Giuseppe Mazzini on his Death Bed

The mid-nineteenth century in Italy was the period of the Risorgimento, the movement that culminated in Italian unification. That movement provided the political and cultural backdrop for one of the most important and influential groups in Italian art in the second half of the nineteenth century: the Macchiaioli. This group of landscape, portrait and genre painters, flourishing from about 1850 to 1880, was based on Florence. The core of the Macchiaioli consisted of eleven painters born between 1824 and 1838, most important of them among the older painters were Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Serafino de Tivoli, and Vincenzo Cabianca, while Giuseppe Abbati and Telemaco Signorini belonged to the younger. There were some other artists associated with the group to varying extent, such as Guglielmo Ciardi, Giuseppe de Nittis, Federigo Zandomeneghi, and Giovanni Boldini. The last-named three all took their bearings from France, and eventually moved to Paris.

The painters of the Macchiaioli were familiar with the liberal, but romantically religious ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), the leading ideologue of the Italian national movement. His liberal ideas, influenced by French socialism and by positivism, had a real impact on the revolutionary movement. Silvestro Lega painted Giuseppe Mazzini on his Death Bed, recording the passing of a giant in one of Macchiaioli’s finest achievements. The dying man is seen almost life-size. He is resting on two pillows and seems no longer aware of what may be going on around him. The cool colours highlight the solemnity and sadness of the mood.