Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/150

120 poor and miserable all his life. But this statement is hardly correct, at least as regards the earlier part of his career; for, in 1434, Paolo bought a house in the Via della Scala for 100 florins, and six years later rented a shop and owned house-property and lands in Florence.

Paolo took great delight in painting animals of all kinds, especially birds, whose flight and movements he studied constantly, and drew so often, that he acquired the surname of Uccello. For the Medici he painted many animal subjects, amongst others, a battle of lions and serpents, which is mentioned as one of five large tempera pictures by his hand in the Magnificent Lorenzo's inventory. Three of the battle-pieces which were among the treasures of the Medici Palace are still in existence. As Mr. Home has lately shown, these pictures evidently represent the defeat of the Sienese at S. Romano in 1432. The finest and best preserved of the three is the panel now in the National Gallery. Niccolò da Tolentino, the Captain of the Florentines, mounted on a galloping white horse, and wearing a crimson mantle embroidered with gold, is a conspicuous figure in the mêlée. The ground at his feet is strewn with dead corpses and broken lances, while between flashing spears and gleaming helmets we see the blossoming roses and leaves which Paolo loved to paint. The other two battle-pieces in the Louvre and Uffizi represent different episodes of the fight, while a painting of a Midnight Hunt, full of weird charm and romance, has lately been discovered at Oxford. But all of these pictures, we feel, are composed chiefly