Cristiano Banti

The Caffe was the nerve centre of the movement, and Banti's encounters there with artists including Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, and Telemaco Signorini changed the direction of his career entirely. His early masterpiece, Galileo Facing the Inquisition (1857^[1]), had been painted in a Neo-Classical style he came to despise; he later petitioned to have it removed from display, saying it "dishonoured art without knowing it." The Macchiaioli used patches of colour and tone to capture natural light directly, working outdoors against the conventions of the academies.

Born in Santa Croce sull'Arno, Tuscany, in 1824^[1], Banti had trained initially at the Accademia di belle arti di Siena before arriving in Florence. In 1861^[1] he travelled to Paris to study with Constant Troyon and Camille Corot, then retreated to Castelfranco di Sopra for sustained landscape work. His later domestic interiors and terrace scenes, such as Woman Sewing on the Terrace (1882), show a particular sensitivity to Mediterranean light falling on quiet figures.

Constitutionally shy about exhibiting, Banti ruptured with Signorini in 1870^[1] and withdrew further from public life. He spent much of his later years collecting art at his family's properties near Castelfiorentino and Montemurlo, assembling a substantial holding from the Macchiaioli circle. He accepted a professorship at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and sat on the commission reorganising the Uffizi. On a trip to London in 1879, he met James McNeill Whistler. He died at Montemurlo in 1904^[1]; his collection was auctioned a decade later.