In this sumptuous painting Scheggia depicts the triumphal entry of the Roman general Lucius Aemilius Paulus into Rome following his 168 B.C.E. defeat of King Perseus of Macedonia at Pynda. Originally adorning the front of a cassone, or marriage chest, the elegant furnishing once decorated a Tuscan palazzo. Such objects were paraded through the city as part of the nuptial procession from the bride’s family home to that of the groom.

A cavalcade of chariots, horses, oxen, soldiers, and civilians unfolds (somewhat unusually) from right to left before a panoramic landscape. At right, the hero, holding a sword and wearing parade armor, rides a golden float decorated with a winged baldachin. Before him walks the vanquished King of Macedon, wearing a stylized turban. With hands bound before him, he is accompanied by his wife and their two young sons, who process alongside an empty throne, reminding viewers of his lost kingdom. Heralded by a pair of trumpeters, a cart piled high with booty, including golden idols, arms and armor, and assorted trophies, leads the procession. At left, a schematic view of Rome (indicated by the Colosseum, Column of Trajan, Pantheon, and Pyramid of Cestius) frames the composition.

While classically inspired, the work offers a pictorial amalgam of the antique and contemporary worlds: while the subject derives from Plutarch, the literary tradition of “trionfi” was popularized by the Tuscan poet Petrarch, writing in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. Moreover, the figures wear fifteenth-century Florentine dress and the procession itself would have resonated with urban festivals that evoked triumphal entries from antiquity. Indeed, in 1491, to mark the Feast Day of the city’s patron, Saint John the Baptist, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence’s de facto ruler and the city’s greatest patron of the arts, commissioned a reenactment of Lucius Aemilius Paullus’ triumphal entry. Perhaps this was intended to pay homage to the Roman general's ability to relieve the population of taxation thanks to the copious war booty he transported from Macedon.

Everett Fahy correctly attributed the present painting to Giovanni di Ser Giovanni, called Scheggia, the younger brother of Masaccio.¹ The elaborate surface decoration, geometric compositional framework, and ornate tooling are all hallmarks of his artistic production. Previously, the work had been attributed to the Master of the Battle of Anghiari, an artist so-named by Paul Schubring after a cassone in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (inv. no. NGI.778), with whom twenty-five paintings were at one time associated.

Often depicting scenes intended to valorize marital and civic life, such cassoni were typically conceived in pairs. The companion to the Triumph of Lucius Aemilius Paulus after the Battle of Pydna, illustrating the Triumph of Caesar is today at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (fig. 1). The presence of the Strozzi family’s crescent arms suggests that the pair may have been commissioned to mark the marriage of one of its members.

A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE

In 1929, the present work and its pendant were among the paintings in Joseph Spiradon’s collection sold in Berlin. There the panel was acquired by the Amsterdam-based Jacques Goudstikker, among the most renowned tastemakers, dealers, and art collectors of his day. During the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, over 1,400 works were appropriated from him, and while he managed to escape Amsterdam with his wife and son, he tragically died aboard a ship during his Dover passage. The remarkable survival of his black notebook, in which he itemized every work in his vast stock, has been an invaluable source in tracing works formerly in his possession. In a 2006 landmark decision, over 200 of the vast number of pictures which had been handed over to the Dutch state in 1946, were restituted to Goudstikker’s heir, including the present superb cassone.

¹ See Fondazione Federico Zeri, Fototeca no. 108819.