Artillerymen on the Lungarno, Florence

Painted around 1890, this canvas depicts Italian artillery soldiers on the Lungarno — the riverside boulevard running along the Arno through Florence — placing a military subject within the specific urban geography of the Tuscan capital. The juxtaposition of artillery pieces and soldiers with Florence's famous riverside setting is unusual in Fattori's work, which more typically places military subjects in open landscape. By 1890 Fattori was himself a long-established figure in Florence's artistic life, teaching at the Accademia and living in the city, and this urban military subject may reflect the everyday presence of the Italian army in the streets of the national capital.

The Lungarno setting provides Fattori with a combination of horizontal architectural backdrop and open sky that he handles in the Macchiaioli manner — broad planes of tone defining the buildings, artillery pieces, and figures with minimal detail. The palette is warm and urban, distinguished from his Maremma landscapes by the presence of stone and formal architecture.