View of Florence

Florence is staged as a vast evening panorama, with tiny figures and goats anchoring the city to lived experience.

What to notice

Look from the foreground figures toward the distant city; the painting stretches depth through layered bands of land, architecture, and fading sky.

Discover

Cole turned a small Italian sketch into a large studio painting six years later. By exhibiting it beside an American landscape, he made the work part of a deliberate comparison between Old World and New World scenery.