View of Naples Showing Return of Aragonese Fleet after the Battle of Ischia in 1465 ("Tavola Strozzi"). S. Martino Museum, Naples.

This painting comes from Filippo Strozzi's palace in Florence, and was purchased by the San Martino Museum in 1910; it portrays the triumphal entry into the waters off Naples of the Aragonese fleet after the Battle of Ischia against the Anjevins in 1465. Apart from problems associated with attribution of the painting to a painter or cartographer from Naples or Florence, the painting's main interest lies in its being the first portrait of Naples from the sea, which allows us a glimpse of the city as it was under the Aragonese, surrounded by city walls and running all the way up to the hillside, where we can see the hill of Sant'Elmo dominated by the Anjevin fortress of Belforte. The foreground clearly shows the so-called Tower of San Vincenzo and the clearly defined Maschio Angioino behind it, while Castel dell'Ovo has been portrayed rather less realistically on the right-hand side of the painting. The perspective device enables us, moreover, to pick out among the densely-packed rows of roofs and houses, the looming shape of the large Anjevin basilicas.