The incredible backstory of The Battle of Cascina

May 4, 2020 | Treasure tales and archive snippets | 2 minute read

While exploring the state rooms in Holkham Hall, it is so easy to just walk through the tiny Green State Dressing Room and not notice this curious, slightly murky artwork hanging on the chimneypiece. It was acquired by Thomas Coke, First Earl of Leicester, sometime between 1712 and 1718 from the Barberini Palace in Rome and it has a marvellous story to tell.

Let’s travel back in time to the Renaissance and catch up with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who were each commissioned to paint frescoes in the magnificent Salone dei Cinquecento, in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Leonardo worked on sketches for the Battle of Anghiari, while Michelangelo sketched a design for the Battle of Cascina, to be painted on the wall opposite Leonardo’s fresco.

Sadly neither was ever completed, and the ‘lost frescoes’ have become the subject of much mystery and fascination. The design of Leonardo’s mural is well known both from a copy by Rubens and from sketches by Leonardo himself. Michelangelo’s original sketches, however, were destroyed soon after their completion – the story goes that eager young artists came to study the sketches and took away scraps! Thankfully, Michelangelo’s pupil Sebastiano da Sangallo (1481-1551) managed to make a single copy of the central section of the design in the nick of time and it is this that hangs proudly in the Green State Dressing Room.

The Green State Dressing Room

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