This cycle of four paintings dedicated to the riots of 1848-1849 in Venice was probably conceived on the basis of the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the insurrection, therefore around 1898. Unlike of the soldier-painters of the previous generation, such as Girolamo Induno, Paggiaro had not personally participated in the riots. Far from detracting from his works, this temporal and emotional distance allows him to focus more on the narrative element. Thus the excitement of the action, animated by various characters, is reported in the individual canvases together with the city and lagoon views obscured by the smoke of cannons and fires. The diagonal cut of the four compositions exploits the perspective to also visually attract the viewer towards the center of the action, helping to make the spectator participate. In this way the episodic nature of the scenes, which refer to specific and documented episodes, becomes testimony of that human intersection of History and stories.