Tuscan Novelists (Storytellers) of the Fourteenth Century

A group of characters in Renaissance attire, arranged in an outdoor setting, as a collection of storytellers inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron, young Florentines from the fourteenth century, as depicted by a painter five centuries later in the midst of Italy's own Risorgimento. What sets this canvas apart from other works on this kind of historical subject is the lighting; instead of the more gentle tonal shading of academic history painting, Cabianca indicates form through strong, rigorously defined patches of light and colour, which would be summed up later by the young painters who attended the Caffè Michelangiolo in Florence, the group that would become known as the Macchiaioli. A likely precedent is found in the 1856 painting by Domenico Morelli, Mattinata fiorentina, documentation of which is documented in art-historical sources, which places Cabianca in an existing tradition of Florentine costume genre painting and forces him to evolve and put to use the theme already suggested by his predecessors. The success of the subject in its own time was enough for the Società Promotrice to commission an engraving after the composition (from Angelo Tricca in particular) to be presented to the members of the Società as a gift. Beyond its original unveiling at the Società Promotrice exhibition in 1860, another – larger – version of the composition is also documented, and may refer to a second National Exhibition in Florence in 1861.