Fattori read mostly historical novels, from which he drew important iconographic ideas. It was a period of artistic research carried out in solitude, far from school.  He was among the first patrons of the Caffé Michelangiolo in Florence. 

Fattori initially stayed on the fringe of discussions by the progressist painters (shortly afterward, known as the “Macchiaioli”), but he was influenced by them.  In 1852, he left the Academy and began a career that forced him to earn a living.  With a series of lithographic illustrations for the newspapers, he made his debut in graphics and, attracted by the idea of painting from life, he did numerous portraits of family members and landscapes. 

In the summer of 1859, he portrayed from life, some French soldiers encamped in the Cascine. They were his early experiments in using spots of color, or macchia, to create his paintings, excursions into a particular realism that found new energy from a meeting with the Roman painter Nino Costa. Following Costa’s advice, Fattori participated in the Ricasoli competition, where he won with his sketch of The Italian Camp after the Battle of Magenta in which his fresh interpretation of the news stands out.  It is the period when his works are focused on military subjects.