In 1869, Fattori received a post as professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.  In the years that followed, he began to do his first engravings.  One of his most famous paintings, the Cavalry Charge is from 1872, the year in which he went to Rome for the first time. 

In 1875, he also decided to go to Paris, a culturally disappointing journey.  His meetings with French artists – and, in particular, with the Impressionists – left him unimpressed.  Meanwhile, his painting of the Horse Market in Montanara Square won a prize at the Philadelphia International Exhibition – a work later lost when the steamer Europa sank as it was returning to Italy. 

He worked on the Battle of Custoza until about 1880, the year in which the Institute of Fine Arts in Florence named Fattori an honorary professor.  The approach to military themes and the epic events of the Risorgimento changed; enthusiasm was now drowned in regret and resignation. 

Fattori went ever more frequently to the Maremma, the countryside becoming his favorite theme.  By now in middle age, the painter met Amalia Nollemberg, a young woman with whom he fell in love and with whom he had a long relationship; the latter was a source of much criticism and so later he broke off the relationship.