The Triumph of Scipio Africanus
Historical Context
The Master of the Battle of Anghiari, named after a cassone panel depicting that famous battle, painted this Triumph of Scipio Africanus around 1460, now in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Cassone panels depicting Roman triumphs were enormously popular in fifteenth-century Florence, where classical military heroes served as models of civic virtue for the city's republican elite, and their victories were celebrated on the painted furniture given as wedding gifts.
Technical Analysis
The panoramic composition features a continuous procession of figures, chariots, and captives rendered in the bright, flat colors and decorative style characteristic of mid-fifteenth-century Florentine cassone painting.
