At the Accademia Gallery

In the 1860s the Accademia was still gathering and hanging the old paintings that had come in from suppressed convents and religious confraternities. Odoardo Borrani, one of the Macchiaioli, painted one of its rooms, then known as the hall of large pictures. His touches are quick, yet every work on the walls can be named. High on the left hangs Giotto's Madonna from the church of Ognissanti, and high on the right Cimabue's Madonna from Santa Trinita. Both are now in the Uffizi, and so is the altarpiece of the Blessed Umiltà by Pietro Lorenzetti, lower on the right. The rows of small four-lobed panels on the left are Taddeo Gaddi's scenes from the sacristy of Santa Croce, which are still here. Two women in black move quietly through the room. Through the open door you can see white statues, and this hall itself now holds the gallery's plaster casts.