A picture of great interest in itself, both from a technical and from a moral point of view, and also deserving of note in the history of painting. (1) It shows the beginning of scientific "perspective" (_i.e._ the science of representing the form and dimensions of things as they really _look_, instead of as we conceive them by touch or measurement to _be_); the painter is pleased with the new discovery, and sets himself, as it were, the hardest problem in perspective he can find. Note the "foreshortening" of the figure on the ground (objects are said to be "foreshortened" when viewed so that we see their breadth, and not their length--for example, the leg of Titian's Ganymede in No. 32). So devoted was Paolo to his science that he became (says Vasari) more needy than famous. His wife used to complain to her friends that he sat up all night studying, and that the only answer she ever got to her remonstrances was, "What a delightful thing is this perspective!" The sculptor Donatello is also said to have remonstrated with our painter: "Ah, Paolo, with this perspective of thine, thou art leaving the substance for the shadow." Paolo was fond, too, of geometry, which he read with Manetti. He had another and a softer passion: he was so fond of birds that he was called Paul of the Birds ("Uccelli"--his family name being Paolo di Dono), and he had numbers of painted birds, cats, and dogs in his house, being too poor to keep the living creatures. (2) This picture is remarkable, secondly, as the earliest Italian work in the Gallery containing portraits, and the first which endeavours to represent a contemporary event. Our picture has hitherto been supposed to represent the battle of Sant' Egidio (1417) in which Carlo Malatesta and his nephew Galeazzo were taken prisoners by Braccio di Montone, lord of Perugia. Other battle-pieces belonging to the same series are in the Uffizi and the Louvre respectively; and it has been shown by Mr. Herbert P. Horne (_Monthly Review_, October, 1901) that these are the three pictures of the "Rout of San Romano," painted by Uccello for the palace of Cosimo de' Medici, as described in an inventory of 1492. The principal figure is Niccolo Maurucci da Tolentino, the leader of the Florentine forces, directing the attack against the Sienese at San Romano in 1432. "He is represented on horseback fully armed, except for his helmet, with the baton of command in his right hand. He wears on his head a rich _cappuccio_, or head-dress, of gold and purple damask; while his bascinet, covered with purple velvet, is carried by his helmet-bearer, who rides by his side [the 'young Malatesta' of previous descriptions]. Above the figure of Tolentino waves his standard powdered with his impress, the 'groppo di Salomone,' a knot of curious and intricate form, in a white field." The impress may be seen again, as Mr. Horne points out, in the memorial portrait of Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno in the Cathedral of Florence.