The Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood is a fresco by Paolo Uccello, commemorating English condottiero John Hawkwood, commissioned in 1436 for the Florence Cathedral. The fresco is an important example of art commemorating a soldier-for-hire in the Italian peninsula and is a seminal work in the development of perspective. The politics of the commissioning and recommissioning of the fresco have been analyzed and debated by historians. The fresco is often cited as a form of "Florentine propaganda" for its appropriation of a foreign soldier of fortune as a Florentine hero and for its implied promise to other condottieri of the potential rewards of serving Florence. The fresco has also been interpreted as a product of internal political competition between the Albizzi and Medici factions in Renaissance Florence, due to the latter's modification of the work's symbolism and iconography during its recommissioning. The fresco is the oldest extant and authenticated work of Uccello, and from a relatively well-known aspect of his career compared to the periods before and after its creation. The fresco has been restored (once by Lorenzo di Credi, who added the frame) and is now detached from the wall; it has been repositioned twice in modern times.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1037: Henry III became Holy Roman Emperor following the death of his father, Conrad II. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_III%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)

1615: Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu took Osaka Castle in Japan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle)

1792: Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest for Great Britain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound)

1939: The German ocean liner SS St. Louis, carrying 963 Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution, was denied permission to land in the United States, after already having been turned away from Cuba. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis)

1942: The Battle of Midway, a major battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, began with a massive Imperial Japanese strike on Midway Atoll. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

gerontic: Of or pertaining to old age or the elderly. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gerontic)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that place. To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of things. To do these things is to make fairy tales come true. -- Robert Fulghum (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Image%3AQ_2008-06-04_Robert_Fulghum.ogg)