Medici scene (Clarice Strozzi tells Ippolito and Alessandro de 'Medici to leave Florence)

This 1857 history painting depicts Clarice Strozzi — the widow of Filippo Strozzi the Elder and one of the most formidable women of the Florentine Renaissance — ordering the young Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici to leave Florence, following the death of Pope Clement VII and the political turmoil of 1534. The Medici exiles were a celebrated episode in Florentine political history, and Fattori's choice of this Renaissance subject in 1857 reflects the widespread Romantic interest in historical drama and the fate of powerful dynasties. Now held in the Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori in Livorno, the painting shows the young Fattori working in the tradition of Romantic history painting before his Macchiaioli style had fully formed.

The history painting format requires a multi-figure composition with clear narrative hierarchy, and Fattori organises it through contrasts of age, gender, and posture. Clarice's commanding gesture structures the composition's spatial reading. Academic handling is more pronounced here than in his later work, with careful attention to costume and interior architectural setting.