A study for the fresco between the windows in the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani in the Palazzo Farnese (fig. 1) datable to the period 1563 to 1566, A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana, Milan, 1933, IX (VI), fig. 112, described as by Francesco Salviati. Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese had originally commissioned Salviati to paint frescoes commemorating the deeds of the Farnese family. This project later became the inspiration for Alessandro, Ranuccio's elder brother, to commission Taddeo to decorate, on an even grander scale, his Villa at Caprarola with frescoes on a similar theme. Ranuccio proved less fortunate with his choice of an artist: in 1554 Salviati left Italy for France leaving only two side walls of the room decorated. Salviati never resumed work after his return and, on his death in 1563, the commission was offered to Taddeo Zuccaro.
The present drawing, the subject of which has not been identified, is a finished study for the central scene which, like Salviati's other compositions, is suspended like a fictive tapestry. There is an old copy, measuring 240 by 413mm., in the Uffizi which John Gere tentatively accepted as autograph, J.A. Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro, His development studied in his drawings, London, 1969, no. 39, pl. 166. The Uffizi sheet is a very faithful copy, probably by a studio hand, with minor differences such as the addition of a tree stump in the foreground. The superiority of the present sheet is evident in the fluency of the line in areas such as the carefully delineated spears held before the advancing army which, in the Uffizi sheet, are reduced to meaningless pen-strokes where the copyist has misunderstood the intention of the artist.
The composition of the fresco differs in minor details from the present drawing: the armies are further apart, thereby reducing the dramatic effect of the terrified soldiers looking over their shoulders, and the buildings as well as the shape of the walls of the city, particularly the gateway, are somewhat changed.