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Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari

9/17/2019

1 Comment

 
Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence
Where? Hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio
When? 1565
Commissioned by? Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici

What do you see? The battle of Marciano is a bloody battle between the Republic of Siena and Florence, which was won by the Florentine. In the foreground, several explicit scenes are depicted of people getting killed in man-to-man battles. The rest of the fresco shows the battle between the large armies of Florence and Siena.

Backstory: This fresco is also known as the Battle of Scannogallo (which was a creek near the village of Marciano della Chiana). The fresco marks the victory of the Florentine army over the army of Siena.

​The Florentine army worked together with the Spanish army, while the Republic of Siena got help from the French army. Both sides had a total of about 15 thousand soldiers that day. While on the Florentine side only 200 people got killed, the Siena side suffered losses of 4,000 with an additional 4,000 people captured.

Why the Battle of Marciano? The battle of Scannagallo took place on August 2, 1554. It was a battle between the Florentine army under the command of Gian Giacomo Medici (following orders of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici) and the Siena army under the command of Piero Strozzi.

The goal of Duke Cosimo I de Medici was to get complete control of Tuscany, and for that, the Republic of Siena had to be conquered. This battle was a very important event in the decline of the Republic of Siena, and in 1559 they finally surrendered to Florence.

Who is Vasari? Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was an architect, historian, painter, and writer. The paintings in the Hall of the Five Hundred are considered to be one of his best paintings. He was also the creator of the Hall of Geographical Maps which is also in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Vasari was also a very successful architect and his work includes the construction of the Uffizi Museum and the Vasari Corridor in Florence. However, he is most famous nowadays for his book e Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostril, translated as Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, which documents the history of the Italian Renaissance (Amazon link to the book).
Map of Armenia by Ignazio Danti in the Hall of Geographical Maps
Map of Armenia in the Hall of Geographical Maps
The Vasari Corridor seen from inside the Uffizi Gallery
The Vasari Corridor as seen from the Uffizi Museum
Dan Brown: This painting plays an important role in the book Inferno by Dan Brown (Amazon link to the book). On a green flag in the top middle of the fresco the words ‘cerca trova’ are written, which means ‘seek and ye shall find’. Without binoculars, it is almost impossible to see this.

The green flags belonged to the Siena army and they used to include different verses of Dante on them for inspiration. Duke Cosimo I wanted the sentence ‘cerca trova’ to be included in the painting as an ironic reference to the ‘defeat’ that the Siena army found.

​In Dan Brown’s book Inferno the words ‘cerca trova’ play an important role and lead the main character Robert Langdon to the death mask of Dante.

What is a Fresco? A fresco is a painting that is executed using the fresco technique. This technique paints directly on wet lime plaster (a mix of sand, water, and lime that becomes solid when it dries). After the pigment is applied to the wet plaster and the plaster dries, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. A mural is a more general word than a fresco as murals can also be created using different techniques.

Fun fact: It has long been believed by many that below the fresco of Vasari a famous fresco of Leonardo da Vinci can be found. In 1505 Leonardo da Vinci completed a fresco called The Battle of Anghiari. This fresco is referred to as the ‘lost Leonardo’ and preparatory sketches from Leonardo for this fresco and copies by later artists, such as Peter Paul Rubens, serve as evidence for the existence of this fresco. 
There are three reasons to believe that the lost Leonardo may indeed still be hidden here.
  1. Historical sources tell document that the fresco existed at this location.
  2. Vasari has a history of working on top of other artworks, while still preserving the old artwork.
  3. The ‘cerca trova’ reference of Vasari may be a hint that the lost Leonardo can still be found. 
Over the years, various scientific methods have been used, but have not found enough evidence to confirm the presence of the lost Leonardo.

Interested in a copy for yourself? Poster or Canvas
Copy of the Leonardo da Vinci's lost Battle of Anghiari by Peter Paul Rubens
Copy of the lost Battle of Anghiari by Rubens

Written by Eelco Kappe

References:
  • www.florenceinferno.com/the-battle-of-marciano/
1 Comment
Marco
4/23/2016 06:20:10 am

The writing CERCA TROVA is really an encrypted message.
The anagram of the words CERCA TROVA is TORRE VACCA, the ancient name of the tower of Palazzo Vecchio in Firenze, located nearby, just a few meters, very unlikely this anagram is a coincidence, anagrams and rebus were very popular among the collaborators of Giorgio Vasari.
I solved this anagram in March of 2012.
The “torre della vacca” ( tower of the cow ) or ” torre dei della Vacca ” or ” torre del vacca ” or simply ” torre vacca ” ( cow tower ) belonged to an ancient and noble family of Florence and was incorporated within the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio around the year 1300 by a decision of its builder, the architect Arnolfo di Cambio.The tower had a great bell that every time we sounded the ancient Florentine said ” the cow is mooing “. ( if you look at the facade of the Palazzo Vecchio, under the clock tower, you see a row of windows closed, that is the ” cow tower ” )
In 1561, during the great restoration of the Palazzo Vecchio. Giorgio Vasari discovers the walls of the tower and in his book “Lives of the Artists,” ( biography of Arnolfo di Cambio edition 1568 ) writes this:
“…And they brought it about that the northern aisle of S. Pietro Scheraggio should be thrown to the ground, rather than let him work in the middle of the square with his own measurements; not to mention that they insisted, moreover, that there should be united and incorporated with the Palace the Tower of the Foraboschi, called the “Torre della Vacca,” in height fifty braccia, for the use of the great bell, and together with it some houses bought by the Commune for this edifice. For which reasons no one must marvel if the foundation of the Palace is awry and out of the square, it having been necessary, in order to incorporate the tower in the middle and to render it stronger, to bind it round with the walls of the Palace; which walls, having been laid open in the year i6i [SIC] by Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect, were found excellent. Arnolfo, then, having filled up the said tower with good material, it was afterwards easy for other masters to make thereon the very high campanile that is to be seen there today; for within the limits of two years he finished only the Palace, which has subsequently received from time to time those improvements which give it today that greatness and majesty that are to be seen..”
The tower was filled with solid material.
“Storia del Palazzo vecchio in Firenze” (https://archive.org/details/storiadelpalazzo00gottuoft) is a book written by Aurelio Gotti, a cultured man of letters, which tells the story of the Palace from 1300 until the date of publication of the book in 1889.
Aurelio Gotti does some research and he writes that another architect, surname Del Rosso, while some work in 1814 found the walls of the torre della vacca but this tower is completely empty until under the floor.
Aurelio Gotti assumed that the true tower is elsewhere in the building and the tower has a strong symbolic value.

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