The painting entered the Cariplo Collection with the incorporation of the IBI Collection and nothing is known about its earlier history. As Andrea Spiriti notes in his description of the work in the 1998 catalogue, the attribution to Borgognone proves quite certain. Comparison with the Prado and Bayreuth cycles, dating from the period between 1650 and 1660, reveals the same stylistic approach with quick, dynamic brushwork in line with the dramatic subject matter of which the painter was one of the leading interpreters, combining various elements acquired during his career from the Bambocciante school, the classicism of Pietro da Cortona and the visionary painting of Salvator Rosa. The Cariplo painting also displays Borgognone’s taste for scholarly citation, the central group being derived from Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari, possibly known through engravings and the copy by Rubens, and the white horse in the foreground from Ludovico Carracci’s Conversion of Saint Paul in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna [1].

It thus emerges that battle painting was by no means a minor genre as regards both artistic quality and historical motivations. The depiction of clashes between the European and Turkish troops is related to the historical events of the time and the political tensions caused by the renewal of war against the Ottoman Empire.