The Politics of War: Paolo Uccello's Equestrian Monument for Sir John Hawkwood in the Cathedral of Florence

While Uccello's Equestrian Monument in Florence's Cathedral has long been admired as a spectacular example of Florentine early Renaissance mural painting, distinguished by its serene, ordered geometry, only in recent decades has the turbulent political climate in which it was created been linked to its iconography. The lists of the Cathedral's treasurers and members of its board of works who oversaw the commission, housed in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, represent a neglected source of information illuminating the political allegiances of those who helped determine the work's iconography amidst the dramatic fallout from Florence's recent unsuccessful war with Lucca.