Piccarda Donati, Kidnapped from the Convent of Santa Chiara as Ordered by Her Brother, Corso

Vittorio Emanuele II ordered this picture in 1863, and by the time Raffaello Sorbi signed it in 1866 the setting had changed underneath it. Florence was now the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy, the Pitti had become the king's residence, and the city had just spent 1865 on the 600th anniversary of Dante's birth, monument and all, unveiled in Piazza Santa Croce. The subject comes straight out of Dante. In the third canto of the Paradiso a nun named Piccarda Donati explains that she was taken out of her convent and married against her will, on the orders of her brother Corso, to tie the Donati to another Florentine family. Sorbi was 22 when he finished it, and it hangs in the Royal Apartments of the Pitti, the rooms the king was actually using.