Which Florentine gonfaloniere commissioned Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari in 1504?

Piero Soderini, Florence’s gonfaloniere, commissioned Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari in 1504.

The commission was part of an ambitious plan to decorate the Salone dei Cinquecento, the Hall of the Five Hundred in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. Leonardo was asked to depict Florence’s victory over Milan at the Battle of Anghiari, fought in 1440. His contract was signed by Niccolò Machiavelli, who was serving the Florentine government.

The project became one of Renaissance art’s great rivalries. Michelangelo was assigned the opposite wall and planned The Battle of Cascina. Leonardo developed a dramatic scene of soldiers and horses fighting for a standard, but his experimental wall-painting method failed and the mural remained unfinished.

The original work was later lost or covered during renovations. Its appearance is known chiefly through preparatory studies and copies, especially Peter Paul Rubens’s famous drawing of the central fight. Soderini should not be confused with the Medici figures who later shaped the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio.