  Louvre Museum, Paris

  Peter Paul Rubens

  The Fight for the Standard, after The Battle of Anghiari (c. 1600s)

  Chalk and wash on paper

  British Museum, London

  Peter Paul Rubens

  Minerva Protects Pax from Mars (1629–30)

  Oil on canvas

  National Gallery, London

  Peter Paul Rubens

  The Horrors of War (1637–8)

  Oil on canvas

  Pitti Palace, Florence

  Andrei Rublev

  The Saviour (early fifteenth century)

  Tempera on wood

  Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

  Aristotile da Sangallo

  Copy of Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina (c. 1542)

  Oil on wood

  Holkham Hall, Norfolk, Collection of the Earl of Leicester

  Giovanni Stradano

  The Siege of Florence (c. 1560)

  Fresco

  Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

  Tintoretto

  Susannah and the Elders (1555–6)

  Oil on canvas

  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  Titian

  Decorations for the Fondaco dei Tedesci (1509)

  Frescoes

  Accademia Gallery, Venice

  Titian

  Allegory of the Three Ages of Man (c. 1515)

  Oil on canvas

  National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

  Titian

  Bacchanal of the Andrians (c. 1523–5)

  Oil on canvas

  Prado Museum, Madrid

  Titian

  Diana and Actaeon (1556–9)

  Oil on canvas

  Jointly owned by N
ational Gallery, London, and

  National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

  Paolo Uccello

  The Battle of San Romano (probably c. 1438–40)

  Tempera on poplar wood

  Three panels in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence; Louvre Museum, Paris; and National Gallery, London

  Paolo Uccello

  Sir John Hawkwood (1436)

  Fresco, transferred to canvas

  Cathedral, Florence

  Paolo Uccello

  Deluge (c. 1445–c. 1450)

  Fresco

  Green Cloister, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

  Standard of Ur (c. 2600–2400 B.C.)

  Shell, red limestone, and lapis lazuli

  British Museum, London

  Giorgio Vasari and assistants

  Decorations of former Great Council Hall (1563–5)

  Fresco and other media

  Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

  Andrea del Verrocchio and assistants, including Leonardo da Vinci

  The Baptism of Christ (1470–5)

  Tempera and oil on wood

  Uffizi Gallery, Florence

  Andrea del Verrocchio (cast by Alessandro Leopardi)

  Equestrian Monument to Bartolommeo Colleoni (c. 1481–96)

  Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice

  Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio

  Tobias and the Angel (1470s)

  Tempera on poplar wood

  National Gallery, London

  Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio

  Scipio (1470s–c. 1480)

  Marble

  Louvre Museum, Paris

  Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio

  Alexander (1470s–c. 1480)

  Marble

  National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Victoria Wilson at Alfred A. Knopf for editing and visually conceiving the U.S. edition of this book, and Daniel Schwartz and Carmen Johnson for their work on producing the book and dealing longdistance with a transatlantic author. I would also like to thank Mike Jones at Simon and Schuster UK, and my agents Will Francis and Lynn Nesbit. The research for The Lost Battles relied on the British Library as well as the drawing collection of the British Museum, and at a time of government cuts I acknowledge the help of these great institutions. I am also grateful to the Royal Collection, as well as the drawing collections of the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Guardian newspaper has been at the core of my work for many years and among editors there I am especially indebted to Dan Glaister, Katharine Viner, Becky Gardiner, Philip Oltermann, and Kate Abbott. My parents, Eric and Margaret Lewis Jones, first took me to Florence and kindled my love for art and history. Dr. Graham and Dr. Angela Currie have shared some fine Italian food. Dr. Sarah Currie makes life and thought a joy: this is for our daughter.