The Cloister of Santa Croce

Between 1854 and 1863 Santa Croce in Florence was given the marble front it still has, paid for by public subscription, begun while Tuscany was a grand duchy and finished when it was part of Italy. The marble came from quarries all over the region, white from Carrara, green from Prato, red, yellow, and while the work went on the blocks were stacked in the church's cloister.

Abbati painted them there in 1861 and 1862, on a piece of cardboard about 19 by 25 centimetres. The stacked blocks gave him exactly what he wanted, plain solids standing in full sun against the shaded walk behind them, and he laid them in with thick strokes and almost no drawn outline. A critic who knew him described him going to the cloister day after day to study those heaps. The picture is in Room 6 of the modern gallery on the second floor of Palazzo Pitti, and it came out of a restoration in 2013.