The study, which is not mentioned by Aldi’s biographers, presents a female figure with a world globe and maps inspiring a fisherman about to set off in his boat, suggesting a representation of the art or science of navigation or of Astronomy as a guide for navigators. The allegorical subject

Aldi made this study of a wide vista of the open sea from life, on the Maremma coast, in preparation for the painting The Funeral of Pompey the Great, presented at the Art Exposition in Turin in 1881. Against the stretch of calm sea, the grieving figures of Pompey’s last

The clothing from another era worn by the three figures next to the low wall suggests that this is a study for a history painting. However the true protagonist is the landscape: a hill town like those in Maremma so dear to Aldi (Manciano or Capalbio), dominating a wide valley

The spiritual expression on her adolescent face, with her large eyes looking upwards, is the principal characteristic of the final work for which Aldi prepared this study: Angel Intercessors Praying for the Souls of the Dead, painted in 1883 in the Pollini chapel of the Misericordia cemetery in Siena.

In this oil sketch, Aldi establishes the pose of the young boy climbing a tree to see the meeting at Teano between King Victor Emanuel II and Giuseppe Garibaldi, painted in 1886 in the Risorgimento Room of Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico. The presence of the figure has a special compositional importance,

This oil sketch is a preparatory study for the fresco of Angel Intercessors Praying for the Souls of the Dead, painted in 1883 in the Pollini chapel of the Misericordia cemetery in Siena, praised by the local press for the leaden effect of the late afternoon light illuminating the landscape,

This oil sketch is linked with a painting long meditated by Aldi during the years he spent in Rome on a fellowship awarded by the Società di Esecutori di Pie Disposizioni in Siena. After an early study of a half-figure Mary Magdalene, sent in 1876, the artist made numerous drawings