As I am on a Paulo Uccello kick this week I remembered a WW2 story I read years ago about how closely we came to losing the central panel , the Florentine third part of this triptych painting of this famous battle in 1432 between Florentine and Sienese forces.
Apparently early in 1940 the fascist government that had taken over Florence had the foresight to take action to pad-out and protect some of the great works of art in the city and move some of them, such as the Baptistery Doors, to a secret hideout in the Boboli Gardens -( perhaps even part of the tunnel leading up to Fort Belvedere? ) and others, including the only remaining part of the San Romano triptych still in Florence were taken to the semi -ruined Castello Montegufoni , a villa owned by the Baronet George Sitwell, father of writers Osbert, Sacheverell and Edith.
Osbert Sitwell describes the situation in his book Laughter in the Next Room, the fourth part of his full auto-biography Left Hand, Right Hand. At the height of the battle during the Allied approach the retreating Germans arrived and requisitioned the castle, which at that point was somehow also housing about 2,000 refugees who had fled from the chaos that was war torn Florence!
They threw out the refugees and Guido Mastri , who was the personal valet of the Curator of the Uffizi Cesare Fasola, but Cesare himself was allowed to remain to protect the “precious”.
It was not an easy job – on his departure Guido Mastri reports that he had screamed at the German soldiers preparing to burn all the paintings because “they were in the way” that these pictures “didn’t belong to any one nation but were the possessions of the world”.
Common sense prevailed – spiced possibly with some fear that Art lover Adolf Hitler might prefer to have them added to his personal collection and wouldn’t be best pleased to learn of their destruction- and most of the pictures were preserved – only a circular Ghirlandaio, which had been used as a table top , was damaged beyond repair.
Eric Linklater , as a serving Major in command of the Allied troops who arrived at Montegufoni describes in his memoirs the Art of Adventure his wonderful experience of arriving at the castle and being followed by an excited huddle of local villagers pronouncing “Yes! real Botticelli! and his joy at finding this enormous painting and being able to say “Yes – real Uccello!
A portrait of Uccello by an anonymous artist
Happily, after several years of recent restoration this part of the Battle of San Romano is now back in it’s rightful place on the walls of the Uffizi gallery in Florence for the world to possess.
Notes :- The Battle of San Romano, consists of:
-
- Battle of San Romano: Niccolò da Tolentino , fearless and not even wearing a battle helmet charges into battle (c. 1450–1456) – This is now in the National Gallery, London
- Battle of San Romano: shows Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseating Bernardino della Ciarda(c. 1450–1456) – now finally restored and back in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
- Battle of San Romano:showing the counter attack by Micheletto da Cotignola (c.1450) – is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris
These egg tempera on poplar wood panels were commissioned by a member of the Bartolini Salimbeni family in Florence sometime between 1435 and 1460.
Lorenzo de’ Medici was so determined to have them that he purchased one, but believing that they should only be hung together insisted on having the full triptych, and when told they were not for sale he simply had the remaining two forcibly removed to the Palazzo Medici.
Perhaps not a big enough offence to warrant a murder in the Cathedral but you can begin understand why the Medici were sometimes so downright unpopular they were exiled from their city!
He would be most vexed to know that they are now so widely dispersed!
